The process of joining a summer camp starts by choosing a suitable facility. Selecting the best summer camp can be difficult, especially because numerous options are available. Here are tips to make the camp selection process manageable.
Define Your Expectations
Before choosing a summer camp, you must outline your expectations and preferences. Start by determining what you want your children to achieve from the camping experience. Do you want to connect them with other children with similar interests? Enrol them in a camp that specializes in activities they are passionate about.
Suppose you want to keep them occupied to improve their thinking and reasoning capacity. They can join a summer camp with a combination of academics and fun to stimulate them intellectually. When searching for the right camp, remember to involve the kids. While different summer camps offer a wide range of activities, children have different preferences.
Involving the children in the selection process enables them to pick something they enjoy. It’s crucial to avoid a situation where campers shut down immediately after arriving at the facility. Your goal should be to ensure children look forward to attending camp. Choose the best programs that complement your child’s interests to trigger this excitement. Collaborating with your child makes the entire dilemma of how to choose a summer camp in Switzerland easier.
Pick the Right Genre
After determining your goals for the child, identify different types of programs that can help them meet those goals. Popular summer camp genres a child can join include:
- Traditional
Traditional summer camps offer a classic experience with various activities like archery and campfires. Campers also spend quality time outdoors. Traditional camps help build character and self-confidence within a conventional outdoor setting.
- Art
Art camps allow learners to probe their creative interests within a group setting away from school. Often, kids focus on drawing, painting, and visual arts. Some camps allow campers to learn about 3D printing and computer-based design.
- Academic Camps
Children attending academic camps continue learning while school is out. These camps provide the ideal balance of exciting extracurricular activities and experiential education. The advantage of joining an educational camp is that they offer topics that many schools hardly teach. As demand for skill building grows, campers can benefit from the lucrative courses available in these camps.
Academic camps are ideal for supplementing education for children who dislike traditional instruction. Academic camps allow campers to focus on a specific academic skill or activity and develop it throughout the camp. Many camps offer theatre, computer-based studies, writing, and math.
- Athletic Camps
Athletic camps are ideal for children who are passionate about sports and who need to obtain new skills during summer. Sports camps are excellent for teens and young kids who want to enjoy an outdoor camp experience.
- Adventure
Adventure camps are high-energy, engaging, and fun. They help campers explore new experiences. While similar to a traditional outdoor camp, they have a specialized exploratory or expedition nature.
- Choose from Overnight, Day, or Virtual Camps
There are numerous advantages to joining a virtual camp. Apart from offering a vast range of tailored content and topics to cater to camper’s interests, these camps are ideal during uncertain times. Further, if you are working on a budget or your schedule is tight, virtual camps are a great option to keep children engaged without navigating the logistics of getting to camp.
Day camps are ideal for younger children who aren’t comfortable staying away from home. Attending day camps is one of the strategies a parent can use to prepare their children for overnight camps. During day camps, children can engage in sports, learn new skills, and socialize with their peers.
Children spend time away from home during overnight camp until the camp period elapses. These camps are also known as residential or sleepaway camps. Attending an overnight camp allows children to experience independence within a supervised setting. Overnight camps are an excellent option for children capable of staying away from their parents for long periods.
- Special Needs Camps
These camps are designed to accommodate campers with emotional, mental, or physical challenges who cannot attend typical camps or engage in activities. In this case, staff-to-camper ratios are higher to guarantee individual attention while creating a comfortable environment to cater to the camper’s needs.
Determine Your Budget
One of the things you should know before your child can join camp is that prices vary widely. However, the price should not stop you from choosing your child’s favorite camp. Think of summer camp as an investment. Young kids and teenagers can learn endless lessons from attending summer camp in Switzerland. Besides meeting and engaging with new friends, they develop self-confidence and learn how to be independent. Attending summer camps has many long-term and short-term benefits worth your investment. Remember, the cost reflects everything that happens in the facility. You can equate it to what the children will achieve at the end of camp.
Find Instructors Your Children Will Love
A good teacher can transform a boring subject or topic into something learners love. In the same way, the ideal camp instructor can make a camper’s experience memorable. A good instructor is passionate about what they do. They strive to teach their children without being swayed by distractions like their smartphones.
Camp instructors should also be upbeat, fun, knowledgeable, and passionate about their teaching subjects. Knowing the type of instructors available before joining camp is possible. Many summer camps have dedicated one section of their websites to highlighting the qualifications they expect from potential instructors. They may also provide instructor profiles and posts dedicated to their interviews with staff. You can also read parent and student reviews to get a first-hand account of instructors.
Call the summer camp to find out whether they provide parent references. That way, you can hear from other parents about their experiences. Again, check for instructor-to-student ratios. Every instructor should be allocated ten campers both for physical and virtual camps. Find out whether the camp does background checks on its instructors before hiring them.
Research Extensively
When your child joins camp, you will be investing trust and time in the summer camp facility. Before committing yourself, you will have numerous questions you can answer through research. Proper research helps you make an informed decision.
Finally
You can use different strategies to gather information about summer camps your children are interested in. Consider visiting the facility, browsing their website, attending local camp fairs, and reading customer reviews. You can discuss the camp’s courses and programs with a camp representative. Once satisfied with the facility and its services, you can join by filling out an online registration form, often available on their websites.