We love our kids. We really, truly do. But let’s all of us just sit down, take a breath and be honest for a minute. That period of time during the summer when they’re off school and getting under our feet 24/7 can be excruciating. Yeah, we might be able to push them out to ride on their bikes with friends for a while, but before we know it they’re back asking for a sandwich or interrupting our quiet time with very loud video games or general rough-housing. For stay-at-home parents, it can be like everything that we know has been turned upside down.W

Not that we don’t relish spending time with our children – far from it. The opportunity to take them on day trips and enjoy some quality time together is precious. But we all need a break. Thank the good lord, then, for summer camps. These things are gold for long-suffering parents, and the great news is that the kids love them too.

There are plenty of different camps here in Boulder County, put on by various schools and organizations like the YMCA. There are sporty camps and science/learning camps. There are arty camps and musical camps. And then there are the downright oddball camps.

For example, the Museum of Boulder has a camp called “Junior Curator: Pickles and Insects and Aliens, Oh My!” which is a spectacular name. They say that, “If you invented an alien species, what would your aliens eat? What do pickles and lampreys have in common? What would you put into a time capsule for people of the future to discover about your lives? Find out and bring the answers to life in a week of museum play like you’ve never seen it before! Go behind the scenes of a museum and see wacky collections not on display, then create creatures from your own imagination for collections and exhibits of your own!”

What’s not to love there? Aliens? Awesome. Insects? Awesome. Pickles? Bit weird but we’ll go with it. More to the point, kids love this sort of thing. Playing around with bugs, eating stuff, talking aliens? Gold.

In this year’s Yellow Scene Best Of issue, Dawson School won the award for “Best Summer Camps,” thanks to the fact that they’re leading the way in when it comes to quality and quantity. There are about 70 camps of different types on offer, ranging from Art Escapades to Lacrosse, from technology workshops to musical theater.

Dawson School

Of Art Escapades, Dawson says that, “All the world’s a canvas when creating in the encouraging environment of Art Escapades. When it comes to the visual arts, there are not limitations to the young artist’s imagination. Drawing in the lines or outside of the lines, purples skies or green dogs, unique jewelry and lopsided mugs are all options for making art with fellow campers. Campers will be taught individual interpretation through a variety of mediums. At the end of the week the campers will showcase their works in an afternoon art show celebrating their artistic creations.”

Meanwhile, of the Junior Adventure Camp, the website states, “Summer is a time when children can embrace the joy of being a kid. Junior Adventure Camp offers a safe, structured program in which campers make friends, learn life skills, experience teamwork, and just have some “PLAIN ’OLE” FUN. During the day, campers will be involved in the following activities: casual outdoor games, playground time, skits, story time, nature appreciation, swimming, song and dance, and arts and crafts. Campers will be evaluated as to swimming ability and will be strictly regulated according to their ability in the pool. Camp size will be limited in order to maintain a low camper-to-counselor ratio.”

We spoke with Mike Jacobsma Dawson’s summer camps and programs director. He said that Dawson camps are consistently popular because, “we run a first class summer camp schedule for our kids. We hire excellent teachers and directors that really connect with the students, and our kids have fun. They’re really excited, whether it’s a sports camp or an academic camp, we offer so many, but it helps that we offer such a wide variety of camps. We just really like to do things the right way and make sure our kids have a great experience.”

This year, Dawson has added a circus camp for young kids, and also ceramics. With so many camps, Jacobsma says that he has an incredible team of people working with him. “With 70 camps, there are 70 directors,” he says. “And then we also hire assistants, whether it’s Dawson students, or someone that’s in college and looking for summer work. The people that we hire really want to work with young kids.”

Jacobsma says that the biggest challenge can be simply deciding what camps fit, each week. “You have to offer enough camps so there’s variety for a diversity of people,” he says. “But you can’t offer so many of the same camp, because not enough people will sign up.”

According to Jacobsma, the camps are important because the kids learn something new. “Something that they want to bring back to their classroom when they go back in the fall that they learned during the summer,” he says. “That’s the best part about summer camp. Just doing things that you really enjoy. The parents get a break, and they know that we’re taking care of their kids.”

YMCA of Boulder Valley

The YMCA Boulder has some awesome and fascinating things going on too, not least their LEGO Camp, which is in fact a collaboration between the Y and Boulder Valley School District Lifelong Learning. Each week, the camp has a different theme, whether it be creating large structures, spaceships, pirate ships or Ninjago sets.

Shawn Moriarty runs the YMCA Camp Santa Maria, which he describes as a traditional YMCA summer camp – not sport, not art but everything. “We teach outdoor skills like canoeing and nature programs,” Moriarty says. “They can spend nights under the stars. It’s a small community – we have 135 campers and 42 staff, approximately. The children are aged 7-17, though there’s also a camp for 6-8 year-olds. We’re very big on community. Everybody belongs – there’s an activity and a place at the camp for everybody. It’s a fairly small group, and we have a beautiful property in the middle of the Rockies.”

Moriarty says that a camp with this many children presents some challenges. “We always looking at how to create an environment that is safe and structured, but also allows for spontaneity, creativity and curiosity,” he says. “We like whacky, creative ideas. It’s easy to run a camp that’s uber-structured but we’re looking for the balance. It’s school, and it’s not chaos. The 16-17 year olds are generally counselors-in-training. They spend a lot of time with the staff, and they have to earn and build trust.”

Finally, Moriarty says that camps like his offer a relief from the parental fears that the child is suffering a learning loss during those summer months off school. “The camp provides an opportunity to learn skills that they don’t learn in school,” he says. “We teach kids to have grit—to persevere.”

The YMCA has much more to offer too; Zac Carlson runs the aforementioned, and honestly quite enticing, LEGO camp. “We have specialty instructors,” Carlson says. “The camp is about learning something beyond what a kid can typically do with LEGO’s. We create a community spirit aound the objects.”

Carlson adds that the YMCA camps in general, “create an experience for the kids. We concentrate on core values and affordability. There’s a cap on specialty camps.”

Molly Langerak manages the day camps. “We have six locations for day camps,” she says. “We do excursion-based field trips focusing on outdoor education, including hiking. There’s room for the kids to have fun with the staff – there’s an opening ceremony every day, and the most recent one involved whipped cream and cheese puffs.”

Sounds like a regular Friday night to Yellow Scene. That’s certainly interesting though. Nick Miller, meanwhile, manages the adventure camps. “We have a flat-water camp, which is five days out of the Union Reservoir,” Miller says. “That’s for 3rd-8th graders. We also have a white-water camp. The flat-water is for beginners and the white-water is for those with more experience. We create a safe environment. Then there’s the rock-climbing camp, which includes one day of outdoor climbing. We celebrate Friday with a day of swimming. The camps help the kids build confidence in themselves, and they encourage team-building, how to support each other.”

We’ve only scratched the surface though. The Crackpots Creativity Camp in Longmont features Do the Dishes Pottery Camp, and the intriguing Multimedia Camps. “Who says you can’t try it all? We’ll keep kids on their toes with a fun-filled week of clay hand-building, glass fusing, mosaics, ceramic painting, and more,” they say. “Our projects each week will be guided by a theme, so each week will result in a different set of masterpieces you and your child can be proud to display or give as gifts. Many mediums will be mixed and matched in a way that will make our creativity soar.”

Dog House Music in Lafayette run rock n’ roll camps for kids and teens, including a Junior Rocker Camp. “This half-day program introduces students ages 6-10 to the instruments and flavor of rock ‘n’ roll, going beyond the musical genres normally covered in the classroom,” they say. “Using a fun, hands-on curriculum designed with the help of local music educators, kids will learn basics of guitar, percussion, vocals, and ear training. Students will also write, record and perform a simple song with the help of our professional staff of musicians.”

There are outdoors-y camps that are invaluable, like the Laughing Coyote Project in Lafayette, founded in 2007 to, “re-connect children and adults to the earth through primitive skills and nature awareness, just outside of Boulder, CO. We offer programs throughout the year teaching students through traditional skills, games, nature-based art, and stories. We specialize in a hands-on, dynamic approach that inspires a deep passion for the natural world.”

There are religious camps, like the ones organized by Belleview Christian School in Westminster, and the St. Louis Summer Camp in Louisville. Meanwhile, Mathnasium in Lafayette aims to make maths fun. “Mathnasium instructors use our unique assessment process to determine (with great accuracy) exactly what each child knows and what they need to learn,” says Alan Iguchi, the camp’s director. “Next, we design a customized learning plan for teaching the concepts the student needs to master. It doesn’t stop there – our encouraging instructors continually check progress along the way to make sure kids truly understand and retain the concepts we’ve taught.”

There are tons more camps in Boulder County, as our extensive camp guide shows. We don’t want to be listing as many as possible in this feature, But what you should be able to get is that camps can be essential for kids in the summer. There are camps for tiny tykes, and camps for kids with special needs. Traditionally-themed camps, and camps for role-playing games. If you can imagine it, there’s very likely a camp for it. The skills and traits that can be ignored by the schools are given focus here, from team-building to self-esteem. Plus, of course, they give the parents a break. And that is very important.