Summer Camp 2024

Description

Scholarships are ALWAYS available.  Please chat with us.

This listing is for individual weeks of summer camp. We have half-day, full-day, monthly, and extended hour options.

At STEAM Lab we believe summer should come with plenty of down time.  Our summer camps offer lots of unstructured fun both indoors and out.  We’ll be repeating last year’s experiment and offering two tracks for our mornings as well as field trips for our afternoons.

Grades: K – 6

Full Day: 9am – 4pm
* $330 ($220 sibling)/week
* $875 ($550 sibling) for June
* $1175 ($725 sibling) for July
* $2000 ($1250 sibling) for all summer

Outdoor Track

We’ll spend the first half of the day outside, touring different local parks and public outdoor spaces. This may include hiking, unstructured play in the woods, playgrounds, water days, etc.  An itinerary will be sent out the Saturday before each week as the drop off locations will be different for each day, though they will all be close to the main Los Alamos townsite. Kiddos will head inside to STEAM Lab around lunch.

We are still hiring for this track so it may need to be merged with the theme track.

Themed Track

Each week we’ll have a different theme to explore.  Kiddos will spend the morning at STEAM Lab doing projects based on that theme.  In keeping with our philosophy, these projects will have a lot of flexibility and no child will ever be forced into participation.  We’ll often still head to the playground for a bit each morning to run off some energy.

Afternoons

The two tracks will merge in the afternoon for free play at STEAM Lab.  Each week kiddos will have opportunities to go on at least two field trips as small groups.  We have in mind things like heading to the splash pad in WR, disc golf on North Mesa, the Leisure Lagoon, visiting local museums and the library, and more.  We’ll also aim to take groups off to the playground at least once a day. This year any costs for field trips (such as entry into the aquatic center) are included in the camp cost.

Weekly Themes

June 10th – 14th: Propulsion Week (Theme – FULL)

What goes up must go down!  We’ll play with stomp rockets, make our own rockets, study paper airplanes, put mentos in soda, drop fragile things off of high places, and whatever else strikes our fancy as we defy gravity.

June 17th – 21st: Robots (Theme – FULL)

We’ll host a robot olympics.  Each day will see kids provided with a new challenge to program and modify a robot to perform. We’ve added to our robot collection over the past year and have even more robots, including some that are great for emerging readers.

June 24th – 28th: Recycled Crafts (Theme – 2 slots remaining)

We’ll pull out all of the recycling, glue guns, and tape and make some fun and robust crafts, cosplay, forts, friend, or whatever strikes your fancy.  This week will be messy!

July 1st – 5th (no 4th): Lego and Trains (Theme – FULL)

We’ll pull out all of the trains and build elaborate tracks.  We’ll break our own rules and let Lego out of the Lego area for building of engines, cars, and infrastructure.  It will be a mess and tears may be shed (just my own!), but creativity will rule the day.

We know this week is only 4 days long and we’ll be happy to refund you that day if you ask, but it’s difficult to put it into the system at a different price, so otherwise we’ll add it to our scholarship fund.

July 8th – 12th:  Braille, Abacus, and ASL (Theme – 2 slots remaining)

Come learn about different ways of reading, talking, and mathing!  Kiddos will learn to decode and encode braille with a slate and stylus and use a braille typewriter.  They’ll learn how vision impaired kiddos [and everyone else] can use an abacus to do math and how to use a cane to navigate the world.  We’ll also watch some amazing ASL storytelling on the TV, learn the ASL alphabet, and some more basic signs.

July 15th – 19th: Micro:bits (FULL)

Micro:bits are small programmable processors that contain an LED array, piezo speaker, accelerometer, etc. They can be programmed with block coding or python using tablets or computers.  There is an additional material fee for this week if you would like your child to be able to keep their micro:bit.

July 22nd – 26th: Theater Camp (FULL)

We’ll do [recycled] costume, makeup, script writing, [recycled] set design, improv, everything theater!  If the kids are inspired, we may have a very short play at the end of the week.  If they’re not, we’ll have lots of fun doing all of the pieces without the pressure of a finished product.