The schedule of courses can be found on the course worksheet. You may use the worksheet to help organize and select your camper’s daily camp schedule.
Please refer to the grade 3–4 worksheet when completing the registration form.
Third- and fourth-grade campers select a schedule consisting of two enrichment courses in the morning and three recreational activities in the afternoon. All classes are listed below.
Go on an animal adventure with The Children’s Museum in West Hartford! Each day brings exciting encounters with animal ambassadors from the Museum’s Wildlife Sanctuary and hands-on activities designed to inspire young zoologists. From furry mammals to scaly reptiles, campers will get up close and personal with a fascinating array of animals, learning about their needs, adaptations, and habitats. Note: Appropriate behavior, maturity, and patience are required to guarantee a safe and rewarding experience for all.
Calling all players, puzzlers, digital wizards, and warriors! Do you want to learn about applications while playing fun games, brainteasers, magical quests, and have friendly competitions with your classmates? Welcome to the App Arcade – where we'll transform iPads into our magical tools for learning, exploration, and creative adventures like you've never experienced before!
Get ready to unleash your inner artist and dive headfirst into a world of creative exploration and artistic fun! In this class, you will experiment with a kaleidoscope of mixed media art techniques that will leave your imagination soaring. We will push our creativity with new ideas and new materials. Whether you make clay creations, collage, watercolor, or acrylic paintings– don’t be scared of experimenting and getting messy!
Have you ever played Candy Land, watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, or visited an old-fashioned candy store? If so, you might have found yourself wishing you could make your own delectable treats. This class will take you to a whole new level of sweet temptations, guiding you through the basics of candy making. Learn to mold, marbleize, dip, drizzle, and paint your sweet concoctions. Mix, cook, and stretch some tasty taffy, too!
Do you want to become an expert in the kitchen? What would you do with a basket full of mystery ingredients? Imagine competing against other teams of Summer Place campers to win the Summer Place Cleaver Award! Join us as we chop it up in this fun cooking class using the University of Hartford’s state of the art kitchens!
Join in the fun as you pound, poke, and roll clay into fabulous, hand-made clay creations! Learn how to use slab, coil, and pinch techniques to make a variety of exciting and functional ceramics projects-everything from vessels to votives. Roll up your sleeves and experiment with a variety of textures and glazing techniques. You’ll be amazed when your finished work comes out of the kiln!
Bring your stories and illustrations to life as you step into the world of comics! Create your own crazy characters and illustrations, then construct your own comic books using folded and stitched book-making techniques. You will leave this class with a book full of your very own creations from your own imagination!
If you have ever seen something in a movie and thought, “That looks delicious!”, this is the class for you! Join us to watch clips of your favorite movies and recreate the yummy foods you see. We will make homemade Num Num Cookies from The Incredibles, Bao Buns from Kung Fu Panda, and many more of your movie favorites! Which ones will taste the best? Take home a recipe book of our finest movie food creations to impress your family and friends.
Become a Summer Place chemist as you discover and experiment with basic science concepts! You will get to explode pop rockets, get lost in a dry-ice cloud, create gooey slimes, send geysers of soda high into the sky, create “worms” and “snow” by mixing just the right liquids and powders, and even shake and make ice cream. This course is sure to excite the curiosity of all future scientists!
Welcome to the Delicious Drive-Thru! Here, you will learn how to make your favorite items from favorite fast-food establishments from scratch. You will make your own versions of famous drive-thru foods like a Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme (but better, and healthier!), or a Wendy’s frosty, and more. Join us to see what fast food masterpieces you can make!
Come explore the world of digital art with a focus on photography! This class teaches a variety of ways to change and edit a photo. You will learn the basics of photo editing and work within a theme to create projects and experiment with digital collage. You will even have a chance to make your own small books called zines!
Do you love music, remixes, and dubstep? Ever want to be the one creating the beats, and not just the one listening and dancing? Think you can create beats better than the pros? Slip on your headphones and get ready to experiment on a digital DJ turntable to make remixes of your favorite songs! We’ll listen to mixes and samples by famous DJs and producers. Then using a DJ software program, we’ll make beats and samples by digitally scratching, beat matching, crossfading, and cutting songs. Think you have what it takes to bring down the house? Let’s find out.
Do you want to create your own wearable art? Join us in Fabric Art Fun to make new friends while learning the art of painting on fabric with paint markers, dyes, stencils and paint. You will make a tee shirt, sock puppets, and even a super-hero cape! Take home your fabric creations to wear proudly- You’re a fashion designer now!
Bon appétit! Let’s eat! In this class, you get to create a dish from a different part of the globe each day. You will make pizza from Italy, empanadas from Spain, fried rice from China, and more! You will also bring home a recipe book at the end of the session so you can feast on your famous culinary delights from Far, Far Away all year long.
Playing with your food can be a lot of fun! Come explore the many ways to make food into amazing works of art. From vegetable faces to mummy hotdogs and Chewbacca Noodles to meatball birds in a pasta nest—you are guaranteed to have fun creating food art in this class. Take home a book of the best edible creations to share with your family and friends, but better than that, you get to eat your artwork!
Freeze! Do you want to run around camp taking pictures and videos of your friends? Become a master at photography and action- packed videography in this thrilling class. You will experience stunt based digital photography and video projects for online platforms such as Instagram using cameras, GoPros, and even a drone! What will YOU capture?
Learn the basics of computer programming through this puzzling and problem-solving course. Play games using innovative and adventure seeking apps. Learn how to easily program loops while coding your own superheroes and robots to complete challenges. You will be surprised how “In-CODE-ably” easy and fun coding can be.
The Learning Zone (1-4)
WEEKS 1–6
The Learning Zone is an enrichment course option offered to Summer Place campers who could benefit from small-group academic instruction in reading, math, written expression, and study skills. The class is offered to students entering grades one through nine. Groups meet in a relaxed, air-conditioned space that is highly conducive to learning.
The Summer Place learning-skills specialist focuses on an individual plan for each student, based on the needs of the child. The Learning Zone teacher will contact each parent prior to the summer to gather the information needed to develop an educational plan. The specialist will then teach, model, and reinforce the concepts and learning strategies necessary to achieve each student’s specific goals. At the end of each week-long session, parents will receive a written report that summarizes progress made and current achievement levels. This report may, in turn, be passed on to the student’s teachers in the fall.
Summer Place campers may enroll in a Learning Zone course in each session they attend. A nominal fee of $100 per Learning Zone course for each week 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 is charged for this individualized program. Week 2 will be $80. For additional information on this special option, please call the Summer Place office.
Calling all LEGO® fans! Come and compete in building challenges as we take an exciting LEGO® journey. We’ll build people for our LEGO® town and cars for them to drive in. Then we’ll construct an entire city, complete with a fire station, an airport, and even a market. At the end of the two-week adventure, you’ll have your own kit to mix up more LEGO® madness at home. LEGO® Land is waiting for you!
Mario and Luigi are searching for a new group of adventurers to help them defeat Bowser’s challenges this summer and reclaim their treasures! Can you solve the challenges while avoiding the sneaky traps left behind by Bowser and his partners-in-crime? If so, join us for some Mario Party Palooza as you build your own power-ups and search for the treasures that are locked away in Bowser’s castle! You will do a scavenger hunt, make your own Mystery boxes, and complete an obstacle course challenge! No prior knowledge or experience with Mario Party is necessary, all are welcome to try their skills and luck.
The world of Minecraft is full of dangers. Adventurers require the quickest wit and the deepest thinking in order to survive. In this class, you’ll learn about Redstone creations and building schematics that can help you thrive in those dangerous and blocky lands. Best of all, you will create a world together, working as a team to complete challenges and conquer your Minecraft missions! Note: No Minecraft account needed.
Calling all future astronauts! Are you ready to embark on an epic journey beyond the stars? Join us in Mission to Mars: Space Academy, where you will explore outer space within Summer Place! Here, you will learn about the solar system as you build your own spacecraft, create galaxy art, and complete “astronaut training” to prepare for your future in space exploration. Are you ready for lift off? In 3…2…1…
Try a variety of mixed media art techniques in this class full of exploration and fun! In Mixed media mosaic, you will push your creativity with new ideas and new materials. Using different mediums such as clay and glass, you will unleash your creativity in this class to make your own colorful mixed media masterpieces!
The next blockbuster film of the summer is about to be released! What’s it about? Well, that’s for you to decide. Bring your creativity and energy to the silver screen as you write, direct, and star in your very own movies. You’ll gain experience producing short films where the sky is the limit. Practice your acting, directing, and camera work in preparation for a red-carpet premiere of your unique feature film at the end of the session. So, what are you waiting for? Lights…Camera…ACTION!
Have you ever seen the hit baking show and wanted to try for yourself? Join us and put your baking and decorating skills to the test! You will make your own cake sculpture, dip and design your own donuts, and decorate cookies. Get your baker’s hat on and join us for a delicious adventure in the kitchen!
Let’s explore nature in the world around us! Learn how to grow the tallest and strongest beans from seed, make twig boats to sail across the pond, and go on an exciting scavenger hunt to find tiny insects and creatures. Get ready to play games, make nature- based art projects, and discover a new nature adventure each day. Come outside with us and play!
Every day is a party when we’re painting! Learn new painting skills while having a blast and unleashing your creativity. Students will follow step by step instructions in watercolor and acrylic painting techniques with chances for customization. By the end of the session, students will be creating their own museum worthy masterpieces!
Have you ever thought about becoming a vet or working with animals? Join us to learn all about pets, animal jobs, and how to safely interact with animals. We will do PAWsome trivia games and activities, learn about all different types of furry friends, and even create pet toys that we can donate to the animals on our field trip to the animal shelter in Newington on Friday! Class offered in partnership with the Connecticut Humane Society. Note: Appropriate behavior, maturity, and patience are required to guarantee a safe and rewarding experience for all. *Field Trip
Picture this: You’re looking through a lens and taking your own unique photographs with film, then printing them in a real darkroom! You will have ultimate control over how your photographs look. You will create photograms, learn the basic elements of black-and-white photography with a 35mm camera, how to develop your own film, and how to print in the darkroom. Smile!
Welcome to the world of slime creations! This class is designed for campers who love getting their hands a little messy while discovering the fascinating science behind slime and other gooey concoctions. Join us for an adventure filled with colorful, squishy, and imaginative activities. We'll be making different recipe variations of stretchy, fluffy, glow-in-the-dark, and squishy slimes from scratch. You will also have the opportunity to explore and experiment with oobleck, flubber, foam, and more. So, roll up your sleeves, and let's make some slime!
Create, play games, and relax with good friends—what could be better? Start by pampering yourself using common ingredients. Unwind by making and using custom healthy spa treatments, run your hands through unicorn slime, decorate textiles, and create your own jewelry and friendship bracelets. Take a morning tea break while decorating scrumptious cookies to enjoy and play giggle-worthy games. You can even become a fashionista with your own designs to model during this fashion and relaxation week. RSVP “yes” to attend Spa Days!
Grab your PJ’s and get ready for crafts, games, great times, and good laughs with friends! That’s what a slumber party is all about. Decorate your own pillowcase, create delicious “midnight” snacks, make your own healthy spa supplies, concoct unicorn slime, and play giggle- worthy games, all while the sun is still shining! Why wait for evening when you can have the fun of a slumber party every day at the Summer Place?
Roll up your sleeves and dig into the exciting world of rocks, crystals, and fossils! Join us as we grow our own crystals, learn how to identify rocks, and pan for real gold in a homemade river. Join the excavation team as we dig up an entire dinosaur skeleton and put it together. Amaze your parents by making and painting your own mold of a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth and Oviraptor claw to bring home!
From the simplest coin trick to the most elaborate illusion, magicians have used science and psychology to manipulate their audience and create truly amazing tricks that dazzle and bewilder! Learn about the science of magic tricks while learning the fundamentals of close-up magic tricks. Your prestidigitation training will culminate in a magic show at the end of the week that is sure to impress and astound!
Have you ever wondered how certain foods are made? In The Science of Cooking, you will find out! In this culinary class, you will learn how to use liquid nitrogen to make your own Dippin’ Dots, make your own cheese and bread from scratch, and even make your own rock candy! Join us to stir up some delicious experiments!
We’ll be tie-dying like crazy, and we’re not just talkin’ T-shirts! Dip and dye in bright, bold colors using sunbursts and wild patterns as you discover new ways to make your tie-dye project one-of-a-kind. Incorporate your favorite pop song lyrics or inspirational quote into your piece by using fabric paint and markers. Try the accordion knot technique to make a wall hanging, a T-shirt, or a colorful pillowcase that your friends can sign at your next sleepover.
Get ready for launch! Learn how to transform an ordinary two-liter soda bottle into an extraordinary water rocket that really flies. Add fins and a nose cone to create an aerodynamic design. Achieve maximum altitude on launch day and become a Summer Place junior astronaut.
Come and enter the wizarding world of Harry Potter! Experience a Hogwarts education firsthand. You will master magical potions, create your own wand for spell duels, compete in an intense Quidditch match, participate in the Tri Wizard Tournament, and then sip butterbeer with friends. You’re in for a magical time!
Want to know a secret about Summer Place? Okay, but you have to keep it to yourself. This place is full of hidden treasures. Behind buildings, around the lake, under the trees—there is amazing stuff to find all over! How do we know? Because we hid it all, of course! And if you want to find all of these treasures, you’ll need to use teamwork and the latest GPS technology each day as you follow clues, answer trivia questions, discover new clues, take and upload pictures, and find the prizes at the end—where X marks the spot!