Park District Summer Camp Connection All About Choices

In a few weeks Alice Cooper’s lyrics and melody school’s out for summer will be pounding through the heads and hearts of students as they skip out the door on the last day of the school year.

Parents hear and feel the pounding much earlier, like now, as they are contemplating how the kids’ summer vacation and their full-time job can coexist and yet create the summer memories of their youth.

One of the best things about summer vacation as a kid is that there’s time to do what you want to do! And what kids want to do is be outside, in the sun, in the water, and with friends too! Friends make all this time unforgettable! Kids want a friend to build a fort with, a friend to splash in the pool, a friend who likes the same kind of fun.  

 It is on this premise that the Park District plans their Summer Camp Connection program to include plenty of choices.  While weekly field trips to area attractions and swimming at the Aquatic Park are always a hit, the concept of camps within a camp is unique to the program and based on the concept of choice.

Here’s how it works. There are five elementary school Camp Connection locations. Parents register to pick up and drop off their child at the location closest to their home or work. The Camp Connection sites plan different theme-focused activities for each week.

For example, The Wheatlands might host a sports camp, Prairie Point a gardening camp, Long Beach a science and messy stuff camp. Regardless of what home site the child is dropped off and picked up from, kids can choose to go to another location for part of the day, shuttled there and back by the Park District. Kids make choices and make friends!

Parents like choices too! Even adults usually take some time off in the summer, and camp registration by the session or by the week assures that your kids are home when you are. Ahhh the lazy, hazy, crazy days!