The Saratoga Springs area has multiple colleges and cool places for kids to find things to do. Over the summer, so many places offer summer camps for everything from toddler dance to high school aerospace engineering. The goal is to find the programs for your child that fits their interest and age, and a time commitment and location that works for the parents. Not to mention cost.
Last summer, Child #2 took a coding camp at the Adirondack Community College in Glens Falls. This year we want something of similar topic, but different from what he learned last year.
Child #2 is very much into video gaming and learning how to code. I need to find technology-ish, computer-y summer camps for 9th going into 10th graders or for age 14.
Shouldn’t be too hard. Let’s do this! Let’s to go Google.
Saratoga County BOCES has summer programs and a pdf of their catalog can be downloaded when available. I see programs for grade 1-3 and 4-8, a few for grades up to 12. Computer Game Design class is for grades 6-8, so that won’t work for us. They also list theater camps for ages 4 to 18.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) offers technology summer camps for high school students, kids going into 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. Technology comes is many different varieties and topics. There isn’t a video game/coding camp here but awesome-sounding camps like alternative power and architecture with something called extreme drawing. RPI is located in Troy, NY about 35-45 minutes from Saratoga.
CSI Camps from kids entering 8th – 12th grade are being offered by both Sienna College and Skidmore College. I wish I could take this one! The kids get to work with real forensic professionals like profilers, medical examiners, and police. So Criminal Minds plus Bones plus CSI all helping the kids learn the real stuff. Awesome! Sienna is about 35 minutes away and Skidmore is right in Saratoga!
Skidmore College offers programs for high school kids for sports and creative arts including music, dance, writing and jazz.
Sienna College has many different summer camps for mostly ages 9-14 with topics like Robotics, Minecraft Modding, Linux, and App Development. Sienna is about 35 minutes from the west side of Saratoga.
*The Brown School in Schenectady offers camps from Preschool age to 8th grade. Programs include video game creation, art, literacy and athletics. About 45 minutes from Saratoga.
* Sidney Albert Albany JCC has summer camps for all sorts of interests like performing arts, Mad Science, video gaming, and British Sports. About 45 minutes from Saratoga.
The Arts Center of the Capitol Region has a ton of programs to offer including fencing, jewelry making, painting, metalworking and photography, and yes gaming! They break up the groups by grades, 1-5, 4&5, 6-8, and 9-12. They are located in Troy, NY, which isn’t too far, about 35 – 45 minutes from home.
Club Scientific looks like they have multiple locations including Colonie, Schenectady, Niskayuna, and Schenectady County Community College. The ages for these camps are 4-6, 6-9 and 9-14 and include amazing topics like Emergency Vet, Jr. Space Explorer and Robot Inventor.
Hudson Valley Community College offers camps for kids as young as first grade and all the way up to 11th grade. With famous names like Star Wars, Harry Potter, Minecraft, and Lego, these camps are NOT limited to technology! Sewing, paper crafts, scrap-booking, and more. Definitely check out this pdf listing of all the programs they have. They have some camps at Bethlehem school, Malta as well as on campus about 45 minutes away.
Circus Theatricks is a high energy and hilarious program offered by Seano Fagen. His week long summer camps will be held at HVCC (45 mins), the College of St. Rose (40-45 mins) and Albany JCC (45 mins). Check out the Circus Theatricks website for dates and locations, and click to register right from there.
The Children’s Museum of Science + Technology (CMOST) offers programs for kids in Kindergarten, grades 1-2, 3-5 and 6-8. CMOST is located in Troy, NY and is about 40 minutes from Saratoga.
The College of St. Rose offers many programs for kids going into grades 6-10 at their Summer Academy for Youth. General topics include Writing, Performing Arts, Design, Business/Sports/Government, and Science and Technology. The College of St. Rose also offers a separate summer camp for musicians. From Chorus to Piano to Conducting classes, there are a wide range of awesome camps to discover at the Music department of St. Rose. The primary areas of summer camps are Wind Ensemble, Vocal, Orchestra, Music Technology and Piano.
Sage College offers a performing arts summer camp for kids ages 8-16. Sage is located in Albany and is about 45 minutes from Saratoga.
The Museum of Innovation and Science, located in Schenectady offers a variety of summer camps for kids grades k-2, 3-5 and 6-8. MiSci is about 40 minutes from Saratoga.
Girls Incorporated of the Capitol Region offers summer camps for girls entering Kindergarten through 8th grade. Camps are located in Albany and Schenectady and range from baking to CSI to making commercials.
Have you or your children tried any of these summer camps? Do you know of more that I did not include, please leave comments!
Thanks for reading! I hope it helps! :o)