Local Camps
When I look back on my experiences as a child, camp is only a fun-filled activity. My first sleepaway weekend, the gymnastics camps with friends, it’s all thrilling. As a parent now with school-aged children, camp is a functional part of life. Given the massive disconnect that already exists between the default school schedule and the default work schedule, camp is an important part of our family routine.
As a parent, the school break camp search process feels especially daunting. I know many friends who just use the same camp as a default because searching is too much. My goal with this page is to try and make that camp discovery process less daunting. Many factors are important when finding the right camp with the right activities included, with the correct full-day hours and the appropriate children ages for your family.
Start exploring my directory, or read below to understand a bit more about how to use this resource.
When I was designing this camp directory, the most important feature to me was to be able to filter. I find it so frustrating that you can’t sort by age for all of the directories I find! I need camp options for a 3 year old and many locations don’t offer that- Pre-K is also not an age range!
Directory Filters Explanation:
Dates: This will have the very specific dates needed for a day holiday camp but I have week-long programs listed for as we approach spring break camp and summer camp.
Age: Camp options start at 2-year-olds. My core age demographic for this is 3-10 year olds as I believe the biggest need for camp is for elementary school-aged children.
Neighborhood: I think this is straightforward but I do recommend checking on your first pass selecting adjacent neighborhoods, especially in Park Slope. Because the neighborhood is so big, something in Gowanus may be closer to you than Park Slope.
Activities: There are so many fun activities available for our children in Brooklyn. I tried to catalog general camps, sports camps, and art camps but many locations have a variety of activities. I would use this as a guide and try different features.
Camp Offerings: Camp Offering is meant to encompass a more broad category than a specific date. Perhaps you just need a full day camp during a week and are looking for a drop-in. Maybe you are researching for the summer and are curious about summer programs before needing a specific date. Use this in your general search. I’ve also included a Build Your Own Option which I think is really cool and allows you to build a sort of “pod” offering on holidays that only impact your school or half days like parent-teacher conference day. I included weekend and date night drop off here just for fun as well- it’s hard to find those options when you want or need them!
Extended Day: The default hours for a Brooklyn camp are 9am-3pm. While this is frustrating for parents I think it’s the reality. This extended day filter is to find earlier start times “8am start” as well as later pick up “til 6pm.”
I found some really great ideas for camp while I was building this and I hope you do too!
-Katie