Summer Camps: Accelerating Growth and Overcoming the Summer Slide

Has your child ever experienced a summer slide? 

No, it isn’t about one of the many playground equipment on which your offspring can have fun. It is a phenomenon that has been deeply studied and proven by various scholars, including theGraduate School of Education at Harvard! What is the summer slide then, you may ask. Well, the ‘Summer Slide’ is a tendency for students to lose a part of the knowledge they gained during the previous school years during the summer break!

Surprisingly, by the 5th grade, students can lose nearly 18 months (that’s one and a half years!) of learning due to summer learning loss! This is the outcome of the disconnect that students have with education during their breaks. While the summer holidays bring along a rich quality of family time and a period of relaxation, they can also impact children’s learning the other way around! Research spanning 100 years shows that students typically score lower on standardized tests at the end of summer vacation than on the same tests at the beginning of the summer. Now this is a matter of concern, isn’t it?

To our relief, multiple ways exist to address this prevalent concern among parents! For example, to escape this phenomenon, parents have turned to one of the efficient solutions - summer camps for children!

Why is attending a summer camp a wise decision for your child?

Summer camps are not just a way to pass the summer break, but also a vital part of a child’s personality. Why so? - It is because, at the camp, children grow, explore, and learn about themselves, the people around them, and a whole lot of new concepts. More importantly, they have fun throughout this process of learning! What more would a child wish for during their holidays, right?

You’ll often have a plethora of options to choose from as different camps offer different activities. For example, a STEM camp offers activities that hone the technical understanding and critical thinking of a child whereas an arts and crafts camp is a fun way to boost the imagination and creativity of kids! 

Which one would your child be interested in? 

Although there exist a variety of summer camps for children, all of them offer the opportunity to make friends, learn new skills, and grow as a person. Apart from how they act as a link between a child and their learning, here are a few reasons, why attending a summer camp is a wise decision to make for your child:

1. Keeps Kids Intellectually Engaged

Parents often complain that over the summer, kids become sluggish without the mind-engaging activities of school. A summer camp, for instance, a robotics camp, offers mental engagement through various activities in fun ways that the children can enjoy, such as making circuits or brainstorming about new-age robots. 

2. Provides Fun Screen-Free Activities

According to the OASH (US Department of Health and Human Services), children spend more than ‘seven and a half hours a day in front of the screen. Certainly, you wouldn’t need research to prove it when you have observed this yourself many a time. 

Long screen times can adversely affect your child. That’s where summer camps help children experience the joy of a life beyond the screen and explore opportunities to engage their minds in endless fun ways.  

3. Develops Social Skills

How have you cultivated the abilities needed to thrive in society? It's through active participation, isn't it? Well, for children, it's quite similar. Summer camps provide opportunities for them to engage and learn from diverse individuals in their social environment.

In almost all camp activities, right from outdoor adventure camps to indoor STEM camps, children engage in mutually inclusive activities. Learning in a common environment helps them build various social skills such as public manners, teamwork, cooperation, active listening, empathy, and leadership to name a few.

4. Expand the Horizon of their Knowledge

When it comes to knowledge, the sky's the limit! Through summer camps children are exposed to new knowledge. While someone is experiencing the art of folding paper for the first time in a creative camp, another child is enjoying the coding camp, which brings their imaginative video games to life. Thus, a summer camp always helps kids learn new things.

How can your child make the most of a Summer Camp?

As stated above, summer camps are also an exciting opportunity for children because of the many benefits they bring. Making the most of these opportunities is important to avail the benefits it offers and add value to the child’s summer break. Children can optimally use this duration in the following ways:

1. Embracing Learning and Growth

Ask your children to not shy off from participating in camps. Being open to new experiences and challenges, taking time to reflect on them through sharing them with others, and seeking feedback from their fellow friends can certainly help children embrace learning and keep moving ahead on the path of growth!

2. Build Lasting Relationships

At the end of it all, what matters is the bonds that we make. One shared hearty laughter, one interesting conversation between two, or even one engaging activity in a group - any of these can engrave themselves as prominent memories in a child’s heart. These serve as the beginnings of lasting friendships among children and help them find a company whom they can enjoy!

3. Fully Engage in Camp Environment

When children are fully engaged in their camp experience, they live in the moment and have a great time. This intense involvement of young kids helps them make the most out of learning and, of course, have fun throughout the camp.

4. Capture Memories

The time spent at summer camps is going to be one of the most precious times that your child will have. Taking pictures or simply sharing the stories and anecdotes of the day with friends and family back home are small but effective ways for children to treasure these memories for a lasting time!

When, as a parent, you choose a summer break camp for your child, you not only protect them from the summer slide but also significantly contribute to their growth as an individual. Moreover, when you enroll your child in a camp that focuses on exposing and making children learn the skills required in the 21st century, you are taking a step towards a bright future for them!

OBotz offers a variety of summer camps to elevate your child’s summer break experience. Participating in a robotics camp, drone-making camp or coding camp offered at OBotz is one such way to empower kids with the skills of the 21st century and introduce them to the world of STEM. At OBotz, we believe in teaching kids at their own pace and making sure that your child falls in love with the ever-demanding realm of robotics and coding.

Enroll your child today for the Summer Break Camp, and watch these little bundles of joy experience the joy of learning!!