Pricing and questions

One-week sessions, Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 4:00, with extended day until 5:30. Camp runs from mid-June through mid-August 2027 at three sites across Chicagoland. We announce the exact sites and the full session calendar this fall, and waitlist families choose first.

Three things run through every day: short open-ended challenges, a longer project the camper chooses and improves all week, and a lot of outdoor play. The proportions shift with age. There is an hour by hour schedule on the day at camp page.

No. Counselors teach what a camper needs to get going and stay close while they work. What we avoid is doing the work for them. The aim across the week is to hand over more of the thinking as a camper gets steadier, so the help fades because it is no longer needed.

By age, all day: 6 to 7, 8 to 10, and 11 to 13. Each group has its own space, its own rhythm and its own version of the week. The youngest group builds in shorter stretches with more play and more adult support. The oldest group takes on more ambitious projects with far less adult involvement and more social time.

Different. Every session uses a different set of daily challenges, and the project possibilities change too, so a camper who comes in June and again in July is not repeating June.

Returning campers also get a different experience within the same week structure. They need less scaffolding, so counselors hand over more of the decisions earlier, and they tend to attempt ideas they would not have taken on in their first week. Campers who come back several times often end up mentoring newer campers at their own table, which we encourage but never require.

No week is a prerequisite for any other, and any week works as a first week. Multi-week and sibling discounts are applied automatically at registration.

Camp activities are. There are no tablets, no educational apps and no film on a rainy day. Running a camp does involve some screens behind the scenes, for registration and similar, but none of that reaches the campers.

Campers do not keep their own devices on them during the day. If your family needs an exception for a genuine safety or medical reason, tell us at registration and we will arrange something that works.

Materials are the friendly kind: cardboard, tape, string, craft sticks, rubber bands and glue. There are no power tools and nothing sharp. Staff are background checked and site leads hold current first aid and CPR certification. Groups are kept small, with more adult support for the youngest campers, and sign-out is ID checked daily.

Teachers, teaching artists, and education and engineering students. Every hire completes a extensive training with us before campers arrive, covering the projects, group dynamics, and how to help a stuck child without taking the work away from them.

Building alongside somebody is much easier than making conversation with them, and shared projects give quieter kids an obvious way in. Tell us what works for your child at registration, whether that is a quiet corner, a visual schedule, or warning before transitions, and we will build the week around it. Our educators are trained for inclusion rather than mere tolerance.

Closed-toe shoes every day, plus a water bottle, a packed lunch and sunscreen. Leave at home any devices and anything you would be sad to see catapulted.

Not from us. Session photographs go into a private gallery for families in that session, and we never post campers publicly without your written consent.