SUMMER
Day
camps in the
Berkeley/Oakland/Albany/El Cerrito area
including spring and winter break camp offerings
Residential
camps in
plus
some internships, family camps & international programs
by Tom Lent
Introduction to the
Guide
This guide
covers over 160 day camps in the Berkeley/Oakland/Albany/El Cerrito
area, (concentrating on Berkeley and the northern end of Oakland and more than
50 overnight
resident camps, internships and
family camps mostly from around Northern California, but with a
few from farther afield of particular unique interest to California kids,
including international programs. See below for info on camps on the east side
of the hills and elsewhere in the Bay area and beyond.
I generally
have not listed programs that are an hour or less per day or run for less than
two weeks (except residential camps and spring and winter break offerings). The
majority of the camps are for primary school age children, but I have expanded
to include more middle and high school age camps as they have come to me.
A note about reviews: Reviews are based
upon surveys I did of parents at
GETTING MORE INFORMATION: This listing is not
comprehensive. There are more camps out there, both general and specialty
(arts, music, drama, science, sports). Below are listed a number of useful
resources for your exploration:
LEARN
MORE IN PERSON AT CAMP FAIRS
AAUW Summer Program Information Fair Is a
way to get a wealth of information in person about these and other camps in a
few hours. Reps come from over 100 day and sleep-away programs for kids from
pre-school to high school, including special needs. It is free and held in
March each year in the Scottish Rite Center at 1547 Lakeside in
American
Camping Association
(925-933-0666 www.acanorcal.org) Check
out the Norcal section for more camps on the east
side of the hills,
READ MORE REVIEWS
Berkeley Parents Network (http://parents.berkeley.edu/recommend/summer/) Excellent parent-to-parent non-profit resource for more current parent reviews on these camps and information about other camps I have not listed.
Camp Ratingz (http://www.campratingz.com) provides
ratings from parents and campers for camps in the Bay area and nationally. As
with all consumer review sites, take it with a big grain of salt. Given the
nature of such services, I’d expect these ratings to be in general biased
toward the negatives (according to the FAQ, the positive ratings represent a
bit over 65% of the total ratings and I’ll bet that a lot more than 2/3 of kids
have positive experiences at summer camp). It’s just human nature that people
are generally more motivated to post a review when they are peeved than when
they are feeling complimentary and a
negative review here does not necessarily mean your child won’t have a really
fantastic time. So keep that in mind. Berkeley Parents Network is probably more
balanced since it is more about parents sharing advice. Nonetheless, Ratingz sounds like they try hard to screen out flames and
to be a useful data point if you keep all this in mind.
NARROW THE OPTIONS WITH SEARCHABLE DATABASES
ActivityHero (www.ActivityHero.com) Provides
an online searchable database of camps and year round afterschool classes,
camps and other activities in the Bay Area and around the country. The search
by radius around a zip code, city, activity, grade and gender is very helpful
for sorting through the large number of camps and a calendar function can help
track sessions and share info with friends.
YET MORE OPTIONS IN LISTINGS
Bay Area Kid Fun (http://www.bayareakidfun.com/pages/summercamps.html)
Listings of camps in greater Bay area and other kid fun organized by region.
Bay Area
Parent
(http://sanfrancisco.parenthood.com/)
has lists of Bay area camps in its monthly magazines (one for the
East Bay Regional Parks (http://www.ebparks.org/activities/daycamps)
Provides a complete listing of all the camps hosted in
the parks, plus a “campership” program to help low income families afford the
cost.
goCityKids/ParentcConnect (http://gocitykids.parentsconnect.com/sub-category/san-francisco-ca-usa/resources/camps)
has an online listing of day camps and other family friendly stuff by
neighborhood throughout San Francisco and in Marin, the Peninsula and East Bay.
Parent Press (http://www.parentspress.com/) publishes
extensive camp listings for the whole Bay Area in the March and April editions
of their monthly news magazine. Last I checked it was not available on line.
You will have to search out the print edition at YMCAs kids stores and other
such family friendly spots in the area.
NATIONAL: Camp listings in the rest of the
country can be found at www.signupforcamp.com
and http://gocitykids.parentsconnect.com/choose/
HIGH SCHOOL & COLLEGE: More summer programs around the country aimed at high school and college
kids can be found at http://www.enrichmentalley.com.
The Berkeley High College/Career Center website offers more summer program info
at http://bhs.berkeley.net/index.php?page=home-2
- click on “Summer Programs.”
VOLUNTEER
opportunities in the Bay area are listed at www.volunteerinfo.org
WHAT TO DO THE REST
OF THE TIME?
How do you find cool things to do in the Bay Area the rest of the time when
they are not in camp? The Berkeley
Parent’s Network (see link above) gathers parent recommendations and
discussions and Bay Area Parent (also above) provides calendar listings.
And don’t
miss Kiddie Koncierge
(www.kiddiekoncierge.com) another
parent labor of love with lots of recommendations for fun kid friendly
activities - and some good kid travel info and stuff for parental escapes as
well.
Act
early. Camps are filling faster every year. While many camps don't publish their
schedules until late February or March, and some have room in some sessions
right into the summer, others fill as early as mid February
(Kids n' Clay, LHS, the Cal Sports & Science combo and Skateboard camp,
Ha-Ha-This Away and some residential camps for example).
Act now if you want one of these programs….
Some of the fee & date information here dates back to the summers of 2002 and
2003, the last years that I
attempted the increasingly heroic task of comprehensively updating the entire
list. The list has grown and my time has shrunk for updating this site
now and I am no longer able to gather and incorporate reviews or update fee,
schedule and program information. The
parenthetic number at the end of each listing (02) will tell you when I last
updated it. Luckily most camps now have
web addresses that are linked here so you can check yourself for updates that I
may not yet have learned about or had a chance to incorporate here.
This has
been a labor of love, not a profitable enterprise, started when I was first
trying to wade through the confusion to figure out where to send my son after
his kindergarten year. Once I had gathered a bunch of information, I figured I
should share it. I do the best I can, but no guarantees about the accuracy
information are made. I have less time now to keep up with it than I used to
but hope it still is helpful to you.
Read about Day Camps
Read about Overnight Resident Camps
Return to Tom Lent’s
Information Center
Want to add a new camp or correct a current camp
listing?
Submit a new camp or update at Updates & New listings
Other comments? E-mail them to me: tominfo@igc.org