It’s hard to believe that it’s finally that time of year again. The weather has been unbelievably beautiful. This lovely spring time weather seemed like it would never come, but it’s finally here which leads me to start thinking about what’s coming up – summer! Summer means hot muggy days, no school which often leads to those three dreaded words – “Mommy I’m bored!” To get yourselves prepared early this year, Family Matters is here to help! Below are just a few of our favorite Shanghai summer camps.

For your older children (ages 7-12) Kid’s Gallery offers great summer courses. To keep the love of reading over the summer the Junior Book Club is the perfect introduction to English literature through well-known children’s books, encouraging understanding, analysis and a love for reading, writing and stories. For your budding actors, they also have a Performing Arts Camp where your 7-12 year old will explore the worlds of music, dance and prop-making in these musical and inspiring camps for students who love performing. There will be an open class performance at the end of the week. They also have classes for your little tots as well. Check out their summer course listing for complete info.

For your more active little ones who need to run off some of that extra summer energy, Vroomers offers a whole day camp that includes learning to construct their uniquely world's first UAV modular robotic system, racing radio controlled cars & boats, challenging fooseball competitions, role playing as a special force adapting the tactics of cover and concealment in our exciting paintball game missions, as well as indoor & outdoor swimming sessions. Lunch is included in this day camp.

For your budding Beckhams, Active Kidz Shanghai has weekly tennis, soccer, swimming, gymnastics, and other fun camps for kids ages 4-14. Sport for Life also has mixed sports and activity camps specializing in swimming and tennis camps. This is located in Pudong.

For a combination of active play and creative classes, Kidtown offers day camps that are comprised of project camps which are based on the Reggio Emilio project approach, enrichment camps which taech children how to “think outside the box,” and finally a Chinese Character Camp which teaches Chinese words and characters to children through fun, interactive games and songs – none of that rote memorization stuff. Lunch and free play at Kidtown’s mini city play center are included. Kidtown also offers a flex schedule where you can either sign up for an all day camp or just for certain smaller sessions in case you don’t want to send your little one away for the whole day. It’s sort of an a la carte menu.

For more academic camps for the older kids, Reading Town offers programs in Intensive Reading and Writing as well as Intensive SAT, SSAT, and TOEFL test prep. Reading Town is located in Gubei and Hongqiao.

For your budding Picasso’s, [the studio] allows children to build art projects around special topics involving different art movements, styles, and particular artists from history. For more information, contact Nicky Broekhuysen at nicky.broekhuysen@gmail.com.

For your budding Beethoven’s, JZ School is offering Musical Theater Madness which is a two-week camp in which students perform “Alice in Wonderland” on the stage at the JZ Club. Students create their own set design and perform to live music. They are also offering a summer Jazz Camp.

There are a lot more camps that I’m hearing about everyday, so check back on the blog to find updated info. And if you have any info on other camps please comment and update me!