It’s time to begin thinking about Summer Camp. April and early May is the time to sign up your children in Summer Camp before camps are all filled up. I always have a hard time signing my kids up for camp. I never know when we will be home for Summer, as we haven’t begun planning our Summer vacation plans yet and I’m unsure of sports tournaments, practices, etc..
With work, school projects, practices, games and tournaments, and everything going on right now, it’s hard to pause and figure out Summer Camp. As my kids are older now, ages 10 and 13, I am always on the lookout for camps that focus on a STEM curriculum. I want them to be exposed to robotics, coding, circuitry, you name it! There are so many cool ways to learn about these things that didn’t exist when I was growing up.
Two Summers ago, I signed my kids up for one of those LEGO camps. They did get to create some robotic creations towards the end of the week, but I felt that they didn’t learn as much as they could have. Probably because they were in a class with kids up to 4-5 years younger than they were. I was disappointed.
Summer of Minecraft Camp
Recently, I learned about online Summer camps called Summer of Minecraft Camp. This concept of online Summer camp intrigued me because my kids could learn from experts remotely and the need to shuffle them back and forth to a physical location would not be needed.
But even more intriguing, is the fact that Connected Camps focuses on using Minecraft to teach kids design and coding skills. Minecraft? My kids LOVE Minecraft. This is brilliant! What a great way to teach kids deeper levels of coding through a game they are already enthusiastic about.
I truly believe that more kids would be interested in engineering, programming, and the sciences if given more opportunities at a younger age to explore and engage with these disciplines. But for STEM to be more interesting, kids need to be engaged. Hands-on activities need to inspire interest, curiosity, and ideally teamwork – so kids don’t feel like their learning in isolated towers.
Summer of Minecraft Camp focuses on kids ages 8-14, teaching Minecraft coding, architecture, game design, engineering, and more from beginners up to advanced. They provide a connected learning experience which fosters creativity, collaboration, and problem solving. All online courses are moderated by counselors to help answer questions and ensure a safe online environment.
Summary of Summer of Minecraft Camp Offered:
- CAMPS FOR GIRLS – Our Camps for Girls are designed to support girls in leveling up their skills in cool STEM topics like coding, game design, and survival mode. Participants have a chance to explore their STEM interests with the support of expert counselors trained to make learning both collaborative and fun. Our camps emphasize turning an interest in Minecraft into a passion for designing, building, and making programs run!
- ARCHITECTURE Work together to build a Minecraft city as a way to learn about architecture and infrastructure. Concepts covered include materials and styles, aesthetics, using natural spaces, and more. Teams will develop their own district and connect it to neighboring districts to form the ultimate Minecraft metropolis.
- GAME DESIGN – Design your own mini-games ranging from action-oriented “sports” like Spleef to puzzles and story-based adventures. Brainstorm and prototype with the help of our experienced game design counselors, share your games with others, and work together to playtest and improve them.
- SURVIVAL CAMP – Master the challenging Minecraft survival world by focusing on cooperation, collaboration, exploration, and problem solving. Learn the basics of Minecraft including crafting, farming, redstone engineering, railways, and more. Reshape the dangerous wilds into a world of your own making!
- BEGINNING CODING – Learn the basics of computer coding in our custom built Minecraft world. Switch between a visual and text-based programming interface while coding Lua-driven robots (“Turtles”) to solve problems and build projects. No coding experience is required.
- INTERMEDIATE CODING – Build on the coding fundamentals learned in Beginning Coding to hone your programming skills by tackling more advanced challenges with Turtles. Move beyond basic syntax and programs to creatively code robust, unique solutions to complex problems involving navigation, inputs, outputs, and randomness.
- ADVANCED CODING – Build on the coding concepts learned in Beginning and Intermediate Coding to compete in more advanced challenges by developing more complex programs. Advance your coding knowledge through troubleshooting and optimizing solutions.
- ENGINEERING IN MINECRAFT – With Redstone players can build everything from simple block moving machines to complex calculators, robots, and even computers. Learn how to build circuits, logic gates, and latches to combine, modify, and store signals to move blocks, open doors, produce sounds, and more.
All Summer Connected Camps are one week long. As you can see, there are a lot of courses available and your child can continue building their STEM skills by taking additional classes.
Unlike Summer camps where they are limited to the size of the building, Connected Summer Camps can expand and allow additional classes dependent upon the demand.
What’s Included in Summer of Minecraft Camp Classes?
- 10 hours of instruction
- Experienced counselors to help and guide children
- Access to a multiplayer world where kids can create together
- Access to a library full of Minecraft resources
- Membership in their free Minecraft Kid Club
- Discounts for purchasing multiple camps
- A Certificate of Achievement for each participant
The surprising thing about the classes of Summer of Minecraft Camp, is that you’d think there would be 50 kids registered to each class. But interestingly enough, there is anywhere from 12 – 20 campers in each camp. Camps are open everyday for 2 hours a day. You schedule the week and timing of day you’d like when you register.
Before You Sign-Up
Before signing up for a Connected Summer Camp, make sure you have the following things taken care of:
- A computer (PC/Mac) connected to the Internet
- A Minecraft PC license (PC/Mac) ($26.95) (tablet and game console editions will not work)
Pricing
Pricing for Summer of Minecraft Camp is very reasonable. Classes start from $49 for the week and go up to $79 for almost all of the classes. And it the price gets even better if you enter the code WCM20 at checkout to get 20% off any of the Summer of Minecraft Camps!
A Mom’s Perspective
With our schedule being so erratic this Summer, I love the fact that I can still sign up my kids for Summer Camp, with less worry as to where we will be. Not needing to ensure we are in town for Summer school gives us a lot of flexibility. We can take our Summer of Minecraft Camp from anywhere…even on vacation. I also appreciate the fact that we don’t need to drive anywhere. Our kids can learn from the comfort of home and I don’t need to go back and forth dropping them off and picking them up each day.
But what I like most, is that my kids will be exposed to coding…in an environment they are already familiar with and love to play in. Their curiosity is already peaked with Minecraft…coding in Minecraft is now the icing on the cake!
Kids will learn to set goals, strategize, and connect and work with other classmates as they work on challenges. And although the class is open for 2 hours a day, kids can spend as much time as they like building and exploring in the Minecraft world built on the Connected Camps servers.
You can’t beat the price, and with the WellConnectedMom 20% discount (use WCM20 at checkout), the Summer of Minecraft Camp just got better!
Are you an over scheduled mom with little time to figure out technology? Or are you a technology guru who loves sharing tips with others?
We cover different ways to make technology work for you without spending hours researching & learning how to do it on your own.
Speak Your Mind