While kids look forward to their summer break with fervor, for parents, at best, it can often be the opposite. Sending the kids to daytime summer camp is often the best alternative to the usual summer activities, such as playing referee between siblings or bringing them to the office to do your filing.

In fact, some of our merchants host summer camps for kids that go beyond canoeing and macrame. These camps are so exciting and so different from the typical school day, kids won't even realize they're still learning stuff.

Hone Their Sense of Rhythm at Music Camp

Creative Soul Music School, multiple locations in Texas

At school, music class often consists of 20 kids huffing into a recorder, playing stilted versions of old-timey tunes. At Creative Soul Music School, kids learn from staff who are well versed in all genres. As they drill down into learning an instrument or honing their vocal chops, kids age 3–17 form a band, for which they'll write a song together, make a video, and even play a live show.

Check out their current deal.

Learn to Create a Masterpiece

Kids Artistic Sense, Los Angeles, CA

Kids love to explore their creativity, and they don't get much of a chance to do that during the school year. At these summer camps, campers learn more than just how to smear paint on paper. Weeklong camps encourage critical thinking as kids dig into different disciplines and media, and extend their skills into face painting, jewelry design, and even cooking and music.

Check out their current deal.

Train to be True Champions

HUB Sports, multiple locations in Arizona

Skip the dodgeball matches for true lessons in sportsmanship. As kids rotate through different sports, including swimming and soccer, they'll learn the discipline and problem solving skills that make an honorable athlete. They'll also have time for games and crafts to round out their experience.

Check out their current deal.

Blend Science and Art—and Robots

KraftyLab, Emerson, NJ

Emphasizing the need for creativity in solving problems, these camps encourage kids to use their wits and their imaginations to construct mechanical masterpieces. Because trial and error is essential to design, the camp culture emphasizes testing and development, and encourages bold ideas.

Check out their current deal.

Put on a Show at Theater Camp

Theater Works, Bellevue, WA

Collaboration, cooperation, trust in your peers—these are just some of the skills kids learn at during their one-week session. Campers spend their sessions hard at work rehearsing scenes based on a popular story, such as Peter Pan, which they'll perform at the end of camp for their loved ones.

Check out their current deal.

Make Math Fun

Mathnasium of Gilbert, Gilbert, AZ

The staff at this camp help kids age 7–14 avoid sinking into the "summer slump" by keeping their math skills on point through techniques that make math fun. Kids gain confidence by flexing their math muscles in logic games and programs designed to meet them where they are.

Check out their current deal.

Just Keep Moving

Kids Time Live, San Diego, CA

At Kids Time Live's summer program, kids keep active with a wide variety of endeavors that vary from day to day. They can learn to tumble in gymnastics lessons, scale walls at a rock climbing course, and splash around a water park. They can even put on their science hat—and gloves, we hope—in something called "Slime Time."

Check out their current deal.

Make a New Best Friend

Complete Equestrian Company, Lakeville, MN

Whether they've never before ridden a horse or they're fluent in horsemanship, riders age 5–17 flourish at this midwestern riding camp. Campers learn discipline as well as the empathy that comes from caring for a four-legged beast. They'll also bond with one another during non-riding activities.

Check out their current deal.

Ride the Waves

Aqua Summer Camp, Santa Monica and Redondo Beach, CA

Kids can learn to get up on their boards as early as age 5 at this seaside summer camp. A 3:1 teacher-student ratio means kids gets very personalized attention to the skills they need to work on most. Kids also learn respect for the ocean, and by extension, the earth at large, and they also learn resiliency, as they'll invariably fall off their boards and get up and try again—and again, and again.

Check out their current deal.

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