Living History Worldwide

In this day and age, many parents are extolling the virtues of sending their children to preschool. According to an ongoing federally funded study of 1,364 children, preschool helps improve the language and memory of young children. For that matter, children that attend preschool tend to have higher rates of graduation and acceptance into college. It’s no wonder then that two-thirds of American four-year-olds now attend child care centers or preschools. Perhaps even more appealing to parents is the prospect of sending their children to private preschools. Private preschools offer many social, emotional, and academic benefits to young children, and for this reason among others, parents who believe in private preschools and see their results often lean on them as their primary form of childcare. Full day preschools are popular, which allow parents to work as they need to while knowing that their children are being cared for at the highest possible standards. But what happens when the school year is over? After all, not all preschools are full year preschools. Luckily, many private preschools also offer summer camps for kids. Summer camps for kids not only offers the opportunity of day care for parents during the summer — it also allows children to engage in the same activities they did during the preschool year, with summer fun mixed in. Below, we’ll look into some of the advantages of preschool-run summer camps for kids.

1. Early Education Benefits

An unfortunate trend is growing in America — while children learn during the school year, they’re often left to their own devices during summer. In some child care centers, children who stay there during the summer are simply left to play sometimes-mindless games, without being intellectually stimulated. This leaves them unprepared and out of practice when the school year starts again, and it can result in lower grades. For that matter, it can lead to children becoming incredibly bored, and electronic games in particular can lead to a decreased ability to focus. With that being said, lots of preschool-run summer camps for kids fight to keep this from happening. While summer camp is fun, that doesn’t mean that children have to stop learning for summer — they just start learning in different ways. Kids can learn about science in the natural world, studying different types of plants and insects. They can also be introduced to math and reading skills, without even realizing that they’re learning. Summer camp makes learning fun, rather than putting it on the backburner entirely.

2. Emotional Support

It’s important to note that many preschools use key developmental indicators, or KDIs, to keep track of students’ emotional and social development. In a typical summer camp, a child can either have a lot of fun or end up completely lost in the crowd. This means that a child who is perhaps shyer or developmentally delayed, even, can end up feeling alone or even in some cases bullied. A summer camp that is run by preschools has people on staff who are ready to support your child emotionally, and encourage their social growth. For that matter, such summer camps usually have zero-tolerance policies for bullying, no matter how old a child is. The support and nurturing atmosphere of a preschool can be transferred to a summer camp atmosphere without taking away from the summer camp experience. In fact, it can in some ways enhance the experience.

3. Smaller Numbers

One of the reasons why summer camps can sometimes get out of hand is that they’re just too difficult for camp counselors to control — because there are too many campers. With that being said, it’s important to remember that many of the kids who attend summer camps run by preschools are the same children attending those preschools. Just as preschools tend to have smaller numbers than public schools, summer camps run by preschools tend to keep their numbers down as well. This makes it easier for children to get individual attention, and it keeps everything fun for campers and counselors alike.