The kids at the summer long camps do well when they can make their own fun. Many kids have sadly learned that camps are highly structured and adult-led, have a really hard time with free play at the county summer camps. If your kid is always asking "What next?" at home instead of going off on their own to doodle, creating legos, go biking outside to find friends, etc... they won't do well in that setting. They need to be more adult-led to have fun.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$250/week max for non-specialty. Looks into the camps offered by your city. Also, you can get 6 weeks of “summer fun center” camps through Montgomery County Recreation for less than $400 for the entire 6 weeks.

Does something like this exist in Fairfax or Fairfax City?

DD has attended the City of Fairfax Camps for several years. She only does 2 weeks but many of her friends and classmates are there all summer.

It's pretty expensive, and unfortunately I've found that the lower price SACC or school based camps aren't really that fun for my younger kids. We did 2 weeks at the camp at their elementary school and it was basically the kids playing in the gym all day with some time watching a movie in the afternoon.

We did the rest of the summer at a more traditional summer camp with swimming, lots of outdoor play, etc, but that was really expensive.

Anonymous wrote:$250/week max for non-specialty. Looks into the camps offered by your city. Also, you can get 6 weeks of “summer fun center” camps through Montgomery County Recreation for less than $400 for the entire 6 weeks.

City of Rockville has Summer Playground camps and they are $200 for 6 weeks. 3 of the playgrounds have extended hours. Most of them have indoor areas. The one my child goes to does not have an indoor area but it does have a large pavilion. She goes every summer. Obviously the cost is a huge positive but the biggest positive is that it is as close to "old school summer" as you can get. I personally hate $500 structured camps. I like that my daughter can run around playing capture the flag. Play a game of kickball and it is child organized, play on a playground and make up her own games with friends. They do water days, arts and crafts daily, nature walks, ice pops, etc... All of her neighborhood friends are there too. The teen counselors are all local high school students and the 2 directors are adults. I am not sure what area you are in but look for something similar.

We do that, 2 weeks of Girl Scout camp that costs $150 and then I take 2 weeks off for a week vacation and a week of stay cation. We also have grandparent visit or send her to there depending on holes in the summer. Sometimes I only take a week off if she goes to a grandparents house or they come here for a stay cation.

So technically I pay $350 for childcare all summer.

With our two kids + aftercare, we plan for $1000 a week and needed to budget $10K for the summer (egads!) but... week of family vacation and 1 week of 'staycation' helped. And by plan, I mean stashing some money away after we finish paying off camp from the year before on our credit cards

We were able to average about $400 a week per camp, include before/aftercare (DC camps). To cut costs some, we did take a vacation week, a couple of grandparent weeks, etc.

One week I arranged to work remotely for the week. This allowed us to forgo before/aftercare. I am hoping to be able to do 2 weeks like that next summer. Before and Aftercare can seriously double the cost of a camp. Even the more affordable options.

Parks and Rec camps didn't work for us because of location and/or filling up quickly. The locations we needed filled up immediately. And I tried to register the second it opened up.

We also found it very difficult to find camps for 3-4 year olds.

One other tip. My parents still work and are unable to take the kids for a week without taking their own vacation. We found a camp for my son by my parents that was $50 for the whole week.. seriously. It was a great camp, and it allowed my parents to still work full time while he was there. They actually enjoyed it more because they did not feel like they had to entertain him as much and they got a break from the young child routine.

We sent our (only) DS to camp at our temple. It was about $3100 for a 6 week session, including before and after care. (The core hours were 9-3:30). It's a lot but he LOVED camp and it was nice having the 6 week block and not having to piece-meal options together all summer. We're in FCPS so we had a 9 week summer this year - in addition to those 6 weeks we had one week of vacation, one week of OTA camp for about $150, and then cobbled together coverage for the week before school started.

Next year we will probably do the same - we'll have an extra week of summer and may do another vacation.

Our average cost started out around $400/week including extended day, but this year my daughter aged out of some of the cheaper camps and the specialized camps she likes are more expensive. We paid $1700 for one three-week camp, and $500 or so for a couple of others.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:$250/week max for non-specialty. Looks into the camps offered by your city. Also, you can get 6 weeks of “summer fun center” camps through Montgomery County Recreation for less than $400 for the entire 6 weeks.

Does something like this exist in Fairfax or Fairfax City?

Fairfax County SACC has summer programs at some schools (these change each summer). https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/ofc/school-age-child-care/programs/summer-program.htm
Last year, the max. fee was $265 per week. It provides coverage from 7 am to 6:15 pm.

In elementary
$200 - 300 a week for the actual camp - Rec level and slightly above plus an additional - $100 - $150 for before and after care

In late elementary/early middle school: (5th and 6th)
$300 - 500 a week for the actual camp because they became more specialized and more money (but sadly not always better content) plus an additional $100 for after care some weeks
Schedule became more flexible so didn't always need before care

Middle school (7th and 8th):
$500 - $1000 for a week of camp - specialized day camps and one sleep away week camp.
but less weeks of camp were needed because child could stay home alone some weeks and we were able to coordinate some weeks with friends.

$350/week plus before/aftercare. We only use a few weeks of camp though as we have out of town grandparents on both sides who come to town for 2 weeks each in the summer so they can see the kids when they aren't in school and then we typically take 2 weeks of leave, so that pretty much covers it.

Typically we end up averaging $2500-$3000 per kid for 8-9 weeks of summer.

A mix of church, parks & rec, nature, art camps. It varies a lot and DS's favorite camp was an inexpensive church-based camp so we'd fill most of his summer with that while DD wants to do art and outdoor camps that tend to be more expensive.

HUGE range. We mostly do camp at our gym (since it has an indoor pool and DD is a little fish). It's anywhere from $140-$200 per week (and on the low end in general). Once she's a bit older she wants to do horse camp as well, which I know is around $500-600 per week.

We're in NE DC. We pay about $400 per kid per week for camp. There are cheaper options, but sometimes you get what you pay for. I know some people enlist the help of grandparents in the summer for a week of grandma camp.

I also wouldn't dismiss aftercare costs. They can be expensive depending on your school.

We only do about 5-6 weeks of Camp because of the cost, Its about $200-$300 a week ( for one kid) and I try and spread them out a bit.
Our childcare needs are from 2.30-6.30 so we hire a sitter for that, camp has nothing to do with childcare for us, its just to break up the summer.

This summer we are doing 2 weeks at Camp Sonshine, One week at our Church, One week Art Camp in Silver Spring, one week half day art camp in Rockville.