I'll add as well-- we had a great experience last summer (2024) with Creative Campers at Holton Arms. Really well organized and great communication plus a great variety of activities to choose from.

Anonymous wrote:Signed up my teen for Writopia and it was terrible. Don’t recommend it and it’s expensive!

Have others had a bad (or good?) experience with Writopia? I was thinking about signing up my teen/preteens this summer but they've never attended anything there.

A good friend of mine created the website BeyondSchool.co to gather camp listings and reviews. She's encouraging parents to share their experiences and discover new camps. Check it out!

My 12 yo DD loves Traveling Players! She did the 2 week camp last year and is really excited to do the 3 week one this year. Highly recommend

Our family loved camp Shoresh which is a Jewish day camp with an overnight feel in Maryland. Great option for kids (and parents) who’d like an overnight camp but are hesitant sending kids away or pay $$$$$ for the experience. We are in Montgomery county but they have busses from VA and Baltimore area. Great engaging programs with fun outdoor activities daily. Siblings different ages can attend the same camp (the ones in high school are counselors in training CITs).

Anonymous wrote:My animal-loving 10 year old liked Camp Woodend at Nature Forward. Outside all day, catching frogs and other critters in the pond, hiking, and doing some traditional camp activities like putting on a talent show.

My 8y DD also loved nature forward camp, but she was allergic to something there, had itch and red eyes for most of the days, might skip this year.

Anyone have experience with WIS summer camp? We would be interested for our rising 1st grader.

Adventures on The Hill was great for my 5 year old boy. He would always come home with projects and enjoyed the field trips!

My animal-loving 10 year old liked Camp Woodend at Nature Forward. Outside all day, catching frogs and other critters in the pond, hiking, and doing some traditional camp activities like putting on a talent show.

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Anonymous wrote:Disappointed by the camps run through Montgomery college. My daughters each took STEM Related camps and they both spent way too much time watching videos with fewer hands on activities than advertised. The whole operation felt very half baked.

Takoma/Silver Spring. Not at all worth the money.

My Middle Schooler has done two camps at the Takoma/Silver Spring location and enjoyed them both. The one this year was a business one and the one last year was a debate type one. I'm not sure about the coding classes, but for both of those camps, the instructors were great.

We tried both the Rockville and Germantown locations. "Teachers" were also basically HS students or volunteer parents and didn't really care to do anything. We tried fashion, drawing with food (I forgot the actual name), and interior design camp. They were really unstructured and just awful. Kids who had emotional dysregulation were in many of the classes and just out of control and leaders didn't know how to cope. We left all camps after 2 days (for week long camps). We kept giving them chance after chance and it just didn't work. Kids in interior design camp played iwth roblox all the time and the instructor had maybe 30 min of instructions and they were sitting in front of a computer for 5 hours. NOPE!

My kids have done some of the half-day Black Rocket classes for two summers now and liked them. They're not terribly rigorous, but they seemed to have fun, the instructors seemed to have an organized plan for each day and the kids produced online projects by the end. My kids are not the most motivated of learners, so I think they appreciated a tech learning class that was low key and included a lot of independent work at your own pace.

Signed up my teen for Writopia and it was terrible. Don’t recommend it and it’s expensive!

We loved Camp Sonshine again. It was her 8th summer attending. We do 2 weeks each summer.
Police camp thru MCPD. It was free and she loved it. 2 field trips and plenty to keep them busy.
Surprisingly she really liked camp at Banneker MS thru moco rec. it was only $260 for all 6 weeks and I didn’t think it would be great. For that price though I was good if she only went for a week or two. She ended up going 4 weeks and wanted to do more. Lots of sports which she enjoys anyway, adult counselors, I was nervous it would be teens but it wasn’t. Field trips were good, pool trip kinda sucked. It was weekly and close but the entire time including travel was 90 mins. They had less than an hour of actual swim time. It was pretty basic imo but for that price I’m good with it. She didn’t know anyone going into it but made friends easily.

I wanted my tweens to try something new this summer, so they did a week of Fencing and Archery Camp at Nova Fencing. It was very well run and tons of fun. It ranked as one of their favorite camps of the summer.

Club SciKidz (holy cross) - 2 kids each attended for 2 weeks. One week was the topic of their choice. The other week was their choice of the topics for their age group during the week of sibling’s choice. All 4 sessions were pretty good. Neither kid complained and both would recommend. Younger kid would go back, but would choose different topics. (Junior meteorologist next year, will probably be essentially the same as junior meteorologist this year)

Drop off and pick up was smooth. They had a schedule and mostly stuck too it and went on the playground multiple times each day.

Good to hear! My DD will be going next year. Just an FYI for those who may be interested- they do a camper in training day during the summer. It's free. The perspective kids get a few hours to do activities, see the bunks, swim, eat in the dining hall, etc. with counselors. The parents get a tour, do some activities, and get any questions answered. it was well run. I was impressed and my DD was sold. I think a few other camps do this as well, like Capital Camps (also Jewish).

Anonymous wrote:Camp Louise for Jewish sleepaway camp for girls (boys go to nearby Camp Airy). Kid had fun, made a lot of friends, good communication about general camp stuff, no complaints about food. Pictures are sent daily and always looks fun. Pool, no lake, but a nearby lake where they take occasional trips.

My kid has some minor special needs, which they are well equipped to deal with. I do think that communication with me about the special needs issues during camp was not as responsive as I've had in other situations, but on location was handled well.

Not very religious, not kosher, they do Friday night/ Saturday morning Shabbat activities.