Amy:
We are a science museum so camp seems like a natural fit for us
programmatically.
We do an all-out ten week day long summer camp at Explorit. It is hugely
popular and a great deal of work. It also brings in a lot of money for the
museum and is one of the best ways to have lasting impact on kids. We offer
week-long sessions of half-day classes or full-day classes. We have a staff
ratio of 1 instructor for 18 kids (1:12 for pre-school). We hire staff and
then rely heavily on teenage volunteers. So, generally there is one staff
teacher with each group and then 1 high-school volunteer. Volunteers are
great but erratic so we often run classes without any volunteers. The
teachers who run the classes are not responsible for administration so we
have two additional staff (me and my assistant) handling all
administration. Also, our camp is so intense that we rotate staff so no one
works the full ten weeks in a row (we leave time off for planning and
preparing). The staff who works the morning is different than the staff who
works the afternoon--otherwise we'd get stuck with paying a lot of
overtime.

We offer classes for preschoolers, 1-2nd graders and 3-5th graders.

Currently our camp staff plans the classes but I am planning to try
something different this year. Planning takes a lot of time and it's hard
to control quality unless you really know the staff well. We hire a lot of
temporary staff just for summer and it takes a few weeks for them to get
their feet wet. This year I am planning to re-use really strong camp
session from the past so that we can control quality.

The camp day is 2 hours a day for pre-schoolers (9-11a.m.). The 1-5th
graders either attend for 3.5 hours (9 - 12:30p.m.) or they can stay a full
day and be with us from 9a.m. until 5:30p.m. Parents want us to start even
earlier but it starts to feel like day care and we don't want to go inm
that direction.

We offer classes for the full ten weeks of summer break. We literally start
the Monday after school finishes and end the Friday before kids go back.

We keep the kids outside a lot but cannot leave the grounds of the museum.
We do not have transportation and aren't ready to investigate those
insurance issues yet.

Discipline problems are HUGE and a major, major headache. We basically
become a school for ten weeks and suddenly we are dealing with bloody noses
and kids who are home sick and parents who are angry and kids who have ADD
or developmental problems or who are just not into being here. This year,
due to serious discipline problems in the past, I am writing a behavior
policy for us to use. Generally, the staff teaching classes cannot deal
with discipline problems because they have a whole class to deal with. So,
the administrative staff handles discipline issues. Kids are sent to the
"office" for time outs. Parents are called for conferences. It's really
crazy and it's kind of a nightmare.

Our kids work in classroom spaces although we use the galleries to
supplement what we do.

We do incoprorate downtime. For kids staying for a full day we take an hour
break for lunch and recess. We are lucky enough to have a park within
walking distance so we go there. During the 3.5 hour classes we have a
snack break (we provide snack) and a small recess. Usually we just go to
the park and let the kids run around. Often, after recess we'll do a quiet
activity like reading a story related to the topic we're exploring.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!
Jessica Ruskin
Program Director

Explorit Science Center
3141 5th Street
P.O. Box 1288
Davis, CA 95617
(530) 756-0191
FAX (530) 756-1227
http://www.explorit.org

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