I just finished my 9th year teaching elementary art. By the end of every year I feel exhausted and don’t want anything to do with running a summer art camp like many other art teachers out there. Until this year that is. For whatever reason, I finally worked up the courage (and energy, let’s be honest) to run a summer art camp. Now that it’s all said and done, I wanted to share my thoughts of what to consider if you are thinking of doing your own summer art camp. Or art camp any time of year!

One huge advantage of running your own art camp is the fact that you have complete control and creative freedom with it! But with that, comes a lot of work! Below, I’ll go through some main considerations when thinking about starting your own art camp.

Who Attends

You get to control the number of kids you have and the ages of those kids. You may have less behavior problems considering the kids who sign up are those who really want to be there, but then again you still might have some behaviors to manage. You can’t control everything! Since I teach kindergarten through 5th grade, I had my camp open to students entering 1st grade through 6th grades next school year. This allowed all my own students to attend and I was familiar with these ages since that’s what I’m used to teaching. I didn’t limit it to just students at my own school either, I had some from other schools in the area. It was nice to be able to offer art opportunities to kids in the whole area. 

The Activities

The types of activities and projects you do is completely up to you! To make it appealing to kids and easier to plan and prepare, I created four themed art camps – STEAM Art, Fiber Arts, Book Binding, and Recycled Art. Not only did I think these would be topics that kids would be really interested in, I was interested in teaching them. You want to make sure you are excited about it to keep the kids excited too! Choose things to do in art camp that you don’t normally get to do in your classroom throughout the year. Is there something you’ve always wanted to teach but never had the opportunity to do? Now’s your chance! Having themes also helped me narrow down my thoughts and help me organize the curriculum. 

When and Where

Some other things to consider are when and where you are going to hold your camp. Unfortunately, I missed the deadline to reserve my own classroom. However, I think it worked out for the best. I used my local public library which had its own benefits. Because they are in the business of providing for the community, my library does not charge to rent the rooms for things like camps, classes, clubs, etc. Being in the library also made it more of a neutral location for all the kids who signed up. Since I had students from other schools, not just my own, I think it made it more comfortable and not like one group of kids had an advantage over others. One disadvantage I had was the fact that I had to set up and tear down each and every day. I was not allowed to leave anything there and I was limited to what I brought. If I had been in my own classroom, I would have had everything there with me. Being limited though, might have been an advantage too since I wasn’t able to get everything out all the time for the kids. Sometimes less is more right? I didn’t have any issue with kids asking to get out a million things and then have a huge mess on my hands. I think knowing that I was making more money by being in the library, made this limitation worth it for me. 

When scheduling my art camp, I originally had it planned for the first week after school got out. I ended up changing it to start the second week and I am so grateful I did! This allowed me to have one week in between school finishing and camp starting to prepare both mentally and physically. I was able to finish planning my activities during this time and buy and organize materials too. 

I ended up doing four different camps over the span of two weeks. The mornings were one camp and the afternoons were another camp. If students signed up for both, I offered supervised lunch. I thought this might be more appealing to parents who may need childcare for a whole day during summer hours, and I did have many kids sign up for both this way! I only did four days a week and that ended up being a good amount of time for the kids. You could tell by the end of the two weeks, some kids who had signed up for both weeks were ready to be done. On the 4th day of each week, it really felt like the last days of the school year! Kids were done, I was tired and done. We were all ready for a change!

Ask For Help

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Use your resources to help you! I have some coworkers who have done art camps for many years. So I went to them for advice on how to organize and schedule my own. I ended up asking some teacher friends to help me out during my actual camp. Not only did they help with setting up and tearing down every day, they also helped with classroom management. I purposely asked teachers to help because I knew they would not be afraid to jump right in and help manage different situations and lead activities. I also had former students of mine who are in middle school and high school help me out. It was great to have the extra hands on deck to organize, set up and tear down, load and unload my car, manage the kids, help with passing out supplies, etc. I couldn’t have done it without all my helpers!

Compensation

Finally, the ultimate benefit of running a summer art camp is getting paid some extra money! I know people don’t always like to talk about money, especially teachers, but when it comes down to it, I was highly motivated by making money with my camps! If you’re considering running a summer art camp, don’t be afraid to charge a larger amount per camper. You are a certified art teacher and that is worth something! You will need to buy supplies and maybe pay to rent out a facility and/or hold insurance for the kids. Not only are you providing high quality instruction adn materials, you are providing day care for peoples’ children that they would be paying anyway. However, instead of just paying for regular summer day care, you are offering them valuable experiences. You are worth the money! And that money can be extremely helpful to you as supplemental income. 

Overall, I am really happy that I did an art camp this summer. It was a lot of work but I was able to control all aspects of it and make a decent amount of money! I would definitely do it again. If you are considering it, I would say yes, do it! But if you are overwhelmed, overworked, and it sounds too intimidating or tiring, then don’t! It’s not worth it if you need your own time to take care of yourself. Or if it just doesn’t sound fun at all, it’s completely okay to say no! Only do it when you’re ready and want to. It took my 9 years of teaching before I said yes and took the plunge! 

Keep blending,

Laura