Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion YouthSpark Summer Camp Microsoft

I just signed both DD11 and DD10 up for the YouthSpark Summer Camps – Smart Game Coding (Intermediate)offered by Microsoft. My first question is -anyone have any personal experience with it? My second question is - am I a big fat liar? There are 2 levels of the coding camp, one for 8-10 and one for 11 on up. I put my 10 year old in the higher level camp as she always gets bored with the grade school level camps, and she is entering middle school this Fall so why put her with the younger kids? She also has done quite a bit of coding already. Guess it's kind of silly to worry about this, but I hope the teachers won't call me on it when they see DD (as mentioned before, she's tiny and looks younger than she is).

I won't worry about this for your DD10 especially since she has coded before. I rarely sign up my two DS for technology camps that their age mates are attending. If the camp organizers are strict about age/grade level, I look elsewhere. The only time I have been concerned about age was for a coding class that had a rowdy bunch of middle school kids in it (my DS are in elementary school).

I do have experience of a Youth Spark camp, my DS9 (then 7 years old) attended a film making YouthSpark camp for kids aged 11 years and above two years ago. The instructor couldn't say enough good things about him and how he was getting on in class whenever I came to pick him up after camp.

Thank you so much for responding. I just happened to see a Microsoft ad about this camp so I know very little about it. We will be going to this camp at an Apple store so my girls are thrilled (only drawback - it's at 8 am in the morning before the store opens!!). I hope to get a teacher who isn't a stickler for the rules like the instructor you all had. What is amazing is that the camp is free! The reviews online are all very positive.