Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Anyone's child at a SIG camp this summer?

I was wondering if anyone has a young child (K-3) at any of the SIG day camps this summer. If so, I would love to hear some feedback on the quality and level of the courses. You can post on the forum, or send me a PM if you prefer.

I'm thinking of sending my DS next summer, but it's expensive, and I don't want to do it unless I can be reasonably sure that the academic content will be a good fit.

Ooh ooh, I would be interested to hear as well. Thinking of this for next summer.

DS7 attended the SIG 3 week day camp earlier this summer. He wants to attend next summer. He did "game theory" where he learned chess strategies and other strategy games, an earth sciences class, and a chemistry class. He loved them all, but his favorite was the chess...that teacher was particularly enthusiastic. His most challenging part of the camp was coming up with his own project. He is so used to school telling him what to do and study, that the novelty of that threw him for a loop. But he chose tornados for earth science and had fun.

Disclaimer: my son is 2e (autism) so for him, fun is staying busy and not being bored by lectures. He had to use his "strategies" of leaving the room a few times to avoid being disruptive during "boring times" and the teachers were tolerant of that. Also, the play periods were hard for him (like a lot of unstructured things are) especially because there were older kids who wanted to hang out with themselves, and not a 7 year old little boy. He wanted to do things with a group of older (9 or 10 year old) girls and they (of course!) wanted nothing to do with him.

You are right about the cost, but for us it was worth it. It was a great transition from school to summer. I can answer anything else in more detail if you want. nan

So what do you think about the actual content? Was it challenging/interesting enough? You mentioned that your son had to leave the room during the "boring times."

The actual content was interesting and I think with the right kid, it could be challenging. For him, he had to pick a topic within a narrow range and then research it. He didn't know what to research about tornados...what would be interesting for a presentation on that topic...I had to point him in the right direction. He was content to figure out why tornados form more in the area of the US called tornado alley. He didn't elaborate as much as he could have. The teachers let the kids do what they want on the topic. When he was done, he was done whether it was a finished project or not. By boring, I meant continuing to fine tune and flesh out a project. He said he finished his project and everyone else was still working on theirs. He didn't know the right questions to ask the teachers on how to flesh out the presentation. The teachers wanted him to finish the project and he said he was done. This was my son's first experience with independent research. I did not realize the camp was going to involve this, and the other parents seem to know. I think if I had prepared DS ahead of time, he would have handled it better. But I also think that the teachers could have assisted a little more.

That's probably why the game strategies class was his favorite...no big project and always learning new strategies for different games. Does that help? Nan