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Alas, Poor DS has read Hatchet several times, once on his own in 2nd and perhaps 2 or 3 times more as required by school in subsequent grades. I think he liked it at first, but it's gotten a little old.

He read the My Side of the Mountain book back in 3rd and we would highly recommend it and all it's sequels.

His true love is wolves and he has read tons of wolf books, including the technical stuff, and he's turned into a groupie of the 3 main wolf biologists working on wolf management in our state!

Yes, DS does really like the game design software they used. He went online and got the free trial installed on our computer when we got back and has been working on stuff at home. You may want your child to try it out before you buy. I think the counselors helped with various suggestions and coaching, which I am sure was helpful since I'm useless at those things. But honestly I think a bright kid with parents who had a passing knowledge of computers probably would do fine without the counselors.

Thanks acs! I'll check out the free trial on that software. Both DH and I have comp sci degrees in our arsenal. So we may be arm wrestling to play with it!

The id tech camps have the benefit of being at some great college campuses. Kids get to see a college (we're beginning our college search for oldest ds), live in dorms, etc. Their courses are not all video game creation--there's website design, robotics, and many others (see www.internaldrive.com) . I'm not very computer savvy so I would never be able to work with them, nor would their interest be piqued by Mom as much as by a group of excited kids and instructors who know what they're doing. I wouldn't dismiss it quickly if your kids are into technology/gaming and you have the money.

Oh cym, don't get me wrong. DS loved it. It was a great camp and a wonderful first sleep away camp. I was just a little surprised that most of the camp programs (I'm not sure about robotics) were based on using software that could be easily purchased. (I had thought that they would be starting more with basic principles of programing and computers.) We loved that he had such close supervision and so much assistance, etc.as he learned the programs. And he learned a lot from them, so much that now he is pretty independent with those programs. So we agreed that with that as a foundation, he doesn't need to do it again. We can branch out and try something different. So I have no regrets about sending him.

Oh yeah and since we don't have video games at home, he was in 7th heaven on the Guitar Hero tournament. And I got huge points from him for letting him go to a camp where there were so many other computer-oriented kids to play with and his screen time wasn't limited to 2 hours per day!!.