Advice about City of Berkeley Day Camps
- See City of Berkeley Summer Camps for reviews of specific camps
Parent Q&A
Since you are already familiar with the City of Berkeley camp at Shorebird, have you looked into the City of Berkeley summer fun camps? The ones at James Kenney and San Pablo Park each do one afternoon at West Campus pool. They are slightly cheaper than the Shorebird camp, and my kid (who attended both for several summers) always preferred the summer fun camps over Shorebird.
There are a lot! Here's our list: Trackers, Sees the Day, Cal Explorers, Berkeley City Camps, Kids for the Bay, A World of Peace, Wild Ones Art Camp, One Generation, Monkey Business. Some of these are on our list of camps we want to try but haven't yet. We've done:
- Trackers: focus on outdoor skills, all outdoors, they do a great job teaching how to be responsible in the outdoors including leave no trace principles, how to be safe about things like knives. They throw in some cool fantasy stuff, like there was a dragon theme day over winter break where the kids searched for "dragons" (actually birds), and that makes it really fun for younger kids. This is the one I'd recommend the most for nature and hikes.
- Cal explorers: they had a little bit of indoor time but mostly outdoors with a huge range of activities - sports, arts and crafts, science/nature projects, dance, usually they have swim lessons but they canceled last year because of COVID.
- Berkeley camps: they have a few different ones, with a range of activities and prices. We did one of the playground-based ones and it was simple but fun - lots of free play on the playground with some arts and crafts and sports activities mixed in. Some of their camps go to more nature spots like the marina and tilden, we want to try one of those this year.
Most don't have registration open, except for Trackers which is already full for most weeks!
Your boys might enjoy the Berkeley Marina camps. They vary from Marin biology to boating or kayaking. They are affordable and very well run. You need to monitor the city’s website under the Berkeley Marina tab to find out when the sign up is going to be. Usually the “sporty” camps fill the same day. When my kids were that age they also liked the UC village half day camps like LEGO building, chess or gymnastics. Good luck!
We didn't do them last year, but have many other years, starting at age 5, and will again this year (age 10). My outgoing kiddo has been fine. He has formed several long term relationships with the staff and happily chats with them when he sees them out in the community and at other city run events. The camps are less structured than some other camps (e.g., less structured than Blue Camp up at Cal), but my kid has enjoyed the extra freedom of choice and still never complained about being bored or not making friends. The staff tend to be part year round staff and part hired for summer older teens and college kids. Far more diversity in the staff and kiddos than we have seen in other camps, which we prefer.
My 10yo has happily attended two locations of the CoB “summer fun camps” for the past four years. They’re great for kids who are social and generally down for any activity. They do a variety of crafts, games, and free play. Once a week they go swimming, and many weeks they have a field trip somewhere. Definitely recommended.
As a bonus, my child has formed casual friendship with kids outside his school community. We love running into camp friends at playgrounds or city events.
The Berkeley Day camp (at Shorebird) is also excellent, although a bit more expensive. They do canoeing!
Sometimes these camps haven’t been as fun for kids who are shy, inflexible, or picky about their activities. Even then, attending with a friend often helps.