2018 Summer Camps

Registration is ongoing - online or at SPI, 400 S. Main St., Mount Vernon, OH. You may fill out the registration form and then make an online payment after you receive the link. Your order will be "shipped" and charged when we have confirmed eligibility.  

Tech and Science Camps for upper elementary and middle school  
(Enrollment 12/session)

Camps will be held upstairs at the Wright Center or Columbia School and will be instructed by Eric Vanderhoof, science teacher at Mount Vernon High School. Morning camps are 9:15am-12:15pm. Afternoon camps will be 1:15-4:15pm. 
Regular Price $80
Financial Need Price $40
Sue Webster Member $15

Camps with space available are listed first!

T3 June 25-29 Lego Simple Machines Session 1
For children finishing grades 3-5
Mornings at Columbia Elementary School
Levers, gears, pulleys, and wheels. Simple machines are the basis for any budding engineer’s inventions. Use Lego to explore how simple machines make our technology possible and our lives better. Each camp day includes a focus on a different simple machine, followed by an opportunity for creative free building.
There is an option to purchase the kit you used at camp to take home.
The second session Simple Machines Lego Camp, T4, is the same and will be July 23-27 afternoons (described below).
​
S1 June 25-29 Real World Chemistry
For children finishing grades 6-10
Afternoons at Columbia Elementary School
Chemistry is the art and science of transforming one material into another and of understanding the nature of the physical world. To emphasize that this happens in the real world outside a lab, Real World Chemistry will use materials that can be found or bought in Mount Vernon stores. Students will extract and purify plant products, examine the interaction of light with matter, transform metals, and use solar power from grocery store purchases. No prior chemistry experience is necessary.

S2 July 9-13 Rollers, Rockets, and Race Cars - Physics in Motion
For children finishing grades 3-5
Mornings at the Wright Center 2nd floor
Physics in Motion helps late elementary students understand motion in the world around them. By building roller coasters, rockets, fan cars, slingshots, spinning tops and hovercraft, students will gain an understanding of mechanical energy and momentum. No prior physics experience needed. Students will take home their creations.

S3 July 9-13 Static, Circuit, and Electronic - Electrical Physics
For children finishing grades 4-6
Afternoons at the Wright Center 2nd floor
Electricity powers the modern world. Electrical physics develops students’ concepts of electricity, first by zapping using static electricity, then by making electricity follow circuits through lights and motors, and finally by building basic electronics. Several projects will be taken home.

S4 July 23-27 Acoustics and Optics - The Physics of Sound and Light
For children finishing grades 3-6
Mornings at the Wright Center 
We understand the world mostly through sound and light. This camp aims to help students learn to use and change the waves in the world around them. By using speakers, lasers, mirrors, lenses, and slinkies, we hope to understand how musical instruments, surround-sound, headlights, 3-D goggles, cameras, and microscopes bend vibrations in the world around us to our will. Several projects will be taken home.

T4 July 23-27 Lego Simple Machines, Session 2
For children finishing grades 3-5
Afternoons at the Wright Center 2nd floor​
Levers, gears, pulleys, and wheels. Simple machines are the basis for any budding engineer’s inventions. Use Lego to explore how simple machines make our technology possible and our lives better. Each camp day includes a focus on a different simple machine, followed by an opportunity for creative free building.
There is an option to purchase the kit you used at camp to take home.

T1A/B June 11-15 Android Code Camp / Advanced Code Camp for children finishing grades 5-11; mornings, Wright Center 2nd floor. This camp (T1A/B) is FULL. You may register to be on the wait list. Do not pay until you have been assured a space.
Make your own apps! Android programs respond to screen touch, GPS, acceleration, and sound. Create games, art programs, life organizers, and more. No programming experience needed.
For older students, advanced code camp challenges students to develop apps that interact with the real world using Raspberry Pi computers. Perfect for students with some coding experience. There is an option to purchase and bring home the android phone or Raspberry Pi you will be using at the camp.

T2 June 11-15 Lego Robotics Camp For children finishing grades 5-8; afternoons. This camp (T2) is FULL. You may register to be on the wait list. Do not pay until you have been assured a space.
Kids love robots. Kids love Lego. Lego Robotics Camp channels this love into a series of projects that introduce students to the engineering process (and helps them to make really awesome robots do their bidding). There will be both guided and free-build time using the Lego NXT robotics system. Robot programming is done using an easy drag and drop interface.

Nature Play Camps at the BFEC
​for primary school children 
​​(Enrollment 24/session)

All SPI Nature camps are full for this year.  
Located at the Brown Family Environmental Center: Gambier, Ohio
Half-day camps will be from 8:30am-11:30am. All camps are nature-play camps. Children will play in the river, creek, meadow, and pine forest. They will get wet and dirty and do all the things you wish kids these days still did outside - like climbing, running, catching frogs in the ponds, and playing in the river, even in the rain, without electronic devices. They will gain confidence, learn how to take risks safely, and improve their social skills in a natural environment, gaining experience, knowledge, and appreciation of our natural world. All instructors are elementary school teachers. 
Half-day camps N1-N5 
Regular Price $60
Financial Need Price $30
Sue Webster Family Access Member $15

N2- June 11-15: Nature Play Camp, 8:30am - 11:30am, for children ages 8-11
Instructors: Amy Kramp and Liz Bonaudi- ​This camp is Full
​
N3- June 18-22: Nature Play Camp, 8:30am - 11:30am, for children ages 5-7 (includes all children starting kindergarten)
Instructors: Lori Zolman and Eileen Eilbacher  This camp (N3) is FULL. You may register to be on the wait list. Do not pay until you have been assured a space.

N4- June 25-29: Nature Play Camp, 8:30am - 11:30am, for children ages 8-11
Instructors: Lori Zolman and Eileen Eilbacher This camp (N4) is FULL. You may register to be on the wait list. Do not pay until you have been assured a space.


R1- July 2, 3, 5, 6:  River Camp, 8:30am - 2:30pm, for children ages 8-11
Instructors: Lori Zolman, Amy Kramp, and Michelle Kramp This camp is FULL.  You may register to be on the wait list. Do not pay until you have been assured a space. 

N5- July 9-12: Family Camp, 8:30am - 11:30am, for children ages 5-11 (includes all children starting kindergarten) so that siblings can be together.
Instructors: Amy Kramp and Eileen Eilbacher This camp is FULL. You may register to be on the wait list. Do not pay until you have been assured a space. ​

N1- June 4-8: Nature Play Camp, 8:30am - 11:30am, for children who will be ages 5-7 (includes all children starting kindergarten)
Thank you instructors Amy Kramp and Liz Bonaudi. This full camp was a success! Children made forts and climbed trees in the pine forest. They played in the mud on the riverbank and investigated the ponds for tadpoles and frogs. Thank you to Emily Heithaus, parent and Kenyon College's lifetime fitness coordinator, who helped campers make leave-no-trace campfires. 

Film Camp
for grades 7- 10
​(Enrollment 12)

This camp (F1) is FULL. You may register to be on the wait list. Do not pay until you have been assured a space. At the Wright Center with Kenyon College's Film Department, for those finishing grades 7-10.
June 25-29
Full-day, 9am-4pm
Regular Price $150
Financial Need Price $75
​Sue Webster Member $15

The Kenyon Film Camp is a week-long experience led by Kenyon College Film Professor, Jonathan Tazewell and other professionals with expertise in computer technology and cinematography. Participants will learn the fundamentals of film production, script writing, and video editing with Adobe Premiere. They will become acclimated with "film grammar", hone interview skills, and produce a piece to exhibit during a film festival on the last day of camp - parents welcome! During camp, adolescents can expect to build collaboration skills, and there will be opportunities for students to explore their own ideas.
spi_camps_2018_flier_4-2018.pdf
File Size: 1564 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File