City Museum's Stuff the Bus Campaign Provides School Supplies for 160 St. Louis Schools

Being able to focus on yourself, your partner, and other people in your life who mean a lot to you is no small matter. As parents, we’re used to being responsible providers and caregivers. However, there’s so much more to a person: we’re also partners and friends. These are important parts of our identities that we need to cultivate. Sending your kids to summer camp may bring out your more playful side that you haven’t shown for a while.

It’s normal for parents to want to protect their children from failure. It’s also normal to want them to achieve, win, and do their best. But here’s the truth: We don’t learn anything new without making mistakes. I’ll say it again. Making mistakes is a crucial step in learning. If we’re fearful of making mistakes, learning comes to a screeching halt.

For those of us who grew up in the 1980s, summer camp arts and crafts projects were limited to beaded keychains, and for the lucky few, maybe a macrame plant holder. Never could we have imagined designing a couture fashion line, producing stop-motion films, or building our own robots. But for kids attending COCA Summer Arts Camps, these incredible hands-on activities are just a few of the hundreds of full- and half-day camp options waiting to be discovered. Starting in May, COCA opens its doors to a diverse range of programming that gives campers the freedom to let their inner artists, writers, and performers run wild.

Want your child to learn about subjects in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), and have fun doing it? Help them further understand the inner workings of what's all around them by enrolling them in a STEM-fueled summer camp. You may be surprised at the wide variety of highly-acclaimed summer camps in the St. Louis area that put new and exciting twists on STEM concepts, creating hands-on fun for kids with the benefit of being educational.