Festivals & Fireworks to Celebrate July 4th in St. Louis

It’s time to decide whether to send your kids to sleepaway camp, but how do you know that's the right thing to do? How can you tell whether your kids are ready for their first extended stay away from home? Here are 7 important signs that experts say should inform your decision.

It's time to celebrate Independence Day in St. Louis, and because this year July 4th falls on a Friday, your family can look forward to a full weekend of festivals and fireworks. Check out these family-friendly celebrations that include carnivals, fantastic fireworks and lots more.

For many St. Louis families, the start of June represents the real start of summer. That's when the summer fun really starts to kick in, and the fact that so many activities and attractions are free is just a bonus!

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. 

Focused listening is one of the most important skills your child will ever learn. Children with strong listening skills do better in school, sports, relationships and, eventually, in their careers. But many children lack this important skill and parents are rightly concerned. First, listening is much more than just hearing.