These are our most frequently asked questions -- if your query isn't answered below, please email us at partsandcrafts@gmail.com and ask away!
q: What are you, exactly?
We are a small collective of teachers and makers who want to create tools, spaces, and projects for helping kids make things and make things happen. We got together through Camp Kaleidoscope. One of our major projects at the moment is running a summer day camp in Brookline exploring our own particular principles of education and fun.
q: Can I work with you folks?
a: Maybe! We're generally pretty unexcited when people email us and say "I want to work with you! I really love teaching and I really love kids." We're a lot more excited when you have a particular kind of teaching, or a particular topic of interest or a particular project that you're really excited about. But if you're interested in making or doing something awesome with kids or adults, and if you're interested in working closely and collaboratively with other awesome folks, and if you're not hoping to get rich, we might get along great! Also if you're interested in developing software, tools, projects, or kits for kids to work, play, and learn with, or software to help kids and adults organize their projects more effectively. And if you're committed to the elimination of all forms of oppression everywhere -- that's also a good plus.
q: Where is your program held?
a: At the Brookline Church of Christ, 416 Washington Street, Brookline, MA
q: Are you Camp Kaleidoscope?
a: No, we are a group of former Camp Kaleidoscope counselors who wanted to make sure that Camp K's educational and organizational philosphy could be brought to as many kids in as many communities as possible.
q: When are your programs running?
a: Look at our schedule. In general, our summer programs run from June 22 to August 21, but we are not running program during every summer week this year. If you'd like to do something with us but cannot come to any of our schedule programs, let us know -- we're quite flexible this summer and we might be able to start something that will work with your schedule.
q: How much do your programs cost?
a: Our answer to this is unfortunately but deliberately vague. Everything that we run is priced on a sliding scale. In general, our base suggested rate is $250 per week for our 9:00am to 3:00pm program, with additional costs of $25 and $50 for before- and after-care from 8:00am to 5:30pm, respectively. These rates are merely suggestions, though. If it makes more sense for you, personally, to pay less (or more) per week, that’s okay by us – it costs us approximately $1500 per week to run our planned programs plus something like $150 per kid as we start to need to pay additional adults. We really want camp to be a diverse environment in as many ways as possible, including economically. Our priority is working with lots of cool kids and making cool stuff, not getting rich – if we can afford to run our program we’d pretty much universally rather have you come to it than not have you come to it, whatever you can afford to pay.
q: Do kids get to play outside?
a: Yes! Counselors too! It's really important to us that we all get a chance to be outside, run around, get some exercise and fresh air. In addition to more and less structured outdoor activities and games, kids are allowed to go outside and play at the park whenever there's a free staff member to supervise them.
q: Is this an academic program? Robot camp? Why isn't my daughter building more robots?
a: We prefer not to draw hard lines between "academic" and "recreational", "learning" and "play" -- we think that, especially during the summer months during which most kids are recovering from school, kids should pretty much be doing whatever they want, so long as they're not hurting anyone. We will run a wide variety of activities, some
q: Do you accept vouchers?
a: Unfortunately we do not at the moment. We're working on it...
q: How many staff members will there be? How many children? What's your kid:counselor ratio?
a: Our summer camp in 2010 will have between 20 and 30 kids each week and between 4 and 6 counselors. This summer, our week-long programs will be much smaller -- between 6 and 15 kids and 2 or 3 adults. We will always have at least a 1:7 counselor to kid ratio.
q: What is a typical summer camp day like?
a: Each morning starts with a morning meeting where kids and counselors present their plans and projects for the day. Some activities last all day, but most activities are scheduled for either the morning or the afternoon. Kids can generally move between different activities as their interests in different things wax and wane. They can also always work on their own projects, by themselves or with each other, or with help from a free counselor. When it's not raining kids are pretty likely to play outside at some point during the day. Even if it is raining, as long as its not thunderstorming, outside projects are always a possibility.
q: What should my child bring to your programs?
a: In general, they should dress in clothes that can get messy. Sometimes we use paint, sometimes food coloring, sometimes we dig in the mud. Even if it's just a robotics or electronics class, we might end up painting or decorating something in a messy way. It's nice to have a rain jacket in case it starts to rain on an outdoor activity. The summer is very hot and sunny so we all should probably wear sunblock and carry a water-bottle. And we don't provide lunch, so kids should bring whatever food (lunch and snacks) that they're likely to need to keep happy and healthy during the day.
q: When you go on field trips, how do you travel?
a: Mostly we take the T. Sometimes we walk. On very rare occasions we'll charter a bus, but this is pretty unlikely.