Camp Galileo Opens New Location

The season of the summer camp is now upon us, and one of the most popular choices for parents in the south bay and on the peninsula appears to be Camp Galileo.

A mix of fun play, art and science, Camp Galileo (CG) is celebrating its 10th anniversary in the Bay Area this year, and has just opened up a new camp site at Encinal Elementary School in Atherton, to the delight of many Menlo Park parents like Charlene Birkland, who used to trek her two boys, now 9 and 6 years old, down to Palo Alto to get them to CG.

Birkland said, to her boys, CG is the summer camp they just can’t seem to get enough of. For four years running, they have been begging Mom and Dad to send them to CG, every summer.

“We started sending our older son there four years ago because we had heard good things about it. But, I didn’t really know what to expect, other than what you read on their site,” Birkland said. “But, he fell in love with it. He loved the activities, and said the team leaders were super kind, and so caring and inspiring for him. The next year, he kept asking, ‘can I go to Camp Galileo this summer?’”

Birkland said, she would always bring her younger son along when she went to pick his older brother up at the end of camp each day, and eventually, he got bitten by the Galileo bug as well.

“It’s just such a wonderful program—the art and science and the social skills they learn, and getting to meet other kids that aren’t in their community and don’t go to their schools,” she described. “It’s a great learning environment on top of being just a world of fun for them.”

CG opened its first summer camps in Menlo Park and Palo Alto 10 years ago. Over the years its popularity grew by leaps and bounds, leading staff to open up additional peninsula sites in Belmont, Burlingame, Hillsborough, Los Altos and Woodside, as well as south bay sites in Cupertino, Saratoga, Sunnyvale, and the Almaden Valley and Evergreen neighborhoods of San Jose.

The camps have several different age groups, with fun, science-themed names. Kids entering kindergarten are called “Nebulas;” those about to enter the first and second grades are “Stars,” and kids entering third through fifth grade are “Supernovas.”

Atherton camp director Jessi Leary said, CG is founded on what they call “the Galileo Innovation Approach.”

“We want students to have the idea that they can change the world,” she explained. “So, through that idea, they have the opportunity to use their imaginations, use problem-solving skills and do amazing art, and each rotation has some elements of education, but it’s mostly following the child and seeing what comes out of their art, of being outdoors, of doing team-building, and of just free play, as well.”

Marketing manager Julie Eglington said, that all begins first, with having the mindset that they can change the world, and then, having the knowledge and skills to know that they have the ability to change it, such as by utilizing the basic principals of science that start with forming an idea for a solution to a problem, and then testing that solution and coming to a conclusion.

This week at the Atherton CG at Encinal Elementary, the theme was “We Built this City,” in which kids learned about the different elements of a city and how one is made, as well as the forming of a community. Several classes did projects on a fictional city called “Smogville,” and learning ways to clean up the imaginary dirty town and make it more “green.”

For example, some classes did beautification projects of public art, such as murals and “peace walls,” stencil graffiti in the style of the famous artist Banksy, and paintings in the style of the famous artist John Michael Basquiat. The classes had discussions about who the famous artists were that they were channeling in their projects, and then got to make a little art of their own.

Of course, there’s always time for fun—each Thursday is “Water Day,” when campers all descend upon CG in their waterproof outfits, ready for water relays, water freeze tag and just generally running around, throwing water balloons at each other and dodging the team leader who wields a supersoaker gun.

Eglington said, CG has an extensive staff of curriculum coordinators who spend all year preparing lessons, content and activities for each week of the summer camps.

“There’s quite a lot of content that goes into the curriculum each week,” she said. “We actually have a year-long curriculum team that puts together curriculum for each summer. They’re actually already starting in on planning next summer.”

Leary and Eglington explained that there are a few different levels of adults that work at the camps—summer interns who may be in high school or waiting to start college in the fall, team leaders who are typically college students on break, and lead instructors who have college degrees and even masters degrees, or are working, credentialed teachers who like to work in the summer when they are on break from their full-time school positions. At the Atherton site, many of the camp workers had impressive backgrounds, such as a team leader who flew out from Dartmouth where she attends college to be a team leader, and a recent Stanford grad who wanted a fun summer job working with kids in the outdoors.

“We actually hear from many of the full-time teachers who work with us during the summers that they really love working with the CG program because, so often during the year, they have to worry about tests and assessments and grades, but here, they get to really have fun with the kids and do great projects,” Eglington said.

Leary said, the Encinal campus has been amazing to work at, especially earlier this week, when rain made an unexpected appearance during camp—the first time in CG’s 10-year history of holding camp in the month of June. Encinal Elementary has a wealth of outdoor covered areas, as well as a large multipurpose room and generous-sized classrooms.

“So, we really did pretty much the same stuff, we just modified the way we did it,” she explained. “We’re really fortunate; Encinal Elementary is an amazing location.”

With CG, families can sign up for a week of camp at a time, or, in the case of two parents who work full-time, kids can sign up for the entire summer, and “before-care” and “after-care” is available for families who need to drop the kids early before camp starts at 9 a.m., or leave them there a little later, as camp gets out at 3 p.m. each day. There are four different camp themes they rotate between all summer, such as this week’s “We Built this City” theme.

There are still openings for some weeks at Camp Galileo-Atherton this summer. For more information, visit http://www.galileo-learning.com/camp/Camp-Galileo_Atherton.html.