Over this school holiday period, you will probably need to find plenty of activities for the kids to do here. Check out these summer holiday camps in Singapore that’ll keep them active, thinking and having a great time. From science to art and robotics, there’s loads of choice for different interests and various ages!
Newtonshow Space Academy & Chemistry Monsters
Focus: Space and chemistry
Ages: 3 to 13 years
Duration: 31 May to 27 August, Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm
Cost: From $80 per day
Location: 221 River Valley Road; 229 Joo Chiat Road; 887A Bukit Timah Road; 175 Thompson Road
Registration: 8264 6655 | Newtonshowcamp.com
Got a budding space scientist at home? Newtonshow’s Space Academy holiday camp will engage your child’s imagination about space exploration, geography and language. No topic is out of this world at the camp – kids get to explore UFOs, code messages for life on other planets, make a constellation viewer and take space cadet tests, while also finding out about the countless natural phenomena found in space.
If your child leans more towards scientific experimentation, the Chemistry Monsters camp has plenty of activities to satisfy them. They’ll uncover the fun in science through activities ranging from kitchen chemistry to photo chemistry, and take part in a fizzy science workshop.
There’s a project to be done each day, which the kids can bring home. All campers receive two snacks and lunch each day, and daily photos and videos are provided to parents. Due to COVID-19 regulations, kids of the same age are grouped together, with a maximum of eight per group.
Newtonshow has 15 years of experience in running educational science camps that are full of fun. It operates across five countries, and has four locations in Singapore. A bus to the camp is available on request.
Deal: Enjoy 8 percent off each camp with the code “happyexpat”.
Maker.sg Harry Potter Maker & Hands and Brain
Focus: Engineering and robotics
Ages: 5 to 14 years
Duration: 31 May to 27 August, Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm
Cost: From $80 per day
Location: 232A River Valley Road; 887A Bukit Timah Road; 175 Thompson Road
Registration: 8264 6655 | Maker.sg
There’s more than magic involved in the Harry Potter Maker camp! Kids will need to use their creativity and imagination to invent, engineer and create 3D models with a wizard theme. They’ll work on projects daily including levitating or flying toys, a camera obscura and optical illusions.
The Hands and Brain camp provides aspiring engineers with cutting-edge and premium quality equipment to make a variety of items. From a monster truck to a rope-climbing robot and even a rubber band boat to compete with their fellow campers, their day will be filled with hands-on building. Skills that they’ll gain include engineering, basic programming and circuit modelling.
Campers are provided with a T-shirt, all materials to complete their projects that they will bring home, and a certificate. They also receive two snacks and lunch each day. Kids of the same age are grouped together with a maximum of five per group. A bus to this summer camp is available on request.
Deal: Enjoy 8 percent off each camp with the code “happyexpat”
Chelsea FC Summer Camp 2021
Focus: Football (Soccer)
Ages: Children born 2009-2015
Duration: 21 to 24 June, 28 June to 1 July, 5 to 8 July, 26 to 29 July, 2 to 5 August, 10 to 13 August, Monday to Thursday, 9am to 1pm
Cost: $300 For Four Days
Location: UWCSEA East, 1 Tampines Street 73
Registration: Form.jotform.me/91962346624463
At this summer camp, kids who are passionate about football will have the chance to learn from official Chelsea FC Foundation coaches living in Singapore. Using the same standards that are used by the club in London, the coaches will teach kids skill such as dribbling, passing and shooting. There’ll also be friendly competitions to win prizes. At the end of the camp, players will have learned new skills, made new friends who share their love for the game, and also receive a certificate of attendance to take home.
Holiday camps at UWCSEA East campus will be held on the FIFA Quality Pro standard field at the UWCSEA campus. All the coaches hold UEFA B and AFC C licenses and have extensive experience coaching camps in Singapore. They’re also trained in first aid and using an automated external defibrillator (AED).
British Council Summer Camps
Focus: Learning about the world through English
Ages: 4 to 15 years
Duration: 31 May to 27 August, Monday to Friday; morning programme – 9am to 1pm, “Camp Plus” afternoon add-on – 2pm to 4pm
Cost: $736 per week for the morning programme, and $30 for two camp uniform shirts; $300 per week for Camp Plus
Location: Napier Road Centre, 30 Napier Road
Registration: britishcouncil.sg/elscdigital; scan The QR code to learn more
The holiday programme at the British Council aims to help learners develop their English within an environment that is supportive, safe and fun. Each week, there’s a different topic for them to explore reading, writing and social interaction. The hands-on experiential learning not only helps them to improve their English skills but also their knowledge and awareness of the world around them.
Topics are tailored for different ages. Early Years (4-6 years) covers topics such as Animals, Food Glorious Food and Where We Live. Lower (6-8 years) and Upper Primary (9-12 years) learners explore Drama and Public Speaking Skills, Writing Skills and wide-ranging topics in On the Farm, Super Science and Countries, among others. Secondary (13-15 years) students focus on Debating and Presentation Skills, Comprehension and Critical Thinking Skills, and topics including Surfing the Internet, Think Positive and Leave Only Footprints.
The camps cover a new topic each week and they are facilitated by highly qualified and experienced international teachers. Each student will receive individual attention and parents have the opportunity to speak with teachers through regular parent-teacher meetings. Meals aren’t included but there is a café at the Napier Road centre. For campers who want an extended daily experience, you can consider including Camp Plus, an afternoon add-on at $300 per week.
Deal: Expat Living readers receive the following discount when registering for camps at the British Council: 10 percent off for one camp, 15 percent for two, 20 percent for three, and 25 percent off for four camps or more.
Canadian International School Summer Camp
Focus: Sport and wellness, STEAM, multi-activity, global languages, creativity and performances
Ages: 4 to 14 years (must be four years at time of attendance of camp)
Duration: 7 June to 16 July, Monday to Friday, 9am to 3pm
Cost: From $650 for five days
Location: CIS’s Lakeside campus and Tanjong Katong campus
Registration: 6436 6634 | Cis.edu.sg/holidaycamps
With 75 camps across five themes, the Canadian International School will definitely have a holiday camp that fits your child’s interest.
The Sport and Wellness camps enable active kids to learn essential skills from sport specialists. The Creativity and Performance camps provide kids the opportunity to express themselves through music and the arts, including learning to sing and dance in musical theatre workshops. STEAM camps let young ones discover more about coding, building a robot, or working on animation. Global Languages camps give your child the chance to grow their written and spoken competency in the language of their choice. And the MultiActivity camps have a bit of everything – ideal for the child who has lots of different interests and can’t decide which one to do! Whichever one they choose, they’re bound to make new friends.
Passionate and qualified teachers and and external specialists provide the camp experiences, with a camp principal and a qualified nurse also on campus through the duration of the camp. Some of the holiday camps have special on-site activities and guest speakers, too.
This summer camp fee includes all activities, a camp T-shirt, snacks and lunch. Set-menu meals can be pre-ordered from the CIS canteen, though if you have a fussy eater they’re more than welcome to bring their own lunch. For an additional fee, the school can arrange for a camp bus service offering point to point drop off.
Coding Lab Summer Camp
Focus: Coding
Ages: 4 to 18 years
Duration: Mid-May to mid-August
Cost: From $395
Location: 9 King Albert Park, #02-21; 80 Marine Parade Road, #10-06
Registration: 6528 2282 | Codinglab.com.sg
Enhance your child’s problem-solving and thinking skills with coding this school holiday! Coding Lab is the perfect place for your child to pick up all kinds of elements of coding – it has close to 40 courses to choose from.
Young ones aged four to six years begin their coding journey with activities that give them an understanding of binary and pixels as well as creating games using a variety of platforms. Campers from seven to nine years of age will make their own interactive games. And tweens and teens aged 10 to 18 years will pick up Python, the versatile programming language.
Experienced and passionate educators lead all classes, and kids can choose to attend the summer holiday camps online or at one of the two available venues.
Deal: Get 5 percent off each camp by using the code “EXPAT5”.
Happy Art Loft Summer Camp
Focus: Arts and crafts
Ages: 5 years and above
Duration: 31 May to 6 August, Monday to Friday, 10.30am to 1.30pm, 2.30pm to 5.30pm
Cost: $135 for one day, $525 for five days
Location: 896 Dunearn Road, #01-12
Registration: 9645 5066 | Happyartloft.com
Nurture your child’s interest in arts and crafts at one of Happy Art Loft’s Summer Art Camp. Kids will learn about different techniques and principles of art and experimenting with different types of medium. Art lessons will be taught using various materials such as canvas, clay, wooden plates and tote bags. Craft lessons will be taught through activities such as soap making, resin art and polymer clay. There are also short workshops in Brush Calligraphy and Japanese Anime.
As the kids engage in the activities, they also get to learn interesting facts about the selected subject matter. For instance, as they paint dinosaurs, they’ll also gain general knowledge about the different types of dinosaurs and their habitats. At the end of every session, kids get to bring home their unique masterpieces.
Camps last one to five days. Teachers will use a step-by-step teaching process to guide the children. Light refreshments will be provided, and all attendees will get a specially curated goodie bag at the end of the camp.
Deal: Get 10 percent off Happy Art Loft holiday camps when you sign up for one of their regular theme classes. Mention that you heard this special offer from Expat Living
LCentral Be An Author Camp
Focus: English creative writing
Ages: 7 to 9 years
Duration: 1 to 30 June, Monday to Friday, three hours per session
Cost: $350 for three days, $300 each for two to sign up
Location: 12 centres islandwide
Registration: 9170 7956 | Lcentral.net
This holiday camp by LCentral will help transform your child’s imagination into their very own storybook. During the three-day camp, kids will engage in activities around critical thinking and creative writing techniques, and they’ll role-play to create their own fairy tale in print.
From character analysis and story analysis through to the depiction of the story’s characters’ qualities, plot construction and editing, your child will learn how to develop and write their unique creative story. With the use of technology and props, they will learn fun, engaging and meaningful ways to narrate their story through illustrations. They’ll also get to dress up for their very own author photograph, which will be included in the storybook that they’ll get to take home at the end of the camp.
The camp runs for three days, with only five spots available per group.
Nullspace Robotics Summer Camp
Focus: Lego robotics and coding
Ages: 6 to 8 years – Junior Robotics programme; 9 to 12 years – Robotics Certificate programme
Duration: 28 June to 31 July, Monday to Friday, 8am to 12pm
Cost: $700 for five days
Location: 35 Rochester Drive, #03-07
Registration: nlsp.ac/summercamps2021
The Robotics Summer Camp by Nullspace is aimed at creating a fun environment for children to learn about robotics building and programming. The Junior Robotics programme lets young children explore different project themes such as dinosaurs, Star Wars and vehicles through building and programming their own LEGO WeDo robots.
Children who take the Robotics Certificate programme will use the LEGO EV3 as they learn the use of touch and ultrasonic sensors, programming techniques such as line tracing, programming logic and LEGO building techniques. Once they’ve built their robots, the kids will engage in different robot missions and challenges.
Campers will be guided by instructors who are registered with the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Singapore to provide robotics coaching services in MOE schools. Nullspace has also held various robotics camps, courses and workshops that have trained almost 400 students.
All campers will be assigned a set of robotics equipment and a laptop to use during the camp. Snack breaks and drinks are provided every day. First-time camp attendees are given a custom Nullspace lanyard and a 1GB thumb drive. Participants of the Robotics Certificate programme will also receive a Certificate of Completion upon passing a proficiency test at the end of the camp.
RAY’s Baking Camps
Focus: Baking
Ages: 5 to 14 years
Duration: Baking Wonderland, 9-11 June and 21-23 July, 9.30am to 12.30pm; Junior Chef, 16-18 June, 9.30am to 12.30pm, and 21-23 July, 2.30pm to 5.30pm
Cost: $315 to $350 for three days
Location: 9 King Albert Park, #B1-01
Registration: 8866 0435 | rayeducators.com.sg
Encourage budding chefs with these two camps run by RAY. In the Baking Wonderland camp (ages five to nine), children meet different story characters that bring them on a journey of fun and adventure. As they engage with the characters, they express their creativity through bakery. The baking programme is progressive, hands-on and funfilled. Meanwhile, the Junior Chef camp (ages nine to 14) provides kids with skills and activities to create their own culinary masterpieces. They’ll learn baking from scratch, including taking measurements, kneading dough and creating interesting bakery pieces.
The camps are led by educators who have diplomas in baking or the culinary arts and several years of experience in conducting workshops for both children and adults. The teacher to student ratio of each class is 1:5, which means that each child is engaged and given personal attention during the camp. A snack is provided every day, and all participants receive a badge when they complete the camp.
Deal: Get a 10 percent discount using the code “SHINE10” when you register before 16 May for any of the camps including Drama camp, Art camp and Fabulous Fun camp.
The Improv Company
Focus: Improvised theatre for teenagers
Ages: 13 years and above
Duration: Mid-June to mid-August, Monday to Thursday, 9am to 12pm
Cost: From $350 per week
Location: 62B South Bridge Road
Registration: 8518 4738 | Improv.sg
Is your teen a budding thespian? The improvisation camps by The Improv Company will add plenty of improv skills to their performance skills. Running over four days, the camp has a different daily focus on a specific aspect of improv such as character development, narrative construction and stage etiquette. Participants will acquire important skills in listening and creativity, learn acting techniques and create compelling stories with fellow improvisers. Since things are made up as the performance goes along, you can expect loads of thinking on the feet – and plenty of fun, as a result! As your teen develops their artistic sense, they’ll also make new friends to bounce their new skills off. The Improv Company is Singapore’s biggest improvised theatre company and training centre. Lead instructor of the camps is Jon Cancio, an actor, director, improv teacher and podcast host. Jon has appeared on stage in theatre productions by the Singapore Repertory Theatre, How Drama, Toy Factory Productions, and AndSoForth. This is the first time the company is conducting courses for teenagers, so your child will be the pioneer batch of the camp!
Mandarin Summer Camp
Focus: Mandarin proficiency
Ages: 4 to 12 years
Duration: 21 June to 6 August, Monday to Wednesday, 12pm to 2.30pm
Cost: $225 for three days (enquire about a sibling rate)
Location: 251A Arcadia Road, #02-09A
Registration: 8121 9369 | themandarinacademy.com
The Mandarin Academy makes learning the language fun through interactive activities where children have to converse in Mandarin. Over the three days of the camp, students will develop skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing as they’re guided by experienced international school teachers. They’ll encounter situation dialogues and scenario role-playing while exploring various topics such as self-introduction, ordering food and asking for directions. What’s more, they’ll learn how to remember methods for writing Chinese characters by learning the history of the characters and doing hands-on activities such as calligraphy, creating their own comics and reading both fictional and non-fictional texts.
All learning materials will be provided and each student receives a certificate at the end of the camp. There’s a break of 15 to 20 minutes each day that includes a nut-free snack. Transportation to the centre is available on request. All campers enjoy 20 percent off regular weekly lessons at The Mandarin Academy.
UFIT Sports for Life Camp
Focus: Developing skills in a multitude of sports
Ages: 6 to 15 years
Duration: 21 to 25 June, 5 to 9 July, 12 to 16 July, 19 to 23 July, Monday to Friday, 9am to 12pm
Cost: $395 for five days
Location: Tanglin Rugby Club, Turf City, Turf Club Road
Registration: 8421 7794 | Sportsforlife@ufit.com.sg | ufit.com.sg/sports-for-life-camps
UFIT’s Sports for Life Camps give kids the opportunity to try new sports and foster their passion for health and fitness. Campers are split into programme colours based on their age: orange for six to eight years, green for nine to 11 years, yellow for 12 to 15 years. This enables them to interact with children from a variety of schools as they engage in various sports such as football, rugby, cricket, tennis and lacrosse.
While the kids are enjoying a fun, varied morning of high energy, they’ll also be learning sports fundamentals, increasing their athletic ability and reaching personal goals through games such as Capture the Flag, dodgeball and archery. The activities are designed to improve their skills, coordination and teamwork. A resounding favourite among the kids is the water balloon fight on the last day of camp – everyone gets wet, kids and staff alike!
All attendees receive a goodie bag at the end of the camp, and there are prizes for the “trainer of the week”. You’ll also be able to see your kids in action through professional photos taken during the camp. Camps last five days but you can also sign your child up for back-to-back camps so they can tally up more prizes!
UFIT has over 10 years of experience running sports camps and all its coaches are trained in first aid and CPR. The team is led by Chris Hodges, who has worked with educational and elite sport setups including Great Britain Rowing, England Rugby U20s, the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Exeter Chiefs Academy.
Vivo Kids Camposaur
Focus: Play-based activities
Ages: 3.5 to 10 years
Duration: June to mid-August, Monday to Friday, 9am to 1pm
Cost: $425 to $575 for five days, 10 percent sibling discount
Location: Sports Hub Library, 4 Stadium Walk
Registration: 9060 6227 | Vivokinetics.com
Camposaur uses play-based activities to help children learn life skills such as teamwork, sportsmanship, problem solving, communication skills and basic food preparation and cooking skills. Over five days, campers will experience a variety of sports, robotics, arts and crafts, team-building games, dance fitness, cooking and baking, an amazing race and museum visits. Older kids above the age of six will also experience a one-night sleepover that includes a movie night and a breakfast cookout.
The kids will learn from coaches who are multi-sport athletes who have a background in sports science or coaching. All coaches are also certified in first aid. To ensure maximum attention for each kid, camp sizes are kept small – groups of five for ages 3.5 to 5.5 years, and groups of seven for ages six and above. There are two snacks provided each day and those who do the sleepover are provided with lunch and dinner before the sleepover. All campers will be given a T-shirt at the beginning of the camp, and leave with new friends and a certificate of completion.
Whizz Kidz Home Camps
Focus: Creative arts and science and technology
Ages: 4 to 13 years
Duration: 3 to 5 days, June to August, Monday to Friday, 9am to 2pm
Cost: $450 per child for three days, $600 per child for five days
Location: Your home
Registration: 6271 1478 | Whizzkidz.com.sg
Whizz Kidz runs camps across multiple locations in Singapore and it offers summer camps too! There’s something fun for every child, and there’s also the option of customised camps and sessions held at your home for groups of four upwards.
All you need is a space for the activities and your kids will be kept busy! All the camps are conducted with fun being the main factor and the heart of the activities. Your little ones can look forward to creative arts sessions, hands-on science experiments, cooking, movie making, invention challenges, robotics and coding, and more. They’ll be involved in socialising, creativity, problem-solving and new experiences at every camp. All materials are provided for the duration of the camp, and campers will also get a camp T-shirt.
Deal: Get a 10 percent off the cost when you gather a group of six or more kids.
This article first appeared in the May 2021 edition of Expat Living. You can purchase the latest issue or subscribe, so you never miss a copy!
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