Imagineerz Learning

Our 7-​year old finished a week at «Imagineerz», and we’re happily going into a second week… I saw that another parent suggested the parent-​participation activity on Friday 3pm was a sales seminar or a ‘scam’, yet I can’t believe anyone can get such an impression as it was an informational session (‘I-​Parent Lab’) with Q&A that happened at the *end* of the camp (Friday 3pm-3:40), where the camp directors reviewed what they do at the camp and explained the core values of the camp, giving all the parents a sense of what the underlying philosophy of the activities is all about… What it’s all about is: giving kids a positive attitude about how to confront difficult challenges, and it was a review of what the camp activities and are about and why they do it. The camp director herself discussed her motivation for starting the camp and what her plans are moving forward… how could it be a sales seminar when we were already customers?!? I was thrilled to get a behind the scenes at the parent session to get a look at why and how behind the camp activities… reading our kids «Diary of an Imagineer» activity book explained it all.
So onto my review: what’s so awesome about Imagineerz camp is that my kid does all kinds of activities, both physical games and mental (written work), all around the idea of reaching your goals by soaring past the stop signs where something goes «ouch» and you need to think about solving a problem rather than blame someone, complain, or give up. How many summer camps teach kids how NOT to complain or give up, while doing games and activities?! Kids are so curious, they can be reminded for a week or two or three that it’s OK to keep trying despite road blocks… I’d argue we all need that reminder.
Our 7 year old not only wants to show up early but has started thinking about how things work, and out of curiousity took apart a cheap measuring tape… and during the week also started telling me about an idea for a new feature cars need — it was an interesting idea indeed, and I decided we need a lab notebook for sure.
The underlying current of a fun camp with loads of activities and skits and games where kids are learning to keep trying despite challenges holding them back– that’s what makes this a fun and fascinating experience for the kids. And for the parents, some suggetions about what to say when something goes wrong: «Whoops!» …and just move on. (How many of us need to stop and reprimand or shame our kid and give lengthy time outs and suddenly bring so much attention and time to the problem rather than move on with a positive attitude? Of course this isn’t for every problem but i like the idea for sure). Or when kids complain they can’t do something… you can say «maybe you can’t do it **YET**…»; ‘yet’ is the key word here. Those are some of the ideas that help out a little in many challenging situations, which I agree help get kids to move beyond challenging situations. Didn’t a famous inventor (Edison) say «I haven’t failed, I just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – that too is an Imagineerz way of thinking.
I should mention a tidbit — the theme song starts with «I’m an imaginer, I am unstoppable,…» — it’s a fun song that they sing when they do a big stage production at the end of the week. cute, interesting, and the kids all have fun. Most parents will experience other maker camps and science camps and say «this is a cool twist» I’m sure… I’d say it’s a worthwhile summer camp with some good ideas to keep kids’ imaginations active! This camp is such a good find — my wife and I are happy we found it!

The camp itself is decent, but run poorly. My Son was in destination science camp for 2 weeks and he enjoyed it so much more. He came home with robots, cars, and dinosaurs he built. All my son came home with from here was an otter pop everyday.
It was also extremely disorganized! I had to look in 3 classrooms twice thinking my son was lost before someone realized there was a 4^th classroom.
1 last thing, you’ll get an email about an I-​parent lab which sounded like a parent participation thing, but ended up being a scam. It was some sort of sales video! Ridiculous!
Ended up watching their play rehearsal which was ridiculous. It was so disorganized and the kids looked bored.
The only thing I liked was the convenience of dropping off my kid at the curb
Would not come back again.

My daughter (9 yr old) attended Camp Imagineerz last year and this year. After attending last year, this was the one camp that she asked that we signup her again this year. She loves going to Imagineerz camp. Note that this is not a science camp or sports camp or math camp. Think of it as character building camp or something that helps kids understand how to deal with simple problems that they face everyday (like being excluded from play or someone speaking in negative fashion). The directors and counselors are extremely positive and beaming with energy. — even at end of the day. At most camps, you just go and pick up the kid. At imagineerz, they are always ready and willing to talk to you about what your kid did and how the day went.
My kid also loves and very eager to to participate in the the play they put up on Fri for parents. As a parent, I also love the flexibility that I can cancel the camp a week before it starts (even if I registered 3 months before camp starts). Thanks Vaibhavi, Trevor, Jake, Bekka, Jennifer, Carson, Angela & Annie.

This was my daughter’s first year of summer camps. She did a variety of camps and after each I would ask her to rate the camp on a scale of 5 stars. After the first day she told me Imagineerz was a 10 star camp and by the last day she said she changed her mind and that it was really a 12 star camp!!! :-)
The camp teaches kids the important lessons of pushing beyond «stop signs» to reach their goals and how making mistakes is part of the learning process. I am so happy to see my daughter not only using the language taught in the camp but more importantly not giving up when she comes across a challenging task. The counselors are very caring, energetic, and enthusiastic. Bekkah led my daughter’s small group and she was great. She took the time to educate me on guiding questions that could be used to help encourage application of the methodology. The other counselors «Starfish» and «Princess Rose» were also amazing! We’ll definitely be doing the camp again next year! Thank you Camp Imagineerz!!!

This is the most creative, most energetic, most fun camp around. And we’ve done a lot of camps. On the first day, the counselors are literally jumping up and down with excitement when the kids walk in. It makes the kids feel welcome, and really sets a great tone for the day. (And week!) Besides the counselors, Camp Imagineerz’s philosophy is fantastic — it teaches kids how to reach goals and overcome obstacles in a constructive way. (I’ve even thought about some of the techniques for myself!) My 6.5 year old son can’t wait to go every morning and is already looking forward to the next day at pick up. We initially signed up for 2 weeks but at the end my son begged so much to come back the following week that we happily paid another camp’s cancelation fee so he could come back to Camp Imagineerz. And last week he announced, «I wish I could live at Camp Imagineerz.» That pretty much sums it up!

This is our second year at Camp Imagineerz for my kids (8 and 6) and this year my youngest daughter was old enough to join in the fun. Each night at dinner the kids would talk about their day at camp and what they were making. They both enjoyed the time with their counsellors and were so happy at the end of the day they were singing the Imagineerz song all the way home in the car!
What I love about Imagineerz is the way they encourage the kids to pursue beyond the ‘STOP’ sign of I cannot do this. On the final day of the presentation, the parents learned how to apply the Imagineerz Philosophy and using ‘ImagiGO’ to proceed forward through any issue the kids have. My daughter plays the piano and this has helped so much since our time at camp. It is interesting that the Imagineerz Philosophy can be applied to even our home and work environments.
A big high 5 to all at Imagineerz for such a terrific job! We will be back next year for some more Imagineerz fun :)

Amazing, amazing, amazing! Don’t even know where to begin. The owner and every single instructor was awesome! My son cried the last day because he did not want it to end. I just told him that I am going to sign him up again for this coming summer at the Huff elementary location and he squealed in joy! We have done many other camps before and this by far is the best one by a mile.
— The curriculum/​activities was high quality
— The owner/​director was fantastic — and totally hands-​on with the kids
— The teachers/​leaders were top rate
— Great customer-​centric policies — I needed a refund and to change the weeks around because of a mistake I made, they did it so quickly and cheerfuly and without charging me a fee. Fully refundable until camp starts. Very impressed with how she runs the business.

This was our first experience sending our child to summer camp. Before selecting a summer camp, I needed to find one that would give special attention to my son especially since he is very sensitive and shy. The camp counselor that was assigned to him (Haiban), was absolutely sweet, kind, and loving. She provided my son with special attention and he looked forward to attending camp because of her. She helped provide him with confidence and towards the end of the camp, he was making up games and participating. This camp even provided me with ways to communicate with my child, and now he is really good at speaking up. Many thanks to all the camp counselors for having the patience and love to teach our kids confidence!

I don’t have enough thanks to the camp management. I have 2 kids who don’t speak any English and it was our first experience with the summer camps. They enjoyed every minute of their stay at Imagineerz. Of course, due to linguistic problems they didn’t understand everything, but in their own way they managed to understand camps general ideology and that «everything is possible».
Staff is incredible, full of enthusiasm and energy and keen on communicating with kids as equals.
My kids discovered new abilities in creating and designing and u dont need expensive toys/​tools for that, just paper, carton, scotch and your own time.
Since their session was over my kids keep on constructing things from carton, so my special thanks for making their imagination work constructively.
My very confident kids both said:” Mom, i didn’t know i can do that!‘
My son asked me to say that Peter is the best counselor ever!
We wish Imagineerz had classes all year long!

Thanks to an awesome recommendation from one of my friends, I found this place two years ago. And my kids have gone their for two summers now. I was impressed the very first day I met Vaibhavi, who runs this place, and how she handled kids. My twin boys who never talk about anything that happened at school, wouldn’t stop talking about Camp Imagineerz when they come home from the camp. The boys who wouldn’t wake up to go to their regular school, would wake up pretty early because they want to do some activity planned for that day! I still don’t know the magic that the Camp Imagineers team does, but that seems to be really working. Their positive way to redirect kids to the right behavior, their patience with the kids, and bringing out their latent talent by nurturing them very creatively. the list goes on. Last summer, during the Camp Imagineerz days, my 7 year old son wanted to do a project on his own. And do you know how he started the project? By Ideating, Prototyping. honestly I forget the rest. but I am sure my kids still remember. Working in a software industry, I am learning this now, and I couldn’t believe my kids learnt it @ 7 years! I should mention their slogans too. Even now (kids are in 3^rd grade), when they say I can’t do this, I immediately say one of their slogans. «Stop sign». And they immediately realize what I mean, and try one more time. Once I remember, my son didn’t complete his project in the camp on that particular day. He wanted to complete it, but not sure if it was his inertia, of lack of confidence. But the team had taught the parents also these slogans. And just by guiding him with those, my son completed his innovative sandals out of bare materials, and wanted me to take a picture and send it to the Camp the next day! Right. They not only teach the kids, they teach parents also. Highlight is their Friday events. The kids present their weekly activity to the parents, and enact the play they have practiced during the week. Even with my busy schedule at work, I would make a point to come by for that event. It’s not to make my kids happy. It’s mainly for me to understand how they direct the kids, and to find out more about how they interact with and inspire the kids. I should also mention, its not just Vaibhavi, but the entire team is very creative. Once when I asked Vaibhavi, what’s the secret recipe, she said, lot of hard work. She said she works the entire year to bring about a perfect Camp experience for those 3 or 6 weeks! Last summer they repeated the same camp in two different locations. My kids knew it was a repeat, but still wanted to ONLY go there, and to no other camp. Hope this coming summer they have the camp through out the summer holidays and not just 6 weeks. I can’t but recommend this camp to anyone who want their kids grow positively, creatively, with leadership skills, confidence and all that you want the kids to acquire. Btw, wanted to mention Vaibhavi did her child development specialization at Stanford, and the team is still guided by the best professors at Stanford. What more can you expect? It’s definitely not yet another Camp that markets themselves to be the best, but really well intended folks that really care about the kids. Great job Camp Imagineerz. My kids already look forward to their summer to join the camp!

My 5-​year old daughter attended full 3 weeks of the camp in 2012, and absolutely loved it. For the entire year prior to that she attended kindergarten and not once did she want to share with me what she was doing at school. I knew something was special about this camp when on the very first day she came home and was talking non-​stop about all the activities she did that day. My kid literally blossomed in the very first week of the camp. So I had to come early one day to see what was going on for myself. The level of engagement from all the camp teachers was absolutely great, with Dave being the absolute best — his energy and imagination were simply contagious.
As far as philosophy of the camp, it actually works. My kid was no longer afraid to try new things. She actually learned how to ride a swing by herself during the camp, I was unsuccessfully pushing her to do this for months prior.
For parents I suggest reading all the materials about the camp, as it gives you a very powerful tool to inspire kids go beyond their comfort zone. I find myself asking my kid every now and then «looks like you are stuck, what is your next baby step?» and it actually works!
I wish there were similar classes throughout the school year.

I would echo all the sentiments from the other reviews. Camp Imagineerz proves that you don’t need a lot of high tech, toys, or gadgets to learn and to have fun. And I too, observed in my 7 yr old son just a lot more positive energy and sense of accomplishment each day after camp. In fact, each night he would actually journal about physical challenge that day, or what he and his new friends built during creativity studio. Now that’s a first and certainly not something I would have expected him to do on his own initiative! Just for that we will certainly be back next year :-) and I look forward putting my daughter into camp Imagineerz as well.

My almost 5 year old son attended this camp during the first week. I am amazed at how effectively the camp cultivates the ‘I-​Can’ attitude among little kids. My son has repeatedly demonstrated a positive attitude, after attending this camp for only a few days.
One of the other things that really appealed to me about Camp I is that they truly encourage and foster creativity. When my son does projects at other places, he is usually given instructions and a defined set of required materials for the project. Camp I, on the other hand, gives the kids access to a huge supply of basic recycled materials — bottles, paper, boxes, CDs, corks, etc. Kids can use anything they choose to. The end result is a unique creation by every child.
Looking forward to signing up my son for a longer time next year!

My 5 yr old daughter attended 3 weeks of camp Imagineerz this summer and she absolutely loved it. They have a really innovative camp structure where they encourage creativity and self confidence. They had activities like building a theme park, a hot air balloon. They did a lot of water play, obstacle courses, even improv! The kids built really great arcade games, built a frozen arctic landscape, made songs, even starred in movie each week. My daughter made really close friends in this short amount of time and got attached to all the teachers as well. The teachers are very professional, caring and gave individualized attention to all the kids. They even encouraged my fussy eater to finish her lunch every day! Overall, awesome camp and we will surely be back next year!

My son attended one week of Imagineerz this summer. He had a great time and looked forward to going to camp every day. The counselors were very hands on and friendly. The activities were engaging, educational and fun. My son will definitely be back again next year.

My daughter just finished 2 weeks at Imagineerz. It was our first summer camp experience ever and Imagineerz completely set incredibly high standards for what I expect out of a summer camp. If you are looking for a camp that boosts your child’s self confidence and gives him/​her a tool set to deal with challenges of life, then Imagineerz is a great camp. The camp challenged my daughter physically and mentally. She is always talking about inventions and goals and how to accomplish them. The toolset has really lasted, beyond the camp itself.
We will be back next year. Thank you Imagineerz and team!

Great place for the kids! Love the concept and the energy at Imagineerz