Wildercamp (Summer Camp)
Play-filled, relaxing time outside at parks where kids can explore and enjoy nature with other kids in wonderful, child-like ways. The counselors and staff seek to provide an emotionally supportive space for kids to take risks and engage in new and different ways to explore nature. Games, songs, and nature crafts/art are offered each day. Things like climbing trees, exploring a creek and finding and catching wildlife like bugs, frogs or turtles are all welcome and encouraged at Wildercamp. Kids love this camp and remember times they’ve had as some of their favorite memories!
- Ages 3+ can attend half day camps in June only (9:30am -12:30pm)
- Ages 5+ can attend full day camps (10am – 3pm – with flexible drop-off between 9:30-10)
- Ages 9-12 can attend TWEEN Camp (new this year!) click here for more info: https://docs.google.com/file/d/11HnAatO5PzazV6jKUjKS9GT9ptbL4CvE/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=msword
- Cost: $200 Full Day / $175 Half Day per 4-day week. $25 sibling discount.
Click on the link below for more information and to register your child. Check the descriptions at the bottom of this page for information about each month’s activities.
WILDERCAMP 2024 registration opens March 1st!
June: Tower Grove Park – Get your ADVENTURE on! (May 28th – June 27th)
Children will enjoy the ruins ponds, the stables, the East & West streams and learn to love and identify plants and trees. Besides visiting horses & fishing for crawdads, children may stumble upon caterpillars, baby birds, raccoons, an oppossum in a tree, or an owl roosting in the pines! There are some special events scheduled like tours of the TGP greenhouse, a visit with an exotic pet or a musical performance by Mario Polo for instance. You NEVER know what you’re going to get each week spending carefree time at Tower Grove Park, open to the wonders all around!
July: Around Town!
July 8th -11th & 15th – 18th FOREST PARK
Do you know how to find the park’s woods and wildlife hiding among popular tourist attractions? Can you trek from the World’s Fair Pavilion to Art Hill? These weeks, children will be at home with the wilder side of Forest Park. There’s vines to swing from, pokeberries to paint with, and a nature playscape with a mini-swim hole and mock-creek to splash in when the sun’s beating down. The group might build a swing, put on a play, make potions from flowers or have a cocklebur fight! There is usually a visit to a free museum on the last day, or in the case of extreme heat.
The last 2 weeks of July will be spent in the cool woods of Love Park in Ballwin (7/22-7/25 & 7/28- 8/1) Children will have the chance to harvest nettles for tea, search for wild blackberries, build forts, and have races in the big field. Best of all, children can swim, splash, and hunt for minnows in the beautiful Grand Glaize Creek which meanders through the park. Younger children/poor swimmers are required to bring wearable floaties. This is a one-of-a-kind experience in nature for city & suburban kids!
August: Back to Tower Grove! (August 5th – 8th & August 12th -15th)
The last 2,weeks of camp will be back at Tower Grove Park where children can have their last splash in the creek, do painting or other open-ended crafts in the pines, and see the late -summer bugs hatching. On the last 2 Thursdays, the group will walk to Ices Plain & Fancy – parents will be asked to contribute a few dollars for ice cream, & Wildercamp will cover the rest!
Wilderkids 