Latest news with #summercamp
The National
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The National
Cooking classes for children this summer: Homemade tacos, Asian fusion and more
If your children are done bouncing at the trampoline park, have bickered for hours over the PlayStation, are bored of the pool and can't face another round of Monopoly, it's time to let them get creative in the kitchen with these cooking classes they'll love. Mamalu Kitchen, Dubai The Mini Chef cooking classes at this Nakheel Mall cooking school are geared towards teaching children culinary skills as they create the foods they love. Already this summer, little ones have created pasta from scratch to whip up creamy chicken and mushroom alfredo rolls, cooked mini pizza muffins and tried their hand at Italian chocolate cream buns. Summer camp runs throughout July and August, with a mix of sweet and savoury dishes. The team also run Mini Chef – Snack Heroes classes, in which children can learn to make bites such as mini pulled chicken tacos with homemade taco shells from scratch. Summer camp: Monday-Friday; 10am-12.30pm; Dh1,000 per person per week inclusive of ingredients; Mini Chef – Snack Heroes: days vary; 4pm-5.30pm; Dh200 per person; Nakheel Mall, Palm Jumeirah Dubai; 052 747 9512 Ecole Ducasse Abu Dhabi Studio Children are invited to embark on a culinary journey with classes tailored for different age groups. The Summer Beginner Kids Camp is for children aged six to 10 to build their confidence in the kitchen while making an array of colourful and creative dishes with new recipes each week. The Summer Advanced Kids Camp, for older children from 11 to 17, offers the chance to try more complex dishes from savoury to pastry. There is also the option of the 4 Hands Pastry Session for parents and children, aged six to 12, to come together and create something delicious. Summer Beginner Kids Camp and Summer Advanced Kids Camp: June 30 to August 21; 1.30pm-3.30pm; Dh1,050 per person; 4 Hands Pastry Session: July 25 and August 2; 2pm-4pm; Dh630 for two; Cultural Foundation, Al Hosn; 052 663 7689 Scafa, Dubai Open to children aged seven to 14, summer camp at the School of Culinary and Finishing Arts focuses on teaching young ones the basics so they can use their skills at home. The course teaches the foundations of cooking, baking, pastry and world cuisines including Mexican, Asian and Italian, along with kitchen safety, best use of equipment and – parents rejoice! – how to effectively clean up afterwards. Sessions focus on breakfasts, cold and warm desserts, main courses and starters. Classes are available to buy in packages of one, five, 10 or 15 sessions. Daily throughout July and August; 2.30pm-5.30pm; between Dh290 (one class) and Dh3,480 (15 classes); Cluster I, Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai; 052 110 0232 Top Chef Cooking Studio, Dubai The studio caters to young children and teens via its Kids Cooking Camp and Teens Cooking Camp this summer. From Monday to Friday, little ones aged six to 12 can don an apron and get stuck into making dishes such as dynamite shrimp, breaded seabass, vegetarian empanadas and mini pizzas. They also get to create inventive soft drinks, as well as desserts such as lemon cheesecake, cake pops, mango sticky rice and strawberry tart. Teens aged 13 to 16 are invited to stretch their skills further by whipping up dishes such as three-cheese souffle, beef tenderloin with peppercorn sauce and chicken and mushroom vol-au-vents. Kids Cooking Camp: Monday to Friday; 10am-1pm, Dh250 per session; Teens Cooking Camp: days vary; 2.30pm-5pm; Dh300 per session; Villa 196, Jumeirah Beach Road, Dubai; 04 385 5781 Wagamama, various locations across the UAE Children aged three to 11 not only get to create some of the dishes the Asian fusion chain is famous for – think gyoza and katsu chicken curry – but also get to take home a home chef apron after a hard hour or so in the kitchen. All about 'fun, flavour, and getting hands-on', the sessions invite children to dive into a range of spices and ingredients to cook up their dinner themselves (and take home any leftovers). Dates, timings and prices vary; Mirdif City Centre, Palm Jumeirah, Motorcity and City Walk in Dubai; Abu Dhabi Mall, Reem Mall and Khalifa City in Abu Dhabi Shvili, Abu Dhabi and Dubai The Georgian restaurant with outposts in Abu Dhabi and Dubai runs Kids Masterclass cooking classes throughout the summer and beyond. The hour-long sessions for children aged four and above lets little ones try their hand at a spot of culinary creativity while mum and dad dine at the restaurant. What they make is dependent on the time of day and location of the restaurant, but this summer children have been making Caesar salad, Georgian penovani cheese bread with puff pastry, Georgian cherry pie and jallab, the popular Middle Eastern drink made from date molasses, grape molasses and rose water. Daily; timings vary; free but pre-booking required; Dubai Festival City (052 220 0868), Dubai Hills Mall (052 929 2088), Nakheel Mall, Dubai (058 512 6795); The Galleria Al Maryah Island, Abu Dhabi (052 438 3880), Marina Moon Tower, Abu Dhabi (058 562 5251)
Bloomberg
21 hours ago
- Health
- Bloomberg
Is Summer Camp a Petri Dish for Measles?
This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, the nation's foremost peddler of Bloomberg Opinion's opinions. Sign up here. In 2025, summer camp — traditionally a time for kids to unglue themselves from their screens and be one with nature — has been hijacked by a series of unfortunate events. Between the deadly floods at Camp Mystic and the worst measles outbreak since the early 1990s, the list of parental nightmare scenarios seems to be growing longer by the day.
The Sun
a day ago
- The Sun
American-style summer camps in the UK that kids will love – with breaks in the school holidays from £83
For anyone who wants the fun of an American summer camp without the long-haul flight, there are some right here in the UK. PGL runs 10 camps across the country where kids from eight years up to 16 can join with thrilling activities from abseiling and canoeing to campfire singalongs - just like they do in America. 5 5 Holiday camps are ingrained in American culture, a rite of passage that entertains kids over the summer holidays and gives their parents a break. In the UK, our answer to this is PGL, which is designed to do exactly that. There are summer camps all over the country, whether you're heading to Suffolk, Lancashire or Wiltshire. Kids can stay at the camps between one and seven nights. The children are split up depending on their age, and are grouped as from eight to 11 years, 11 to 13 and 13 to 16. For peace of mind, PGL camps have been approved by OFSTED, have world-class safeguarding, expertly trained teams, and 24/7 care. Now for the fun part, kids can do a range of activities including abseiling, archery, climbing, fencing, laser tag, high ropes and orienteering. Some activities, like 'Survivor', teach children how to find shelter in the woods and learn basic navigation skills. During the evening, there's US-inspired entertainment including film nights, silent discos and roasting marshmallows around a campfire. With the Trailblazer package, which is available on seven-night stays, children get to take on an extra interest or hobby on top of the best of PGL's multi-activity activities. Holiday Park in UK village that looks like Greece 5 5 This can be anything from pony riding lessons to bush craft and baking sessions. And for parents who want to join in on the fun, families are welcome on certain breaks too. The family options are available at two locations in the UK, Barton Hall in Devon and Caythorpe Court in Lincolnshire. During their stay, families get to compete against each other in a series of challenges, like seeing who's fastest flying down the zip wire, or the best at scaling up the climbing wall. One visitor wrote a review on Trustpilot that described the camp as: "Full on, jam-packed activities ... the children were never bored. Great food too!" Another added: "The kids had such a great time with activities like the giant swing, zip line and archery. " Some sites even have trips to the local theme parks as part of the adventure. Boreatton Park in Shrewsbury has day trips to Alton Towers and Drayton Manor Park. And Marchants Hill in Hindhead has days out to Thorpe Park and Chessington World of Adventure. Other holiday camps specialise in water activities, at Liddington and Osmington Bay kids can go canoeing, build rafts and sail across the nearby lakes. All the packages include accommodation, three meals a day, and a full program of daytime and evening activities, including equipment and instruction from qualified holiday camp leaders. Currently, there's 40 per cent off the multi-activity camp on stays of selected one, two, three, four and seven nights. You can now get a one night stay from £87 per night - this discount is valid for bookings made up until July 23, 2025. Here's another American-style summer camp in the UK that kids will love – with bunkhouses and beach adventures. Plus, ten campsites in the UK with nearby beaches – and they start from just £15. I spent a summer at a USA holiday camp Jenna Stevens spent time at a summer camp in America working as a counsellor - and here's what she thought... As a Brit brought up on a diet of American movies and TV shows, I've always longed to be part of a US summer camp. Thankfully, I could. As summer camps often look for international staff to bring their skills across the pond. My days started at 6:30am - going from snoozing my alarm at home, to getting kids' teeth brushed, boots on and out the door before 7am was quite the change from my routine as a 21 year old back in England. Each morning we'd gather on the sports field to raise the American flag, a key part of camp culture that we Brits soon had to get used to. After knocking back blueberry pancakes or French toast, and glugging down as much filter coffee as I could manage, the activities for the day began. The days were filled with everything from archery to animal care, ziplining to basketball. My group of girls and I would sit under a tree and make friendship bracelets, as they requested song after song by Taylor Swift on my Walmart speaker. Our lunches were traditionally American: sloppy joes (bolognese in a burger bun with cheese), hot dogs and chicken tacos. Afternoons were spent cooling off in the pool followed by chill time in our cabins. The kids would stay for one or two weeks at a time, but the camp environment made you grow close - so saying goodbye to them was always the hardest part. We'd end the week with a campfire, roasting marshmallows and sharing our favourite memories - Jenna Stevens 5
WIRED
a day ago
- Entertainment
- WIRED
Life Without Screens: This Camp Is a Teen's Worst Nightmare
Jul 21, 2025 6:00 AM Hidden burner phones. Hunger strikes. Runaways. The director of a digital detox program for kids spills about how hard it is to tear kids away from their devices. PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION: JOHANNA GOODMAN; GETTY IMAGES Summer. For teens not at work, it's hot, it's boring, and it's an ideal time to close the door and spend about every waking moment watching, playing, texting, streaming—anything but talking—on the phone. With almost half of teenagers in the US saying they're online almost constantly, the adults in their lives are growing more desperate to drag them off. Families are establishing screen-free zones in their homes, states are banning phones in schools, and a new kind of summer camp has emerged: digital detox camps, which can cost around $2,000 a week, and promise to wean attendees off screens by going cold turkey for the summer. WIRED spoke to the founder and director of one such organization. Taking a cue from your average summer camp, the program forces kids to swap their phones and gaming systems for some good old-fashioned social interaction. But in other ways, it's anything but traditional: It's staffed with onsite therapists equipped to handle screen addiction, the kids take financial literacy courses, and nearly all campers are completely miserable when they arrive. Most of the kids who come to our program are very socially stunted. They don't communicate very well. Everything is in abbreviations. They don't make eye contact. They can't finish a full sentence. Everything is mumbled. They don't want to have an in-person dialog. They would rather do it online or do it through text. Our camp is about 70 percent boys, 30 percent girls, from ages 13 to 17. Most of the boys are gamers. Most of the girls are addicted to social media—influencer wannabes. None of them want to be there. One kid ran away, and he actually made it down to the freeway, which was very unusual because we're not close to the freeway. He was picked up by the local highway patrol and brought back. He then went on a hunger strike for three days, and we actually ended up sending him to the hospital because he needed to eat. And then his mom did come and pick him up. When the kids arrive, we have them unpack to make sure they brought everything they were supposed to bring and that they didn't bring things they weren't supposed to bring. Like phones. One kid showed up with three cell phones: When he arrived, he turned in one. We found another cell phone in his bag. And then about three days later his roommate outed him, and we found the third phone. He thought it was funny that he got away with it for that long. That's most of our kids—if they can stick it to the man, then they're winning. Most of the kids are not aggressive, they're not acting out. More often, they're moping. But once they come out of their dorm room, we lock the doors. I say, 'Sitting in your dorm room moping is not a camp activity.' Their sleeping and eating habits are horrible. Most kids, especially the online gamers, are up until 2 or 3 in the morning. They don't get up until noon or later. It's a disaster. And their eating habits, they're equally horrible—Doritos and Gatorade, just horrible snack food. So we have them on a very specific schedule. They're in their dorm rooms by 9:30 and have their lights out by 10. And then we wake them up at 6:30. I always tell my staff, 'Plan on not sleeping much the first week.' They have one or two roommates in their dorm rooms. Typically, they are not happy about that. Most kids who come to our program have their own room at home. But what's funny is that it creates this us-against-them mentality, because they don't want to be there, and their roommate doesn't want to be there. They hate us, they hate their parents for sending them there, so they kind of bond without meaning to right off the bat. We do all the traditional summer camp activities. We take them to the beach once a week. It's not that much torture. During one of the first years, we had a kid who walked away from the beach day. And he didn't walk far, but he approached a couple who were taking a selfie and asked if he could use their phone. He ended up calling his mom, saying, 'Get me out of here.' His mom did not come and pick him up: The next year, she sent his little brother to camp too. We had more staff members come to beach day after that. We also do educational programs and a financial literacy class. We have to break it to these kids that tech companies don't care about their fun and enjoyment; they're after their time and their money. We've had several kids who have been given credit cards that they then charge up, buying in-app activities or 'skins' in games like Fortnite . And then when they can't spend any more on that card, they'll use their friend's card, their mom's card. We had one kid use their friend's grandmother's card. But we never tell a kid, 'Never play a video game again, never be online again, never check your email again.' That's just not the reality of the world we live in. When we started this program, we didn't really expect to have returning campers. We figured we'd get you cured, and then next summer you go to surf camp or sail camp or horseback camp or something. But every year we have one or two kids who want to come back—not because they've gone back to the dark side of tech addiction; it's because they want to help the next batch of campers. They want to say to a mopey new camper, 'I was you last year. I was exactly where you are, and I turned out OK.' —As told to Elana Klein
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Matt Rempe Transforms From A Player To A Counselor At Rangers Summer Camp
It's safe to say that Matt Rempe is enjoying his summer. From a player to a counselor, Rempe took some time this offseason to teach kids at the Junior Rangers Summer Camp. Rempe was mic'd up during the session as he was seen playing hockey with the kids, coaching them, and even practicing his fighting. The 23-year-old was showing off both his charismatic personality and sense of humor that has made him loved amongst the people of New York. Since playing his first game with the Rangers in February of 2024, Rempe has become a fan favorite, so it's no surprise that he's out there at Rangers Summer Camp. Earlier this offseason, Rempe signed a two-year, $1.95 million contract extension with the Blueshirts.
