La Jolla YMCA153

Camps generally do not live up to expectations. Recently had our 5 year old in the La Jolla YMCA Cooking Camp. It turned out to actually be an "eating camp," not "cooking camp." She cooked NOTHING during the entire week - NOT A SINGLE THING! On Friday, the parents showed up on the premise that we would eat what the children "made." Actually, the camp directors made ALL the food, and my daughter was forced to wait outside while we ate the crap - it was unbelievably ridiculous. Just an awful experience for my daughter AND us. Also, most of the camps spend WAY too much time doing random activities (beach, park, etc), and very little time doing the actual camp subject (gymnastics camp, rock climbing camp, etc, etc). Even the Seaworld camp had a large amount time at the beach/park. In fact, in most of the camps, the MAJORITY of the time is taken up by random, off-topic activities. If the camp description says "and other activities," you can usually bet that at least HALF - or more - of the time will be "other activities." To be fair, my 5 year old always has fun at the camps. But it is troubling to me that she has never come away learning anything new. The camps are fun for the kids, but there are no real learning opportunities here. It's unfortunate, because the camp descriptions always sound so interesting. I just believe that it would be so easy to teach the kids SOMETHING in an entire week. Someone over there needs to affect change to the entire camp program - TEACH THE KIDS SOMETHING, AND KEEP THE MAJORITY OF TIME ON THE CAMP TOPIC!!!

I signed my daughter up for two camps last summer. The first one was at the Firehouse in downtown La Jolla and was a dance and music class. The first day was chaotic to say the least and I foolishly left my daughter there thinking "this is the Y." When I came to pick her up a few hours later, she was actually standing outside the building on the sidewalk by the street playing with a payphone, no one was with her or watching her. They responded as if I was overreacting at catching my 4 year old on the sidewalk. I didn't let her return to the camp. They did give me a refund, but no one ever admitted that they did anything wrong. I think their camps are probably great for older kids, but for the under 5 set they were woefully unprepared for the responsibility.

do you have volleyball instruction for girl 9 years old this winter or any toime during the school year?