Westchester Arts Camps for Creative Kids
Now that spring is around the corner, kids are getting restless and parents in Westchester are seriously thinking about summer camp. But not every kid is a sports-camp kind of kid. Many don’t get jazzed by soccer, baseball, basketball or hockey, so it’s a good thing that Westchester has more than its fair share of creative summer camps. If your child tends towards the artistic, encourage them to explore their talents and learn some new skills at one of these terrific Westchester day camps for creative kids.
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Visual Arts Summer Camps in Westchester
The lovely Bethany Arts in Ossining inspires kids to experiment with new mediums and invent creative methods in their favorite genre. “Camp Weird” is a series of a project-based lessons in painting, sculpture, ceramics, mixed media and more, using music, science, movement and poetry to inspire creativity. Each one-week session is unique and ends with a pop-up exhibit of campers’ work. Bethany Arts also offers weekly “Art and Nature” camps for younger kids.
One River school (with locations in Hartsdale and Larchmont) leads dozens of sophisticated weekly art classes for kids of all ages, including Learn to Sculpt, Motion Comics, Street Art Painting, Digital Manga Characters, Pop Art Painting and many more. Classes for younger kids are in the morning while older kids can enroll for the full day.
The Katonah Arts Center has three different camps for kids this summer: Art & Imagination Camps (one-week sessions with themes like “Dr. Doolittle” and “Cuddle Creatures”) are geared towards younger kids (ages 3-5). Kids Camp (grades 1-5) has small-group, weekly sessions in clay, painting, Flash animation, cartooning and board game coding. The Teen Intensives program focuses on a single topic, like iMovie, large-scale drawing, outdoor landscapes, mural-painting and other art forms.
Ardsley’s new Honest Art Summer Art Camp keeps kids of all ages fully engaged throughout the day with slime play, tie-dye, drawing/illustration, creative painting and 3D arts. Only 40 participants can comfortably fit in the studio so register soon.
Art XO Studio in Irvington has a weekly summer camp (ages 5-12) that includes art projects like painting, drawing, clay, sculpture, maker projects, mosaics, jewelry and design. Campers learn about famous artists and try to emulate their work. The camp day also features tie dye, pendulum, splatter art and “choice creation time” when campers can explore their own interests.
Music and Dance Summer Camps in Westchester
The Music Conservancy of Westchester’s summer program runs a variety of in-person classes with half and full-day options. Campers can choose to study guitar and violin; or they can learn keyboard and mallet skills in the digital piano lab. Music lessons are interspersed with arts and crafts, dance, singing, musical theater and improv classes.
Alaya Dance offers one, two and three-week dance-lesson sessions in their downtown Ardsley studio. (Alaya follows the AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE® National Training Curriculum, an eight-level program which combines training with child development.) The dance classes are combined with other fun and creative activities.
Theater Summer Camps in Westchester
Riverarts, based in Hastings, brings art to communities with multi-village events and concerts, as well as music, art and dance classes. Their summer camp has three options: SummerArts is a series of multi-disciplinary workshops for children who want to explore the literary, visual and performing arts. JazzCamp immerses kids in music — they play/sing with peers while learning from some of New York City’s finest musician. At StoryCamp, campers will make their own stories come alive by designing settings and clothes, fleshing out characters and their conversations, and practicing the art of narration.
The Rye Arts Center’s summer camp hosts week-long workshops in which students learn to act, sing and dance their way through scenes from Broadway and Disney shows (Aristocats, The Wizard of Oz, The Little Mermaid and Bye Bye Birdie). On Fridays, the kids will present their productions to family and friends. There’s also a morning session in June for kids ages 3-5 to explore the arts through drawing, painting, music and movement.
Artistree in Mamaroneck will stage weekly shows like Wicked, Frozen, Encanto and 101 Dalmatians. The sessions are staggered for different ages — some weeks are for younger kids (morning only) and others for older kids (full day). Campers will cycle through classes such as acting, singing, audition technique, hip-hop and costume design. At the end of the week, there’ll be a special performance for parents and friends.
Summer may seem far away, but it’s time to register your little artist for a creative day camp. Thankfully there are some excellent artistic day camps in Westchester, so sign up soon!
