Your Future World
This year’s summer camp will feature biweekly themes investigating what life will be like in Your Future World. S.T.E.A.M principles are integrated into our curriculum through Math and Literacy programming. The children will participate in activities, experiments and investigations of these principles each week. They will develop problem-solving skills through critical-thinking projects specific to each featured subject, playing chess and much more!
From creating lunar rovers and weather stations to discovering the concepts of coding and robotics, the children will be hands-on participants in their learning. During the course of each biweekly subject, children will make predictions about what the future holds, as well as discovering what they can do to help protect it.
This will be accomplished through classroom activities, experiments, and our exclusive Speaker SeriesTM. Experts will deliver insightful presentations to the students regarding the bi-weekly themes and put the concepts into real world context, demonstrating the importance of understanding their world and opening the doors to future professions.
Swim Lessons available at all campuses.
Campers at Stepping Stone School will also participate in our unique Young Entrepreneur and PhilanthropistTM program. Children will create and manage a series of businesses and all proceeds will benefit the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin and Scotty’s House in College Station. All of this and more awaits your child at The BraineryTM.
We invite your school age children to enroll in the Stepping Stone School Summer Program at The Brainery™ where they will explore YOUR FUTURE WORLD!™
Robotics • Interstellar Exploration • Life In The Future • Conservation • Future Tech • Undersea Exploration
Kindness and Empathy™
The Brainery™ summer camp offers a series of compassion and character-building activities to accompany the lesson plans. Research demonstrates that helping others is key to happiness. There will also be activities each week dedicated to growing the kindness, empathy, and character of the children. Your children will also have an opportunity to participate in guided reflective thinking time each day.
Every activity your child participates in at The Brainery™ will further their knowledge, increase their curiosity, peak their imagination and move them forward in their development.
The Atelier™
The Atelier™ is a unique and innovative concept designed specifically by Stepping Stone School to expand the artistic and design opportunities for our children. Created for ages three and up, The Atelier™ raises the bar of Early Care and Education experiences beyond anything offered elsewhere.
The experience goes beyond the mere provision of materials. It focuses on the inner creative genius inherent in all children and provides them with character and creative role models allowing them to set goals and ascend to the highest levels of their creative potential. By pairing information with imagination, our children will be offered a priceless opportunity to exponentially expand their creativity, problem solving capabilities and the harmonizing of their ideas with others.
Calendar
PERUSING THE PAST
May 4th – May 15th
Leader of the Week:
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Children will investigate the past in an effort to understand where humans and the Earth have been. In this way, they can gain a baseline from which to understand and hypothesize about where things will be heading as we move into the future.
HUMANITY IN THE FUTURE
May 18th – May 22nd
Leader of the Week:
Ruth Benedict
This theme takes a look at where humans are headed as we move into the future. We will look at the capabilities of the human body, as well as the variety of current human cultures. We will then theorize about how humans can be better in the future.
ROBOTICS
May 26th – June 5th
Leader of the Week:
Isaac Asimov
Students will discover the concepts of robotics from program, to design and function. They will learn about what current robots can and cannot do, as well as hypothesizing about what robots in the future may be able to achieve.
INTERSTELLAR EXPLORATION
June 8th – June 19th
Leader of the Week:
Mae Jemison
Campers will learn about what is needed to explore and make discoveries beyond the bounds of the Earth. Students will also facing explorers attempting to travel to and settle other planets.
LIFE IN THE FUTURE
June 22nd – July 2nd
Leader of the Week:
Richard Branson
Students will think critically about what everyday life would look like in the future. They will postulate how medicine, government, housing, cities and many other aspects of the future will be both similar and different.
CONSERVATION
July 8th – July 19th
Leader of the Week
Rachel Carson
Children will discover the importance of preserving the Earth for the future. They will uncover the challenges in today’s world with pollution and conservation as well as gaining an understanding of how to protect it for the future.
FUTURE TECH
July 22nd – August 2nd
Leader of the Week:
Tim Berners-Lee
Campers will take a deep dive into the ideas that drive current technology and apply them to the future. They will look at what transportation will be like in the future, as well as making some creations of their own using renewable energy sources.
UNDERSEA EXPLORATION
August 5th – 16th
Leader of the Week
Robert Ballard
This theme focuses on the last great unexplored space on our own world, the oceans. Students will discover current knowledge as well as using critical thinking skills to come up with ways to explore and possibly inhabit the ocean depths.
Field Journeys
Out of an abundance of caution and due to the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, Stepping Stone School has cancelled all off-site field journeys this summer.
Instead, we have developed an astounding array of "Virtual Field Journeys" along with Zoom presentations by professionals in the areas of study and a few on-site presentations as well. Your children will be exploring relevant videos and exciting on-line tours that will take them on trips filled with creativity!
Young Entrepreneurs & PhilanthropistsTM
Stepping Stone School is proud to incorporate entrepreneurship and philanthropy into our summer camp program. Over the course of the summer, the children will participate in philanthropic and community-based activities.
To date, our young philanthropists have donated over $80,000 to Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin and Scotty's House in College Station.
Voted Best in Childcare for 22 years by Austin Family Magazine!
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Science Documenting and predicting; observing the environment and phenomena; building a water filter; charting magnet races; exploring the solar system.
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Technology Multimedia projects/filming interviews; using the HATCH interactive SMART board; recording a story on a computer; building solar ovens, turbines and anemometers.
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Engineering Planning and building a tower; designing a picture using precut shapes; building paper boats and planes, creating a marble maze.
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Arts Designing with mixed media; drawing blueprints for a castle; painting modern art with shapes and textures; creating a new alphabet.
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Math
Creating origami; measuring long jumps; cooking; counting money; graphing science experiments; predicting patterns; making tallies to count blueberries.