It's time to get ready for winter break, and that means discovering new ways to keep the kids happy and engaged while indoors. So today, we'll share the best winter break camps for kids to keep your child entertained and on track for future success in school and in life. Add in a little hot chocolate and your student is sure to be a happy camper!
In this article, we'll discuss some fun winter camps, including virtual, free, and in-person options, as well as what age group each camp is best suited for. We’ll also give you pointers on how to choose the camps that will best fit your child’s learning style and interests — and your budget. Read on, and select Thanksgiving break camps and the best online winter camps today.
Discover the best Thanksgiving break camps for kids
Now you're ready to explore some awesome winter camps. We'll share all sorts of options, from virtual winter break camps to free winter camps and even in-person winter camps. There are ideas for staying active, STEM ideas, and even cooking ideas! So, no matter your child's preferences, you're sure to find something they'll love.
Explore virtual winter break camps for kids
Virtual camps are convenient because you can access them from the comfort of your home, or even if you're visiting somewhere for the holidays. Here are a few online camps this year led live by experts. Many are designed by professionals from Google, Stanford, and MIT. These camps have won awards and been recognized by HulaFrog, Minecraft: Education Edition, and more.
1. NASA STEM Club
From Mars and aliens, to galaxies and rockets, space fascinates many students. In this series of live online classes, your kids will learn a wide range of topics related to space science, NASA, and practice other STEM skills. All classes are project based to encourage curiosity and develop problem solving skills. The camp covers many fun areas including rockets, Mars, International Space Station, Solar System, and a lot more.
- Best for: Grades 1-4
- Price: $68 for six 55-minute sessions
2. Budding Digital Artist Camp
Have fun being creative with a variety of interesting digital art projects! In this fun online camp, students create a different art project in each session, such as Minecraft skins, emojis, animations, photography, and more. In each of these hands-on activities, students are guided to observe and understand artistic elements in life such as patterns and symmetry, explore emotions and feelings, and learn about art basics such as color palettes.
- Best for: Grades 1-4
- Price: $68 for six 55-minute sessions
3. Scratch Coding Winter Camp
Learn how to code games and animations, fast! Developed by MIT, Scratch coding is a great way to introduce kids to computer programming because it uses simple drag-and-drop blocks rather than complex syntax. That means kids can focus on learning core coding concepts and logic, while not getting frustrated with typing errors. Join this beginner-friendly class to jumpstart your coding adventure!
- Best for: Grades 2-5
- Price: $89.25/part, each part includes four 55-minute sessions
There's also Scratch Junior for younger students and Accelerated Scratch for older students.
4. Minecraft Redstone Engineering Camp
In this fun class, your child will learn how to incorporate a set of redstone related blocks to build light shows, automatic doors, and even flying machines inside Minecraft. They will also learn about real-world engineering and computer science. No previous coding experience is required!
- Best for: Grades 2-5
- Price: $89.25/part, each part includes four 55-minute sessions
5. Minecraft Modding Winter Camp
Does your child enjoy playing Minecraft? In this fun winter break Minecraft camp kids learn all about how to build their own mini-games within Minecraft. Built on top of the regular Minecraft game, the platform your child will use in this camp, Minecraft: Education Edition, is a really cool program that includes additional features to teach kids coding and other STEM skills.
- Best for: Grades 2-5
- Price: $89.25/part, each part includes four 55-minute sessions
6. Internet Safety Winter Camp
Kids are online more than ever before, but do they know how to use the Internet safely and protect their privacy? When students join this introductory class they'll explore a wide range of topics related to computer security, modern computers, and the Internet. This will be the most exciting cybersecurity class for kids with real-world applications, delivered through a combination of project and inquiry-based learning. We'll enjoy fun videos, games, and security tools, as well as building projects of our own.
- Best for: Grades 2-5
- Price: $135.15/part, each part includes four 55-minute sessions
7. Pokémon Game Building Camp
Build Pokémon games and customize them in all sorts of creative ways! During this fun live online class, an expert teacher guides students through exciting challenges such as how to customize their Pokémon, how to use camera features to catch Pokémon, and other awesome skills to tailor their game-building experience. Create your own Pokémon virtual pet and keep it healthy and happy; Get ready to cast your Pokéball as you make and conquer the Catch the Pokémon Game; design a dynamic functional game of two-player Pokémon soccer; and try to build the tallest Pokémon pyramid possible in the Pokémon Circus Game.
- Best for: Grades 2-5 with previous Scratch coding experience
- Price: $105/part, each part includes four 55-minute sessions
8. Digital Design Canva Camp for Kids
Does your child want to create beautiful digital cards, posters, slides or videos for their school projects? Now they can make all of these fascinating projects with Canva - a powerful and trendy graphic design platform with a simple interface (and creating an account is free)! This course explores examples of great graphic design and video storytelling. Your child will learn to use the intuitive drag-and-drop tool in Canva to create their own designs, and share their creations with friends or teachers easily online. You will be amazed to see how creative your child can be with this fun digital design tool!
- Best for: Grades 3-6
- Price: $89.25/part with four 55-minute sessions
9. Roblox Winter Camp
Take a big step forward with your Roblox experience by actually creating your own games! In this unique live interactive camp, students will learn how to use Roblox Studio to create customized worlds and code mini-games including multiplayer games, and a game modeled after the highly popular infinity run game where players must turn, dodge, and jump to avoid obstacles and gain points. They'll use fun and simple to understand block coding, rather than the complex Lua language.
- Best for: Grades 3-8
- Price: $89.25/part with four 75-minute sessions
10. MakeCode Arcade Camp
Welcome to MakeCode Arcade, an online program you can use to create fun and unique games! In this class you will use block-style programming (similar to Scratch) to design and create retro arcade games that you can post online and share with others! In this introductory course you will learn the basics of MakeCode Arcade to create four different styles of games and study different elements of game design.
- Best for: Grades 3-10
- Price: $100 with four 60-minute sessions
11. Smart Devices: Arduino for Kids
While lots of students have learned to code, few have had the opportunity to build a physical system, which opens up a brand new world. Learn Arduino coding online to create electronics projects for real world adventures at home. In this live online class, students are introduced step by step to circuit and Arduino, one of the most popular systems for building robots and smart home systems in the industry. Student will learn how to design simple electronic systems for alarms, home sensing, motor controls, etc, as well as creating code to control these systems.
- Best for: Grades 4-9
- Price: $89.25/part with four 55-minute sessions
12. Mobile App Coding
Wouldn't it be cool if your student created an app and all their friends downloaded it? This virtual camp teaches kids to build mobile apps, including exploring how to employ text, device sensors, and even the camera to build projects and games that involve image recognition, word games, and riddles. Towards the end of camp students even tackle making a multiplayer game, as well as a cool app that stores their favorite items.
- Best for: Grades 4-9
- Price: Price: $135.15/part with four 55-minute sessions included
13. Modern Website Design with Wix
This class covers a wide range of topics in Web Design, starting from the basics of how to use WIX and how to structure your website, to designing layout, choosing color schemes, and even to creating a web store to sell products. Whether you are thinking about doing a website to showcase your own art or hobbies, feature school/community events, publicize your sports teams or clubs, or to help local businesses and non-profit organizations, this class will teach you how to make it.
- Best for: Grades 5-12
- Price: $89.25/part with four 55-minute sessions
14. Python Camp
This camp is great for middle schoolers! Python is one of the most popular real-world coding languages when learning to code. This live online winter break camp covers not only the basics of Python coding for kids and teens, but also puts a strong focus on the elements of Python that are most relevant to Artificial Intelligence, including data structures and libraries.
- Best for: Grades 5-9
- Price: $89.25/part with four 55-minute sessions included
15. Unity Game Development
Unity is the most popular game engine in the world, and is behind many games your child plays such as Angry Birds. In this virtual game development camp, kids build a 2D platform game where players can control the movement of the character and direct its interactions with the environment such as colliding with obstacles and hazards. After that, children progress to making their first 3D game in Unity, while continuing to improve their C# programming skills.
- Best for: Grades 6-12
- Price: $15 introductory class
16. AP Computer Science Principles Class
In this Computer Science Principles class, we introduce students to a wide range of important fundamental topics in computer science such as binary, encryption, networking, and more. It is a great step for learning more about system and architectural aspects of computers. Developed by expert AP computer science educators, the class also meets the requirements for the APCSP exam as defined by the College Board. APCSP is a fairly manageable exam to pass for high school, and even middle school, students who have done a couple of years of coding and have a solid foundational understanding about computer science principles.
- Best for: Grades 6-12
- Price: $387 for 12 70-minute sessions
Free virtual winter break camps for kids
Sometimes budget is the biggest concern when looking for things to keep the kids occupied. Here are a few free camps to explore.
Free Scratch Ninja Camp
Is your child curious about coding but overwhelmed with where to start learning? Then this is the camp for you. Jump right into creating original games and animations with this fun Scratch coding camp. Scratch is a beginner language developed by MIT, that makes it easy for kids to fall in love with coding, by removing some of the typing complexity. In this free introduction camp, your child will work together, along with a maximum of four other students, to build a fun game of their own.
- Best for: Grades 2-5
- Price: Free
Free Roblox Coding Winter Camp
Does your child love playing Roblox? If so this camp is a cool chance for them to learn how to code their own Roblox world and games. In this free introduction session, kids go through the process of installing and activating the Roblox Studio where they can build and script, and enjoy a self-paced tutorial to create a simple interactive obstacle experience.
- Best for: Grades 3-8
- Price: Free
There's also a version of this class for older, more experienced coders: Roblox Studio Intro: First Project (Grades 6-12).
Free Minecraft Winter Camp
In this free Minecraft camp, students are introduced to the platform for coding on Minecraft. It is easy to use and very powerful. They will also start building their very first mod! And they will complete 2 challenges. Students will not code on Minecraft itself but will use an emulator instead, because it takes a lot of time to enable coding for Minecraft.
- Best for: Grades 5-9
- Price: Free
AI Explorers Camp
With the latest developments in technology, AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning can now compose music, and even read medical images better than average doctors. This winter camp offers small group sessions and hands-on experience with cutting-edge artificial intelligence applications. Your child will have fun learning all about things that impact the real-world in big ways, through a lot of group discussion and a hands-on project.
- Best for: Grades 4-7
- Price: Free
YMCA Workouts for Kids
If you're ready to get your children up and moving, check out these activities from the YMCA. There’s yoga, cardio, pre-school dance, soccer skills, and more. All videos are on-demand and you can participate, too, because don’t we all need a bit more movement in our lives?
- Best for: Classes are geared towards different abilities and age groups
- Price: Free
How to pick the best virtual winter break camp
As a parent, you want a good learning experience for your child. Here are some ways to feel more confident in making the best winter break camp selection possible.
- Build on existing interests. If your child are super active, go for camps that feature lots of movement. If they are already sci-fi fans, explore the world of AI.
- Check for equipment requirements. If you don’t have a computer, your local library may lend them out.
- Read reviews. Most if not all programs include reviews from other parents. Take a little bit of time to see if you “see” concerns you’d have for your child in reviews that are less than stellar.
- Buddy up. If you know your child would prefer to have a friend along, see if you can make that happen.
- Keep it fun! Remember, you’re planning for the holiday break from the regular school routine. In other words, it’s all for fun while learning. It’s not for a grade.
Enjoy the best online winter break camps
Providing children with a structured activity during their time off from school can keep them excited about learning, while ensuring you get a little free time. There are so many options to make your winter break a blast this year. So pick your favorite Thanksgiving camps and winter break camps and get signed up before schedules fill up.
Up next, explore some of the best STEM holiday gifts for kids!
