Summer Camp

Why Summer Camp Beats a Summer at Home

The research is not subtle. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only about 24 percent of children ages 6 to 17 get the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity. During the school year, that number is already too low. During summer, without gym class or recess or organized activities, it drops further.

At the same time, a long summer at home – especially for working parents who can not supervise every hour – tends to pull kids toward unstructured screen time. The effects are measurable. Children who go into the school year physically active, socially engaged, and used to a routine adjust faster, sleep better, and perform better in class than children who spent the summer idle.

A structured summer camp does the opposite of the long-idle-summer scenario. Kids move all day. They try sports they would never pick on their own. They meet children from other schools and other neighborhoods. They learn to handle themselves away from their parents for eight or ten hours, which is harder than it sounds and more valuable than most parents realize.

Research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2022 found that children and adolescents who played sports in their childhood years were significantly more likely to remain physically active as adults. A separate analysis highlighted by Psychology Today reached the same conclusion: childhood sports participation correlates with better lifelong physical health outcomes.

Summer is where that pattern gets established. Not during the packed school year when kids already have gym class and after-school programs. Summer is when the habit either forms or does not.

The Three Summer Camp Programs at All Sports Kids

Unlike generic rec-center programs, we run three separate camps under the All Sports Kids roof. Your child is placed into the one that matches their interests and age, and grouped with peers at a similar developmental stage.

Five Benefits of Sports Summer Camp for Kids

We have run summer camps since 1997, and over that time we have watched the same five things happen to kids who spend a summer with us. These are the reasons parents in Tamarac, Sunrise, Coral Springs, Plantation, and Lauderhill keep enrolling their children year after year.

1. Physical Activity Becomes a Habit

A single summer at sports camp can shift a child’s relationship with physical activity for years. At our camp, kids are moving most of the day – rotating through three 45-minute activity intervals, plus free play, plus field trips. That kind of sustained, varied physical activity does more than burn off energy. It builds cardiovascular endurance, coordination, balance, and agility. It also builds the expectation that this is what a normal day feels like.

Regular exercise increases children’s daytime energy levels and improves sleep quality at night. A tired, well-exercised child sleeps better, which means they wake up ready to do it again the next day. Parents tell us their kids sleep through the night during camp weeks in a way they do not during school weeks.

2. Social Skills Develop in a Way They Cannot at School

Camp friendships are different from school friendships. At school, kids are sorted by grade, classroom, and schedule. At our camp, they mix across those boundaries for weeks at a time, working together in team sports, sharing meals, collaborating on activities. The children learn to share space, set boundaries, and solve problems without a parent or teacher stepping in immediately.

Campers are grouped by age for activities, so your child is always working alongside developmental peers. But they are also mixing with campers from surrounding Broward County communities – kids from different schools, different neighborhoods, different backgrounds. That kind of social exposure does not happen in a classroom.

Many of our campers tell us the friendships they make in summer camp are some of the strongest they have. They are built on shared experience, not just shared classrooms.

3. Independence and Self-Confidence Grow

Camp is often the first time a child spends eight or ten hours a day away from their parents in an unfamiliar environment with new adults in charge. That sounds intimidating to parents. For kids, it is actually where confidence comes from.

Under the guidance of trained staff and counselors, campers learn to make small decisions on their own: which activity to do during a free period, who to sit with at lunch, how to handle a disagreement without escalating. Our counselors do not solve every problem for them. They are trained to step back when a child can work through something, and step in when help is genuinely needed.

That balance – supported but not hovered over – is where self-confidence develops. A child who spent a summer managing themselves in a safe, structured environment comes back to school in the fall visibly more capable.

4. Character Development and Resilience

Summer camp teaches kids that new things are uncomfortable at first and doable with practice. Every camper, at some point in the summer, encounters an activity they are not good at. How they handle that moment – whether they quit or keep trying – is exactly the question the camp is designed to help them answer.

Our structured schedule reinforces this. Three 45-minute activity intervals per day means campers cycle through different sports and experiences. Some days your child is in their comfort zone. Some days they are not. Watching them learn that setbacks are a normal part of getting better – not evidence that they are bad at something – is one of the quieter but most important things camp does.

Sports also teach work ethic. When kids see their skills improve with practice, they internalize the lesson that effort produces results. That lesson carries far beyond the field.

5. Screen Time Drops, Dramatically

Any parent who has watched their child’s screen time during a summer week at home versus a summer week at camp knows this one is real. At camp, there is no time for screens. The day is full.

Camp is structured, supervised, and social enough that kids do not want their phones. They are doing something. When they get home, they are tired in the way kids are supposed to be tired – physically, after a full day of play – and the default activity is actually resting, not scrolling.

The summer screen-time reset is, for many families, one of the biggest long-term reasons they enroll. A child who spends summer on a screen comes back to school habituated to it. A child who spends summer at camp comes back with the habit broken, or at least interrupted.

A Typical Day at Summer Camp

Our summer program is built around three 45-minute activity intervals per day, with breaks for meals, quiet time, and free play in between. The schedule gives kids structure without being rigid.

A typical day looks like this:

• 7:00 AM – 9:00 AM – Drop-off window, free play, arts and crafts available
• 9:00 AM – 9:45 AM – First activity interval (example: flag football for Sports Camp, tumbling for Cheer Camp)
• 9:45 AM – 10:15 AM – Snack and water break
• 10:15 AM – 11:00 AM – Second activity interval (example: basketball skills, cheer dance routine)
• 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM – Free play, crafts, or quiet time by preference
• 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM – Lunch (free food program or from home)
• 1:00 PM – 1:45 PM – Third activity interval or field trip departure
• 1:45 PM – 3:00 PM – Structured play, team games, skills instruction
• 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM – Free play, cool-down, movie on the big screen on select afternoons
• 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM – Pickup window

Arts and crafts are offered continuously throughout the day, not just as a scheduled block. Campers who want a creative break from sports can drop in to the arts room whenever they need to. This is especially valuable for younger campers or campers who are not naturally drawn to team sports.

Important: All Sports Kids Summer Camp is a day camp – not a sleepaway camp. Children must be picked up at the end of each day. We are open seven days a week, 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM, which makes us one of the only summer camps in Tamarac with weekend and extended hours.

Weekly Field Trips Your Kids Will Love

Field trips are a core part of summer camp, not an occasional extra. We coordinate staff-supervised local field trips throughout the summer – typically multiple per week – to give campers off-site experiences and break up the rhythm of the facility.

Past and ongoing field trip destinations include:

• Aquariums
• Bowling alleys
• Laser tag venues
• Baseball games
• Swimming pools and water parks
• Movie theaters
• Roller skating rinks
• Cookouts and outdoor adventures

All field trips are supervised by fully licensed staff, with safety and counselor-to-camper ratios as the top priority. Transportation is handled by our own buses and vans, so we are not relying on third-party providers.

The Xtreme Camp field trip schedule is separate and more adventure-focused, with destinations like Boomers, Dave and Buster’s, Off The Wall, paintball, and indoor sports arenas.

For the latest field trip schedule, check the All Sports Kids Facebook page or call us at 954-746-5437.

How to Choose the Right Summer Camp for Your Child

Not every summer camp is the right fit for every child. The mistake most parents make is choosing on price or proximity alone, then discovering mid-summer that the camp is the wrong match. Here is the checklist we recommend – whether you end up at All Sports Kids or somewhere else.

Look for real staff credentials. Ask specifically: are instructors and counselors trained? Are they required to hold child care education hours? Do they have CPR and First Aid certifications? A legitimate camp will have a clear answer and will volunteer it. A camp that hedges on staff qualifications is the wrong camp.

Look for variety of activities. Children benefit most when they are exposed to different kinds of movement, play, and creative options. A camp that does only one thing all summer – only basketball, only soccer, only arts – tends to lose kids by mid-July. Variety keeps kids engaged for the full ten weeks.

Look for structure with flexibility. A good camp has a planned daily schedule but also provides downtime and creative options when kids need a break. Rigid all-day programming burns kids out. So does a camp with no schedule at all, which is really just daycare with a pool.

Look for age-appropriate grouping. Your 6-year-old and your 13-year-old should not be in the same activity group. Ask how the camp groups kids by age or developmental stage.

Look for safety and supervision. Is the facility licensed? Is supervision continuous? How many counselors are there per camper? Ask the question. Good camps answer it with specifics.

Look for hours that work for your family. Most summer camps run Monday through Friday, 9 to 5 or similar. We are open seven days a week, 7 AM to 7 PM, because we know working parents and two-job households need flexibility that a traditional 9-to-5 camp can not offer.

If you want to tour our facility before enrolling, call ahead and we will schedule a walkthrough. Most families who tour enroll on the spot.

Summer Camp for Working Parents – The Childcare Angle

A lot of Broward County families find us through searches like “summer child care” or “summer daycare programs near me” rather than “sports camp.” That is because for many working parents, summer is primarily a childcare problem. The kids need somewhere safe, structured, and productive to be during working hours, and they need it for ten straight weeks.

All Sports Kids doubles as high-quality summer childcare. We are a licensed child care facility with continuous staff supervision. We are open long enough to cover most work schedules – 7 AM to 7 PM, seven days a week. Our program includes free food program meals so parents are not packing lunch every day. We handle field trip transportation so parents are not coordinating permission slips and vehicle logistics on their lunch break.

The difference between us and generic summer daycare is that your child is not just being supervised. They are being coached, taught, encouraged, and given structure. At the end of the summer, they have skills they did not have in June – physical skills, social skills, and confidence. Generic daycare can not make that claim.

Serving Families Across Broward County

All Sports Kids is located in Tamarac, but our summer campers come from across Broward County. The communities we regularly serve include:

• Tamarac
• Sunrise
• Coral Springs
• Plantation
• Lauderhill
• North Lauderdale
• Margate

We offer bus and van transportation for pickups from the surrounding areas, which makes it practical for families in neighboring cities to get their kids to camp safely and on time.

If you are in a Broward County community that is not listed and you want to know whether we can coordinate transportation, call us. We have expanded our pickup areas over the years based on demand.

Frequently Asked Questions