How many weeks?

[love2hike]

I was wondering how many weeks other day camps run for. I am a camp director at a full season camp. In the past couple of years staffing the last two weeks, when our primarily college aged staff goes back to school, has proven to be a challenge. I was just wondering how other camps manage this or if most day camps run for an 8 week session as opposed to 10.

Also any tips on how to make a day camp feel more camp like and less school-age-care like would be appreciated as we are a primarily indoor site that takes regular off-site trips.

Thanks in advance.

[Smudge]

The day camp I worked at was either 6 or 8 weeks - it ran on the same location and at time as the res camp. But I just looked up their web site and now they only run a 5 week day camp.

[Wawbeek5]

my camp runs for 11 weeks total during the summer( 1 week of training and 10 weeks of campers) but we start the 1st full week of June

[Flower]

The day camp I work for runs for 8 weeks.

[TapTap5678]

We do 9 weeks. We start June 22 and finish August 21. Used to start the week earlier, but the kids aren't out of school. In the past we have done an extra week of day to day camp signups but couldn't really staff it effectively.

[Campy Measius]

My day camps are 9 weeks (one week of training). Staff are contracted from late the last week of June until the end of the last week of Aug. The day camps are in the city, so it's not really any issue with staff leaving for school.
One way the counsellors make the camps feel less like school age care is by wearing costumes for 'intros' (little skits before games and activities) and being outside as much as possible.