Marbles to hold in-person camps and offer at-home activity kits this summer
Marbles Kids Museum, which serves hundreds of families with summer day camps each year, announced Wednesday morning that it will offer in-person camps in the coming months, but with some modifications. It's also launching a Marbles Camp-To-Go experience with summer activities that kids can do at home.
Posted — Updated"Marbles has redesigned our 2020 summer camp program to align with local, state, and CDC guidelines to provide a safe, play-based learning experience for summer campers," the website says. "Camp Marbles is a longstanding community favorite for summer enrichment. While camp will operate a little differently this year to ensure camper and counselor health and safety, we promise it will be playful, fun, creative and original."
Camp options are available for kids ages 3 to 10 and include a half-day preschool camp, a half-day school age camp and a longer-day school age camp. Half-day camps are $160. The longer-day camps are $290.
Marbles has launched a series of health and safety measures and participation standards for this summer.
For the preschool camp, each group will be no bigger than 10 campers and two counselors. For the school-age camp, there will be 15 campers for every two counselors. Groups won't intermingle during the day, and groups and staff will remain the same throughout the week. Inside themed activity rooms, campers won't share materials and will maintain a social distance from each other.
Staff and volunteers will have their temperature taken each day. Parents will be asked to answer daily health screening questions about their children. Marbles staff and volunteers will be required to wear masks. And campers are "highly recommended" to wear masks and will receive a gaiter-style masks on the first day of camp.
"In order to keep camp groups separate, as required by CDC guidelines, Marbles is unable to provide before or after care at this time. In accordance with health and safety regulations, Marbles is unable to offer cooking camps this summer," the website says.
Many families already are signed up for summer camps at Marbles. With the new format, they'll need to re-register, but will get first priority when selecting their camps. Registration for the general public will open on June 6 for any remaining spots. Marbles is offering a full refund of deposits to families who have already signed their child up for camp, but are electing not to attend.
"Our capacity will be lower than it has been in the past but we are also offering Marbles Camp-To-Go which lets you take the Marbles Camp Experience home this summer," said Sarah Brown, Marbles' director of marketing, in an email.
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