Gifted Atlanta

Atlanta History Center is having a sale this week on its summer writing camps for students who are currently in 6th through 8th grades.

As they describe the camps, “Campers will learn how to become history detectives as they uncover museum mysteries, craft their own spooky stories, experiment with different styles of writing, and dream up their own imaginative worlds, all while having fun and exploring the past through games, historical simulations, and more!”

There’s no code required for the discount, which is $50 for non-members or $40 for members. The discount should appear automatically at registration. (Note that their history camps — which are for younger kids — aren’t part of this sale.) This offer ends this Friday, April 19.

Need more financial help for your child to attend a camp at Atlanta History Center? Camp scholarships are available for students who attend a Title I public school and receive free or reduced lunch. These are available for history camps or writing camps.

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”
— Henry David Thoreau

If this well-known quotation describes your gifted child, take a look at the Appalachian Institute for Creative Learning, a summer camp that revels in letting kids explore topics outside the expected.

AICL is one of the only summer programs I include on GiftedAtlanta.com that isn’t in the metro Atlanta area. It’s held at Mars Hill University, near Asheville, N.C. Why do I make this exception? First, my own kids attended this camp for two years, and my husband and I taught at the camp one of those years, so I’m personally familiar with it. And second, I know that AICL has given many quirky kids the priceless experience of feeling they’re with their true peers — including one kid whose mom read about AICL on this blog and who told me the camp was a godsend for her child.

Consider some of the classes they’re offering this summer: print making, the nervous system, Korean folk art, puppetry, short-story writing and French new wave films. Campers will create their own game shows, dismantle electronic devices, and program mini-robots to perform a play. In the afternoons and evenings, there are small-group clubs and large-group activities.

It isn’t just the classes AICL teaches that makes it work. It’s an underlying philosophy that celebrates personal and intellectual originality.

This summer, AICL will meet for two, one-week sessions. The camp is open to students rising to grades 3 through 12, with residential and day camp options. (Day camp at a location nearly four hours away is obvioulsy impractical, unless you make a sort of family vacation of it and rent a place around Asheville for the week — which we did the first year my kids attended.)