Details

Discovery Day Camp offers your child the summer experience of a lifetime! Our camp is designed to perpetuate a multitude of skills including leadership, socialization, team-building, sportsmanship, and problem solving. Campers are given the chance to make friends and lifelong memories, while becoming more well-rounded individuals. We promote a healthy lifestyle, giving campers the opportunity for physical activity, fresh air, and lots of fun and new activities to do! DDC campers can look forward to fun and safe activities such as field trips, swim days, inflatable days, games, songs, team sports, arts and crafts, boating, hiking, archery, and more! There's no better place to be than DDC!

Ages/Date/Time

 

• Grades: Children entering grades K-6th
• Dates: June 5 - August 11
• Days: Monday through Friday
• Times: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  Note: see Before and After Care for extended hours
• Location: Discovery Shelter, Rogers-Lakewood Park

Fees

 
The weekly registration fee includes the Friday pizza lunch with 2 slices of pizza, 1 bread stick, and drink. The field trip week registration includes the field trip and lunch fee. Each camper will also receive one camp shirt for the summer. Children registered for summer school in the Valparaiso schools can attend camp after school for a half day rate. Camp rates are as follows:

• Residents
  • Regular week: $83
  • Inflatables week:$90
  • Field trip week: $98 
• Nonresident
  • Regular week:  $95
  • Inflatables week:  $102
  • Field trip week:  $110
• Summer School Rate
  • Resident: $41
  • Non-Resident: $47

Camper groups:

Camp grade is the grade your child will be entering in the 2017/18 school year:

• Voyagers:  Kindergarten
• Explorers:  1st grade
• Navigators:  2nd grade
• Pioneers:  3rd grade
• Trailblazers:  4th grade
• Jr. Rangers:  5th - 6th grade
• Rangers:  7th - 9th grade

3 Field Trips

• Cinemark Theaters June 30
• Washington Park Zoo July 21
• Zao Island July 28

3 Inflatable Days

• June 16
• July 14
• August 11

2 FREE Family Fun Nights

Includes:  Inflatables, snacks, games, & wagon rides!

• Dates: June 22, July 13

2017 Camp Themes

Week 1:    We are Family   (June 5 - June 9)

Another summer is just beginning.  We will celebrate new friends and memories with team building activities.  Campers will work together to complete challenges like the human knot, three-legged races, and obstacle courses.  We will make banners and artwork to celebrate that we are all one big Discovery Day camp family!

Week 2:   Decades Week   (June 12 - June 16)

Get ready to leap through several decades in just five days.  A dance party complete with the hand jive and disco is just the beginning of this fun-filled week.  We will also spend time tie dying and playing old-school games like pick-up sticks and jacks.  This is a blast from the past that campers don't want to miss.  We will end the week with INFLATABLES.  

Week 3 Ooey Gooey Week   (June 19 - June 23)

Things are definitely getting messy and slimy at DDC this week!  Campers will have shaving-cream hairdo contests and compete in egg-tosses.  Don't forget about paint twister and ooey gooey s'mores.  Bring a towel!  

Week 4:   Secret Agent   (June 26 - June 30)

Campers will be spies for the week where they will solve the mystery of DDC!  Our secret identities will decipher codes, and follow clues that will lead us all over the place in solving mysteries.  To finish off our secret agent training, we will go watch a real detective in action when we visit take a FIELD TRIP to Cinemark Theaters in Valparaiso to see Despicable Me 3.  

Week 5:   Holiday World   (July 3 - July 7)

Snowball fights in the summer?  You bet!  Campers will celebrate with some of their favorite times of the year all in one week with mummy racing, caroling, and egg hunts galore.  *No camp on July 4 (weekly fee discounted).

Week 6:    Olympics   (July 10- July 14)

Campers will play camp-friendly variations of their favorite Olympic activities, like balloon tennis, team relay races, and a variety of other sports.  Campers will also play sports trivia, and get their creativity flowing with an art contest.  Campers ill get a special visit from some Valparaiso University Athletes.  We will round the week out with a closing ceremony that includes INFLATABLES.  

Week 7:   Welcome to the Jungle   (July 17 - July 21)

Welcome to the wild world of DDC!  Campers will engage in activities such as animal relay races, face painting, animal yoga and more.  To end the week, we will embark on our own FIELD TRIP to the Washington Park Zoo in Michigan City.  

Week 8:    Wet and Wild Summer  (July 24 - July 28)

Things are getting wet and wild at DDC this week!  The summer is getting hot but we know how to beat the heat.  Trips to the park beach, water balloon games, and a water-filled version of musical towels will keep us cool.  We will have a sand castle contest and of course bring out the famous DDC slip-n-slide.  Bring a towel!  To end the week, we will head to Zao Island for a FIELD TRIP.  

Week 9: Lip Sync! (July 31 - Aug 4)

The most exciting week throughout summer is our Lip Sync Week! Campers learn and practice their group dances to their favorite songs, and make props throughout the week for the big night. Your family and friends come out to be the audience, and you are the star on Thursday night!!

Week 10:   Hits of 2017  (Aug 7 - Aug 11)

Summer is not over yet.  Join DDC for one last week of fun-filled games.  Campers will spend their days playing capture the flag, going on hikes, playing human rock paper scissors, and more!  We will end the week with a whole day of INFLATABLES.