The average age of a student on the Lake Havasu City campus of Mohave Community College is about to drop. Starting June 14, around 200 children between the ages of 5 and 13 will occupy the campus for the annual College for Kids summer camp.
Registration is going on now for the two-week camp, and some classes have already filled, according to College for Kids coordinator Cheryl MacLean. Particularly popular this year are classes in fashion design, piano and clay. Other classes drawing interest are Introduction to Theatre and Beginning Baton Twirling.
College for Kids, which started on the campus in 1989, allows children entering grades four through eight to choose two classes from a schedule of 13 offerings. Some are purely for fun. Others have an academic twist, such as Math Games, Science Safari and Life in the Middle Ages.
Children entering grades one through three have their own program, Primary Fine Arts, which exposes them to four fine arts disciplines: music, visual art, theatre and dance.
The curriculum for younger children was developed by MCC associate faculty, and former staff member, Bertha Nyboer, who ran the College for Kids program for more than a dozen years, starting in 1992. The intention was to give the younger siblings in the family a College for Kids experience of their own.
Nyboer said Primary Fine Arts started as a pilot program for 30 children and was so successful it was expanded to serve 60 children the next year. It has been “a vital part of College for Kids” ever since, Nyboer said.
“Many times parents, as well as the students, find out the child is interested or talented in an area of the arts and they can continue training in that area because they’ve been to College for Kids,” Nyboer said.
In fact, the whole College for Kids model is designed to allow kids to explore subjects they may not otherwise be exposed to, Nyboer said.
“The big advantage is students can find out in a leisurely and nonthreatening environment — no grades, no tests, that sort of thing — something they like to do and that they can enjoy doing in the summer. They get to experiment,” said Nyboer, who will teach Spanish and piano at this year’s College for Kids.
Two years ago, the College for Kids program was expanded even farther to offer a program for children ages 3-7 who aren’t old enough for the Primary Fine Arts program. “Story Time with Wendi,” led by Campus Librarian Wendi Birkhead, takes place at the Hodel Library on the campus from 10:30-11:30 a.m. every day College for Kids is in session.
The program, which includes three to four stories and a craft project each day, is free and open to any children who wants to attend on a drop-in basis. Parents are required to stay and participate in the story time with their children.
“It’s open to everyone. You don’t have to have kids in College for Kids to come to the story time,” Birkhead said. “We just thought it would be a nice tie-in, that mom and dad could drop off their older kids at College for Kids earlier in the morning, and later, while they’re waiting to pick them up, they could bring their younger kids to the story time.”
Nyboer said that MCC staff members who have run College for Kids over the years have watched it grow into an important program in the community and one that has garnered generous support from businesses and organizations that have donated money for scholarships.
“The kids who have grown up with us and their siblings look forward to it every year and they’re always asking, ‘When can we register?’ I think if we didn’t do College for kids, we’d have a riot on our hands,” Nyboer said.
College for Kids runs Mondays through Thursdays, June 14-24, from 8:30-11:30 a.m. Tuition is $72 per child, and a limited number of partial scholarships are available. For information, contact Cheryl MacLean, community outreach specialist, at 928-505-3356, or come to the campus to register Mondays through Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
