Curiosity is a non-renewable resource

Grass-stained knees,
wide-open questions,
and the whole afternoon ahead.

Creative Parks runs summer camps, after-school programs, and hands-on activities in the parks of our cities — because the best classroom smells like grass after rain, and the best lessons arrive with a little dirt under the fingernails.

See our programs → Enroll a child

Inspiring creativity and curiosity in young minds through hands-on, interactive programs — held in the open air, in the parks we already have.

— our one belief —

Childhood curiosity is a non-renewable resource. Spend it well, and a kid builds a lifelong love of learning and an appreciation for the natural world. Waste it, and no amount of later effort puts it back.

Three ways to spend an afternoon

Programs that unfold
at the pace of a kid.

From full summers to quiet Wednesdays, our programs are shaped around hands-on discovery in the parks of the city. Sometimes that's a microscope on a riverbank. Sometimes it's just a walk to find out what that sound was.

☀️

Summer Camps

Whole weeks of long mornings and longer afternoons. Themed around field naturalists, makerspace-outdoors, and "build-and-launch" projects — the kind of camp you remember decades later by the smell of sunscreen and a single good friend.

1–8 weeks Ages 6–14 Full day
🌳

After-School Programs

Three afternoons a week, we meet at the park. No screens, no rigid worksheets — just guided STEAM projects that pick up where the school day left off. Outdoor labs, coding under trees, and art made from whatever the ground offers that week.

Sept–June Ages 5–12 3:00–5:30 PM
🔭

Educational Activities

Drop-in workshops, weekend family days, school-break intensives. Stargazing nights, river-water chemistry, bridges made from sticks and twine — one-off days that tend to become the story a kid tells at dinner for a week.

Year-round All ages welcome Half-day & drop-in
The five letters

STEAM, but grounded
in real grass.

Science, technology, engineering, art, and math — woven into days that feel nothing like a worksheet and everything like a weekend you remember.

S
Science

Real rivers, real weather, real specimens. Hypotheses tested with actual pond water and actual patience.

T
Technology

Sensors, microcontrollers, and code — pointed at the natural world to see what it has to tell us.

E
Engineering

Shelters, bridges, wind turbines, catapults. Build something. See if it stands. Fix it. Try again.

A
Art

Natural pigments, field sketches, sound maps. Creativity grown from what the park actually gives you.

M
Mathematics

Measuring trees, counting rings, plotting flight paths. Math as the tool of a curious person, not a chore.

The best classroom
doesn't have walls.

Kids learn differently when they can move, make noise, touch, dig, and wonder out loud. The outdoors isn't an enrichment at Creative Parks — it's the foundation. Weather becomes the curriculum. Seasons become the syllabus.

We build shelters when it rains. We study frost in the winter. We follow the sun with instruments we made ourselves. The park is not a backdrop; it's the teacher, and we're all in class together.

80%
time spent outdoors
1:6
educator-to-student ratio
5–14
ages we serve
100%
certified STEAM educators
A day might include

The kind of afternoon
a kid remembers.

Small moments that tend to become the story told at dinner. Not every day has all of these — but every day has some.

🔨
Building a bridgewith sticks, string, and a good guess
🐋
Pond dippingand meeting a dragonfly larva
🚀
Launching a rocketwe built ourselves, at breakfast
🎨
Painting with berriesand ochre we dug from the hill
🔭
Counting starson a blanket at dusk
🌃
Mapping the creekto figure out where it goes
💻
Coding outsidewith a laptop on a picnic table
🌳
Tree identificationlike the forest is a library
🔥
Building a solar ovenand baking a real cookie
🔔
Recording birdsongto see what it looks like
☂️
Studying a stormfrom safely under a roof
🔫
Measuring a treeby its shadow and some math

Give your kid
the kind of summer
they'll want to tell you about.

Spots in camps and after-school programs fill up quickly — especially by spring. Tell us a little about your child, and we'll help you find the right fit.