This Year’s ‘Apple Camp for Kids’ Is Finally Back at Local Apple Stores

Over the past few years, Apple has been running a series of fun and creative “summer camp” sessions, inviting kids into its retail stores to learn the rudiments of drawing, movie making, coding, and more — all using Apple’s own products and services, naturally.

With most Apple Stores closed and folks hunkering down during the global health pandemic last summer, we saw a change to the usual Apple Camp program, with the company moving to at-home sessions for kids.

Rather than inviting youngsters into its closed stores, Apple instead provided a downloadable activity book that kids could load up in Apple’s Pages app or print out for themselves, combined with a series of 30-60 minute WebEx sessions, hosted by Apple Store creatives.

The sessions were designed to give kids some background and orientation on a selected topic of interest, such as video composition, art & design, or coding, and then basically leave them to work at their own pace, with one or more follow-up Q&A sessions where they could get more help with their projects, and ultimately discuss and present them.

In previous years, the topics have been somewhat varied and interesting, such as designing a dream park using an iPad, creating songs with GarageBand, programming robots, or making their own movie with Clips and iMovie. In all cases, Apple provided the tools, and they’d even sometimes take kids out for a walk to the park to capture some photos and get some inspiration.

Finally Returning to the Store

Sadly, much of this was curtailed last year, since Apple wanted to make the program as accessible to as many kids as possible, and not everyone has an iPad with an Apple Pencil, much less the various robots that Apple would provide for its in-store program.

So, although we really appreciated that Apple offered anything at all, we’re pleased to find out that this year Apple will be reopening its in-store program for anybody who wishes to venture out.

However, it’s also taking a page out of last year’s book to make the Apple Camp program accessible to more kids, with a downloadable PDF of 30 More Creative Activities for Kids that can be enjoyed by anyone.

Join us as we welcome kids back to the Apple Store for a safe and fun-filled moviemaking adventure. Campers ages 8–12 will create videos on iPad in a two-hour camp session with Today at Apple. If sessions are not available near you, download and explore 30 More Creative Activities for Kids you can do at home.

It’s worth noting that this year’s program is considerably more basic than what Apple offered back in 2019. There’s only a single topic, covering moviemaking with the new and improved Clips app, and it looks like it’s going to be only one single two-hour session.

By comparison, the 2019 program offered four sessions on Creating Your Own Song with GarageBand, Designing Your Dream Park with iPad, Coding Fundamentals and Programming Robots, and Directing Your Own Movie with Clips and iMovie.

Each of these topics included three 90-120 minute sessions held over the course of an entire week.

With many Apple Stores around the world just beginning to open more fully, however, it’s understandable that Apple probably wants to start more slowly, and in fact the sessions aren’t even available in all locations.

The sessions are geared toward kids ages 8–12, and you can find out if sessions are available in your area, or simply download the activity guide at Apple’s Apple Camp page.

Hopefully by next year this will all be well behind us, and we’ll see a return of the more dynamic Apple Camp sessions.