Our goal for the DFW KidsCamp is to promote a love of learning, mastering new skills, and to support the personal growth for every child attending. By learning how to blog, our Campers will practice their reading, writing, and critical thinking skills. It is our hope that KidsCamp will be the venue to encourage each child’s creative potential. This is great opportunity for kids to start developing their own voices, discover who they are, and understand how their “voice” might be different from their friends and classmates.

Blogging can be a personal journal of insights about unfolding events. Bloggers start forming and voicing opinions, and writing about things that interest them. Student bloggers build strong typing and spelling skills.  Blogging can also be a highly creative endeavor involving original art, or photography.  During KidsCamp we will show Campers how to access images for their Blogs from online sources. We will explain how the creative commons license allows them to use these photos by following the sharing rules of the owner.

Online Safety

The internet is omnipresent in our children’s lives. It provides encyclopedic information at the touch of a finger. One of the goals of KidsCamp is to introduce the basics of online safety. We encourage parents and guardians to work with their children in KidsCamp to review some best practices for their Campers. WordPress allows you to set access levels so nothing can get published without your approval. Parents can set-up comment preferences to review comments with their kids, offering an opportunity to discuss what might be an appropriate response and what might not be.

Blogging can be an entertaining, engaging and educational experience for kids and their parents. We look forward to seeing you at DFW KidsCamp. Please remember to bring a laptop and get ready for a fun, creative day with your Camper.

Annika and Toyin Akinmusuru KidsCamp 2015

KidsCamp is not only an opportunity to share what we do with our children, but it is also the best place to teach your child how to create and publish content with WordPress. The Austin WordPress Meetup has been hosting KidsCamp since 2011. We’ve introduced kids to WordPress at official WordCamps, Scout meetings, and Boys and Girls Clubs. Kids love the simple to use, intuitive WordPress interface to publish their thoughts and interest online. Some of our very first Campers have taken their early introduction to WordPress from a fun, interesting pastime to a livelihood that helped pay for college and the foundation of a successful career.

I think it is pretty safe to say that Annika’s first KidsCamp in 2015 was all about spending time with her Dad, Toyin. She enjoyed learning the types of things her Daddy did on his computers. She was full of questions that started with “How to.. and why.”  One of our takeaways from that KidsCamp experience was it was easier for a child to learn WordPress with their parent’s help and continued encouragement. Our other takeaway was to ask our KidCamp participants to think about what they want to write about before camp so they are ready to start building their ideas into websites during class.

 During a WordPress KidsCamp, your child will learn WordPress basics, creating pages, creating and maintaining a blog, and building a site navigation structure. We will also discuss internet safety. As much as we enjoy teaching valuable technical tools, KidsCamp Coaches have noticed kids improve their writing and communication skills simply because they were eager to share their thoughts with others. Having their very own WordPress site gave them a sense of gravitas and offered them a new way to connect with others of like interests.

Learning the basics of WordPress can not only help prepare your child for today’s fast-changing tech environment, but it might also inspire an entrepreneurial venture or two. Last year Annika built her first client site, but this year she approached her Dad with a Dropshipping idea, AnyDay Books – notebooks with custom-designed covers. Annika and Toyin worked on the design together and developed a beta product, This month Annika took delivery of her first books. With proof of concept, she and her Dad are onto their next step — to build Annika’s AnyDay branded dropshipped books into a business.

Not every KidsCamper will be inspired to start their own business, but many entry-level jobs and occupations call for some WordPress experience. Learning WordPress or any software technology helps children through the process of self-discovery and eventual mastery.  For kids of all ages, there is something incredibly cool about taking an idea and successfully building something that visually interprets your perceptions and objectives so others understand and take action.