Last month we were so excited to be running our Girls Learning Code March Break Camp again – not only was it the 7th year we’ve been doing it, but we were also able to host it out of our beautiful new HQ in Toronto!
Over the weeklong camp, 30 girls learned how to build their own websites with the help of our staff and volunteer mentors. Each day the campers were writing code, designing graphics, and working together to create amazing things with technology.
Monday
Our campers were split into teams of 4 and tasked with brainstorming ideas for a website. From homework motivation to protecting endangered animals, the teams thought about issues in the world that were important to them and different ways that might help solve them.
With each team now agreed on their themes, it was time to do some “hacking” using Mozilla X-Ray Goggles and designing logos for their websites with Pixlr!
Tuesday
We started the day off with a few games to get us warmed up, then dove back into learning about HTML & CSS, the code used to build websites. With their new understanding of how to write this code, they created their very own e-cards inviting their families and friends to join us for Demo Day on Friday using Love Bomb Builder.
After recharging over lunch, the campers were introduced to Mozilla Thimble and shown how to start building their very own websites from scratch. Working together they created pages about their cause, ways that we can solve the issue, and of course short bios of everyone in their team!
Wednesday
This morning the campers were asked to think about their websites target market and ways they can reach that group better. They then did their very own market research by asking other campers what they knew about each other’s causes and used that information to make infographics in Canva.
Although their websites had tons of great information on them, they still looked a little bit plain so we spent the afternoon exploring CSS – the code that makes websites look awesome! From colours and fonts, to borders and backgrounds, everyone’s websites were really starting to shine.
Thursday
Campers arrived eager to make their teams’ websites even better so they spent the morning learning about User Interfaces and User Experience. After asking other campers to try out their websites and give each other feedback, the teams spent some time making improvements so their websites were even more user friendly!
With the end of camp just around the corner, it was time to get out of the classroom and go on a field trip! The campers spent the afternoon with the team from Gaia, who talked about how their Sprites (a house plant monitor designed for kids) worked and had the campers prototype their own Sprites using craft supplies.
Friday
It was the last day of camp, which is always a “happy-sad day” as one of our campers put it. They had learned so much over the week and made a lot of friends along the way!
After spending the morning putting the finishing touches on their logos, infographics, and all of the pages on their websites, it was finally time to welcome their family and friends for Demo Day! Each team presented their coded creations and talked about all of the incredible things they had learned together.
We’d like to thank all of the wonderful campers for making this week such a blast and their families for encouraging them to learn more about building with technology. Of course we never could have run a camp like this without all of the amazing volunteer mentors who worked closely with the campers over the week answering their questions, helping them fix bugs, and making sure everyone was having fun! We’d also like to give a special thanks to Gaia for hosting our field trip, and to all of our partners who made this camp possible.
If you know any kid ages 6-12 who might want to learn about building websites, programming video games, designing graphics, or becoming an entrepreneur then please visit canadalearningcode.ca/summer-camps to find more information about all of our Summer Camps happening in Toronto and Vancouver.