Build-A-City LEGO® Summer Camps

My kids had a great time and learned about operation, logistics, and seem to have a greater appreciation of the work that goes into building their living space after attending Build-a-City Lego camp. There was a good amount of outdoor time during lunch and the location was convenient. The timing of the camp could be better- a 9a start time is late and disruptive to the workday. It would be nice to have an early drop off option (at least 8:30A).

Josh, Janessa, and Jack at the Belmont location were great! They had wonderful energy to keep our group of 6-7 year olds engaged and we loved the presentation they had at the end. I would highly recommended for kids who love LEGOS.

Highly recommend! This is my daughters favorite camp, she has been going there for 4th year and counting! She has so much fun and learns a lot every single time.
Every single supervisors I interacted with is amazing. They are just so good with kids.

Program was good. My child enjoyed it. Place needs air conditioning or additional fans.

My kid loves it. So much fun to build with friends.

My 6-year-old really enjoyed attending this camp for the first time. He said he definitely wants to go again next year. Thanks for creating a fun, safe environment for him to be creative (and learn about civics without even realizing it)!

My 6 year old really enjoyed Kidizens, especially the enthusiasm of Donald (whom he called Duck), in leading them through the simulations. My son's mind was blown by the sheer number of lego pieces, and liked free build time as well. He was matched with two other 6 year olds to be co-mayors. Unfortunately, we were not able to stay the whole time due a covid exposure in our household, so we had to withdraw after the 3rd day, but Kidizens was very kind to offer us credit for future use. Overall, I think this is a great way for kids to be start to learn how cities/towns are run, and how we adapt to citizen needs.

This is our second year back. Last year was in person and this year was virtual. This is one of the rare camps my son kept asking to come back to. I had doubts whether the virtual camp could be as engaging as in-person camp was, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was fun, kept his attention, and he still talks about how it was fun. The virtual camp kept to spirit of the in-person camp in that it was till about building a community and a city together. Lastly, I think I (along with other parents) must have sent dozens of emails to the camp as the pandemic was causing all kinds of uncertainty. My email was always answered promptly and Kidizens came up with a solid virtual camp plan very quickly. It was a good camp!

My 9 yr old son had a blast and learned a lot in the Young Mayors course! I will def. be signing up for more classes!

My girl attended the summer young mayors lego camp, she absolutely love it. The camp is full of creativity and fun. She built a city with all facilities with the support and instruction from staff. I was very impressed by all the photos the staff shared every day. She was so excited that she would like to come back for another camp.

Highly recommended! My son has been coming here for 4 years for summer camps, school breaks, etc. and still enjoys this camp at 10. He always said it was his favorite each summer! For an avid Lego fan, Kidizens is a really fun way to build Legos, work on problem solving and learn about operating a city.

Would highly recommend! My daughter had a wonderful time at this Lego camp. She came home everyday with a new structure she built in her "tiny" town with a plot line that was worthy of a Netflix comedy special. My daughter loves to build and this really sparked her imagination.

We LOVED Kidizens Young Mayors Lego Camp. At first I wondered if a week of Lego camp would really be fun for my son, but this was hands down his favorite camp of the summer! The curriculum was engaging, and the instructor (Ms Fiona) was fantastic!! Can't wait to do it again.

This is the only day camp that my daughter requests every summer. We've been attending the Belmont site for the past three years and she loves it. Not only is there a plethora of Legos (!!) but the program is unique in how to have the kids plan the build. I like that the teachers are engaging and it's a place where the kids are encouraged to direct their own creations and "towns." A unique summer day camp that is different from the other ones (sports, STEM, art, etc...).

This is such a wonderful camp. Two of our children attended Kidizens, twice and begged to go back a third time! In a day of so many camps trying to add more "flare," and create bigger, better, faster - this camp takes the science of creative play seriously. They get some direction from the counselors who do keep an eye on what they're doing but mostly leave the children to develop creativity & build their own negotiating and project management skills. They could not wait to show me their work and explain the workings of their city each day. We were thrilled with this camp.

To be honest my 8 yr old son absolutely loves LEGOs and we have tens of thousands. He’s quite creative and advanced at building for his age. I figured he would love this class and we wanted to enjoy it also. Overall, to me it just wasn’t worth what we payed for it. Also my son felt it was “too simple”. Seemed very young for him and we just felt it was not quite stimulating end enriching enough. We were expecting more.
No take home items at all. For the high weekly fee, there could have been some sort of take home souvenir to remember the week by. For example, we did another week long science camp he left daily with a take home and on the last day had quite a bit of interesting things related to his week. This was awesome.
There was a nice slideshow video the instructor made and played on the last day of the week. This was really nice, however, when I asked if I could have the video emailed to us just for ourselves and memories, I was denied by the managers. That was definitely very disappointing.
There were only 4 boys total in the class. That is not enough for a exciting week. Especially at the price we are paying. Have a little larger groups for more interaction. Making matters worse, one of the four boys had a behavior problem and was breaking some of the other kids buildings. This could of been handled more fairly.
We paid $475 for this week and I would not recommend to others, nor would I sign up again.

Kidizens is awesome! The staff is caring and creative, and they led my kiddos on an exciting adventure. My children learned civics, how challenging it is to run a city and a lot of great social skills needed for collaboration. They were both so bummed I had to miss the final presentation because they were so proud of what they'd learned and built! Sometimes camps can stress out my kids, and they really felt comfortable in the cozy, structured but creative environment at Kidizens!

This was by far the best camp of the summer. We tried out science camps, basketball camps, SF Giants camp, and bike camp and this was by far the BEST. Our son was so excited about this camp, engaged, happy and couldn't stop talking about it when he came home each day. And with all the other camps, it was hard to get out one word. We will definitely be signing up for this again next summer! Thanks for the great week!

My son loved this camp. I wish I signed up for more than one week! The kids work together to build a city, and every day they get feedback on how to improve (places to live, eat, etc). There are also natural disasters that happen (flooding, earthquake, power outages, snow) so kids come in the next morning they don't know what to expect! I loved that they had healthy snacks, a free lunch on Wednesdays and walks to the park for exercise. Great camp!

Yes, Donald was awesome. Thank you for your energy and attitude.

My son loves this camp. He has gone here for several years in a row . Now one of the older ones he really grasps the concept they are teaching. Teacher Alex is very calm and organized.

My kid had a blast at this camp - it helps that he adores Legos! I especially LOVED that this camp actually had the kids deal with real life issues and skills - problem solving given real rules, regulations, ordinances, physical constraints (like weather), and dealing with citizen requests, city needs, and externalities and consequences of actions. Building a city and dealing with things like economy, industry, pollution, services, is such a valuable thing to teach even young children. We're definitely doing this again next year!!

My child always has a great time at this camp. They learn so much about collaboration and how to take care of citizens in their cities.

My 8 year old loved the week. Definitely peaked her interests in civics and why our community is planned and built the way it is. It was a fun and encouraging week for her!!

MY 8 year old daughter LOVED this camp and she was previously very ho hum about legos in general. At weeks end she wanted to sign up for another one and quickly dusted off her own legos and started to build her own creations. This camp really fired her imagination. Thank you so much!!

My kids had a terrific time during the camp. I was impressed how well the camp is organized. The kids learnt a lot about city planning, utilities and services, running the city and took their jobs very seriously as mayors. They learnt the importance of team work and had a wonderful time building with LEGO’s, were very proud of their achievements. ‘ Young Mayors’ is one of the best camps they have been to. Thank You Kidizens!

My 7 year old really enjoyed Kidizens. He's been part of the class for one session last year, and this is the first year of doing a week long summer camp. Alex does a great job in facilitating the kids, and quietly taking ones aside that need a little extra attention. The kids work in small groups of 2-3 during the week creating their separate cities, though sometimes there is further collaborations and interactions between cities, including debates where the older kids present their points, offer rebuttals, and all kids vote.

The kids at the end of camp do a presentation that grown ups are welcome to attend. It's great to see the wide range of public speaking skills. The counselors put together a video montage of the children speaking about their work, and other highlights of the week. My child plans to come back!

Leila loved to express her own creativity! She was excited to see how her decisions influenced her City as Mayor!

Glad for my son to participate in this camp. He appreciated learning how to be mayor of a city, and to grow in his conception of what it means to be a citizen and leader.

Kidizens is an amazingly engaging camp. My kids are learned about civic engagement and leadership while building with Legos. My son and his friends have been so engaged and invested in their community outcomes that he discussed their city's issues/goals and their potential solutions at bedtime and when he was getting ready in the morning. My daughter, who is younger, really enjoyed the interaction during the day and grew in her ability to work productively with others. Who would have thought that working together building a Lego city would achieve such a high level of intellectual stimulation and engagement.

Also, my kids loved playing freeze tag at lunch in the park! I'm sure that it was a very welcome break after all the high stakes discussions and building activity.

Our son loved participating in the Young Mayors summer camp. This was his first real summer camp experience. I was really pleased to see how the director and other camp leads were consistently engaging the children to think of ways to expand/improve their cities. They covered it all, from getting power to their citizens, to dealing with a pack of gorillas getting loose and finding solutions that made sense. It was well run and I always felt like my son was safe, even for the brief walk to the park. My little one already asked if he could have a repeat for next year! I highly recommend this camp, giving it a 10 all the way.

Both my boys enjoyed it very much, they were discussing strategies at home and couldn't wait to get there in the morning. Very well run by Fiona, which makes sure to accommodate as much as possible.

Much more than a "lego camp" - this camp was about thinking forward and planning out a city, planning for traffic, weather, floods etc. Both my boys loved it.

What a great camp! I was skeptical that my boys would like it (both are 9) given the very simple setup with nothing but a room full of legos, but they both LOVED it and can't wait to go back next year. Each night they would come home excited about what they did and would plan out how they would meet the challenges the next day in their lego city. Plus, as a bonus they got to walk to a local park and run around outside at lunchtime - something you can't always do at indoor camps. We will definitely be coming back next year!!

Nice teachers, committed to their work. Friendly atmosphere. Great idea with building cities and great to get reports about own kid how he/she was doing.

Kidizens had a great setup. It's essentially Sim City, "acted out" with Legos (facilitated by a camp counselor). (If you aren't familiar with Sim City, read up on it -- it's a very direct translation of it, complete with "natural disasters", paying to build things, collecting tax revenue, etc. There is also collaboration across cities, where you can build shared resources like fire houses and police stations.)

If you can sign up with a friend, I recommend that. From what I understand, it was basically that all day + recess at the playground + snack + lunch. So they should really love legos. My kid was on the very young side and loved it -- but I think it helped a lot that his friend/partner was much older (his older friend also loved it).

Really liked the theme and what the camp taught; especially being a leader and making choices that affects others. Campers seem really engaged and my son was eager to explain and show his accomplishments on a daily basis. I thought it was a good idea to get them outside and walk to the nearby park during lunch.

Things that could improve would be adding air/ AC to the facility. Each day at pick up, it was walking into a sauna with lingering smells from lunch or sweaty children. I was fully anticipating some type of presentation on the last day by the kids, but there wasn't. Overall, my son enjoyed and I would definitely consider doing it again.

Our son had a wonderful week at Kidizens lego camp! He was excited to return each day and learned about the complexity of building and running a city. Now he wants to be a mayor when he grows up!

I highly recommend it! My 8 and 10 year old daughters both loved this camp! Every day I picked them up, they were so excited to show me all the things they had built. They seemed to really enjoy the civics nature of the building and telling me about why they had built particular structures to help their town. I was quite impressed by this camp that it turned out to be a great learning experience.

I was a bit concerned when I signed up that this would be a mostly boy camp -- my daughters had some girl friends there with them and I noticed a few other girls there who we did not know. It seems like at 30-40% girls that week, in case you are wondering. Though it didn't really make a difference as they work in small teams anyway.

The counselor was very nice, but the space was smelly and there were only 7 kids...

This one week camp was very well planned and well run. What differentiates this from other Lego camps is that it combines creativity with collaboration, social studies, and to some extent financial responsibility, all involved in building and managing a city. My 7 year old loved it!

My daughter loved it. She learned about government, courts, and civic leadership. She also learned about compromise and teamwork. I asked her to grade it A to F and she gave it an A+. Thinking we’ll be back next summer!

Kidizens was excellent this year, because the counselor really connected with our son. In general, I think this is a good camp but not a great one. This is the third year our son has done this camp, and as he gets older, the concept of being a "citizen" definitely is easier and he is getting more out of it than just building lego. Overall a friendly and fun place to be.

Great camp and friendly staff! My son really enjoyed it! And it was also nice they incorporated outside play time for the kids.

A wonderful and creative place to engage kids in play and learning about civic responsibility, urban planning and the importance of teamwork.

My son loved this camp. He loved being "Mayor" of his city, solving problems, sailing to "Lego Island" and writing the town constitution. I feel like the space could be spruced up a bit, but that didn't bother my son at all.