Day and weekend excursions in the Washington D.C. area offer students an opportunity to get acquainted with many of the wonderful natural resources of the region. Children learn to adapt to the challenges of the wilderness environment by learning outdoor skills, experiencing new physical challenges and developing personal assets such as problem solving, initiative, determination, communication, responsibility and caring. Day trips this winter included multiple ski days and this spring City Kids will be participating in a wide range of activities. Activities will range from overnight trips where students will camp and whitewater raft in West Virginia to day trips where students will participate in ropes courses or boat trips on the Potomac River. Our Spring Break trips this year include kayaking along the South Carolina Coast for the Elite Team and biking and camping along the C&O Canal on a trip from Georgetown in DC to Cumberland, Maryland for the Mountaineers.

City Kids also runs an after school program for middle school youth as well as academic, internship and job training and support for older youth. Additional information on our programming for older youth can be found at our Internship and Transitions page.

City Kids Afterschool Program
The City Kids Afterschool Program currently runs for three hours per day, four days per week for new sixth graders enrolled in City Kids Wilderness Project. Our afterschool program is currently held at Burroughs Education Campus in NE, DC and serves students at Burroughs and DC Prep. The afterschool program provides structured recreation and snack time, tutoring time and a City Kids lesson. City Kids lessons have three main areas of focus: outdoor living skills, photography, and environmental education. Our lessons provide students with hands-on and engaging opportunities to learn new skills, as well as strengthen the skills that they are learning during the school day. Our lessons are carefully planned to be aligned with DCPS learning standards.

Students are currently working on a photo exchange project with the Journeys School in Jackson, WY, sharing photos and personal histories to learn about each other before meeting this summer. Students have completed two projects, including a self-portrait project, and an “Our City” project where students took photos of the monuments at the National Mall. Students will be taking photos at Rock Creek Park in March for the “Our Wilderness” project. Students have learned how to edit, caption and post their photos on Flickr so they can be viewed by the students in Jackson, WY. Students are also practicing critiquing photos. Students at the Journey School in Wyoming are paralleling our actions in DC and we exchange photos for each unit.

The students enrolled in the afterschool program also have access to the weekend and spring break programming, including a summer session at our camp in Jackson, WY.