Aiming for fun

You’ll have no shortage of options this summer if you’re looking to enroll your kid in a basketball camp. Or a baseball camp. Or a football camp. Or a tennis camp. Or a volleyball camp. There are many — sometimes more than a dozen — to choose from for both girls and boys. But maybe your child’s sporting interest runs to the more unusual. There’s something for those kids, too.

There are a couple of lacrosse camps. A few for budding golfers. And others focusing on weight training and speed and agility.

Or you can consider the youth shooting programs at Landt Farms Sporting Clays in Nine Mile Falls.

During the one-day sessions, kids ages 12-18 work with certified coaches to learn how to shoot clay targets.

Participants, who should be at least 85 to 90 pounds so they have the upper-body strength necessary to hoist a weapon, are taught to use special semi-automatic guns with low-recoil, says George Tippner, one of the owners of Landt Farms.

“It’s custom-made for the beginning shooter,” Tippner says. “It doesn’t have as much oomph as normal loads do.”

The class also stresses the importance of gun safety, he says.

“We teach that the gun must be unloaded at all times, except when the child is in the shooting cage,” Tippner says.

If guns aren’t your child’s thing, how about rackets and shuttlecocks?

The Spokane Parks and Recreation Department hosts a “Freakin’ Badminton Camp” for kids ages 8-17 in July.

Former Washington State badminton champ Kenny Lu will teach kids how to properly train for the sport, along with techniques and strategies for playing what is actually, when done right, quite a fast-paced game.

Participants are encouraged to bring their own rackets.

At Spokane’s Elite Gymnastics, program organizers are finding ways to bring excitement to the standard gymnastics camp.

The gym offers an Adventure Camp that incorporates gymnastics skills into a different theme each day.

Last year’s session included “Fear Factor” day, “Survivor” day, stunt-man school and other fun themes, says gym manager John Stump.

“There’s a lot of flipping and flying,” Stump says.

Elite Gymnastics also runs a mystery camp, with a different guest instructor each day.

“Nobody knows what it is until the instructor shows up,” he says.