If you live in Zurich, you probably get the Sportamt brochure mailed to your house every few months. Sportamt is a city department that organizes very affordable sport classes and camps for kids, both long-running weekly classes and holiday camps. They offer a wide variety of activities: soccer, ballet, hip hop dance, ice skating, jumprope, judo, fencing, circus, etc. You can see their current catalog on their website.
Each class in the catalog clearly indicates the age range and ability level, to help you find the right class for your child. You need to sign up early to get a spot, ideally right after you receive the catalog. Tennis is a particularly difficult one to get into, but we managed it twice. My kids have done several of the classes: tennis, ice skating, fencing, basketball, football, unihockey, and parcours.
All classes are run in Swiss German, but the teachers are typically very friendly and kids can usually figure it out by following the other kids. I heard lots of English spoke by other mothers at our class, so you are not alone.
My kids loved the basketball holiday camps. These were full day camps for a week. The kids did all sorts of fun drills and games in this indoor gym. Parents came on the last day to watch them show off their skills.
My youngest did the multi-ball sport camp, where they did a variety of ball sports over the week. It was for little kids, most around 5-7, so they mostly had fun and maybe learned a few skills.
My son did the the ice skating course during the February ski holiday a couple times. It was 55sfr for a 45min lesson for 5 days, excluding skate rental. It was great! There were about 40 kids with 3 adult and 3 youth instructors. The kids played lots of games, did relays, learned how to stop, spin, go backwards (a little bit).
Unihockey is very popular in Switzerland, so my boys were happy to learn some skills during the week long holiday camp.
One Response
What a great blog ! Many thanks for all your fab trip ideas.