This review is not for Big Blue but for a specific teacher. Gloria is a real life magical mermaid…read more She is an incredible teacher, advocate, and role model. I'm truly in awe of her ability to maintain enthusiasm, warmth, insight, and intention through lesson after lesson. She is working on another level. She packs so much into a 30 minute lesson - challenging her students to build skill, creating a sense of community, encouraging them to support each other. We've had a few teachers at Big Blue, all clearly well trained, and our child demonstrates more growth in one session with Gloria than a month with his other teachers. I've worked in schools and observed educators in various settings for many years. Gloria has the passion and charisma that I recognize from the best teachers I've known. Even when my child was not in her class, Gloria advocated for his learning experience, working with the staff to make sure he was in the right level for both his age and skill. Whatever you are paying her, quadruple it. We are lucky to have Gloria in our community. Generally our experiences with big blue staff have been positive. Staff are always friendly and helpful. Gloria, again, stands head and shoulders above the rest.

The management of this facility and its customer service here have really gone down hill. With as…read moremany options exist in our neighborhood, I would avoid this place. Our sons attended lessons here 2-3 years ago and we had a fine experience. Great instructor who really knew them and knew how to motivate and celebrated their successes. This summer, we enrolled our one year old daughter. The classes had a different instructor every week. Classes were often cancelled due to facility closures with little to no notice. Refunds are not given for those cancellations- they will offer to give you a credit to come at another time (even if you literally cannot make any of the available times). After months of "membership" and only attending 1 class I finally cancelled, which I had to do via text message to reach their customer service. 2 months later they are still charging me. Avoid this place.

Updating my review because I need to give some love to our amazing teacher Crystal!! We took the…read morefall & winter season off from lessons since we would be out of town quite a bit and end up missing classes anyways. We started up with lessons again in the spring and needless to say we regressed quite a bit. Luckily for us, our new teacher has been so supportive and encouraging to our 2 year old. Our first lesson back was pretty rough with lots of tears, but Crystal encouraged us to keep at it and not give up. Over the last four weeks, our son has become so much more comfortable in the water. Crystal has cheered him on the whole time and always moved at a pace he is comfortable with, while slowly encouraging him to try new things. She has been so patient and encouraging, and he has grown to love swim again!! Thanks you Crystal for getting us comfortable in the water again!

They swim only like 5 yards for little kids, don't challenge them…read more They made the biggest progress when I took them for swim myself. Money wasting experience.

We sent our 4-year-old to this camp for the entire summer of '18 and we are pleased. There are few…read moreoptions in Chicago for a full day of summer care for kids under 5. The staff were all fantastic! There were over 200 kids at camp everyday and they knew us and our child pretty quickly. The camp is somewhat unstructured, there are not naps. There are several themed rooms the kids can choose to work/play in. If I recall correctly there was a singing/recording room, a game room, a programming room, fashion studio, cooking, and a couple others. They can also play outside. Every Friday had a dress up theme. Frequently there was a bouncy house, water apparatus, or other fun structures for the kids to play in. I think the total cost was about $2700 or $3000. Recommended!

Steve & Kate's camp is AWESOME! The camp allows the children to choose which activities that they…read morewant to engage in which, I find very creative & inspiring for children. The counselor are really cool too. They are vibrant, energetic, patient and kind. My daughter likes this camp so much that she didn't want to go anywhere else soooo, it's our 2nd consecutive year! Thank you Steve & Kate's Lakeview family, you're the BEST !!

Also the most expensive camp among dozens of other great options in Chicago. Communication was…read moresloppy and programming disorganized. Did not appear the staff had much training. We obviously will not be back and I cannot recommend Freda to friends.

We've sent out two older kids to Fred's for two summers now, and next year we're excited that the…read morelittle one will be old enough to join them. Every day, the kids were so excited to get to camp, they repeatedly validated our decision to choose Fred's. We couldn't be happier. They simply do everything right.

My daughter is asking to return for the third year. We do the extended day camp. She is eleven,…read moreand her experience during the school year was on a park district team, so this increased level of challenge, playing with girls who are more skilled than her, and the independence of going to the dining hall, being grouped with girls she did not know, the bus trip to a WNBA game, etc., was great for developing resilience.

I've attended this camp three times (2 sessions in a row this year) and have had a blast! "Spider",…read morethe coach is very educated. You have lots of independence which I like. It's lots of basketball, you play for 8-9 hours a day. Although it's hard, there is lots of free time for resting/eating. The food is great and the independence is so fun! I highly recommend sending your kids to this c

This place deserves a whole hearted 5-stars, but because the aquatics management at UIC is not fit…read moreto their jobs much of the time I demote to a 4-star rating. This is the story... I swam at a Division 1 level for 4-years of college and upon graduating I needed to find a place to try to remain active. Swimming alone is the most mind numbing and painfully boring activity in the world... so I knew that I would need a team and a coach to keep me motivated and having fun. I was 100% correct in this statement. I first joined Chicago Blue Dolphins (read my review of them elsewhere) and liked it... then it got old, and terrible, and mismanaged, and over priced, and and and... I will let you read the rest on my review of them. So when it came time to switch, a number of my friends and I made our way to Chicago Masters. I heard they were coached by the UIC coach (Paul Moniak) and they had a great team- that had a passion for swimming. Paul has an old-school methodology to his training habits that prove successful for his collegiate and masters swimmers alike time and time again. He is a great coach and is always willing to help with your stroke and swimming fitness needs. There are PLENTY of workout options, and the team trains long course much of the year- which is AWESOME. There is a large variance of skill levels from pre collegiates going for masters world records to 1-step away from aqua joggers. Ages range from lower 20's to infinity... so you will find someone in your skill and age range. The team is just as social as serious having breakfast outings after morning workouts occasionally, picnics on the beach, and other fun activities... Why you would not like it and I demote it to 4-stars. (1) WAY TOO MANY people wear equipment for the duration of a workout. Sure I wear paddles now and again, but fins the whole workout is so beyond appropriate swimming etiquette that it blows my mind. (2) You want a LOT of fine tuning to your stroke. This is a swimming team- we do mostly training. There is some drill work involved, but there is not going to be someone holding your hand through learning how to breath or finish your first triathlon swim. YES- there are options for private lessons (and I encourage those, because I love the though of anyone getting into my sport) but workouts are more training focused than skills. (3) The worst of all... the pool maintenance is poor. Its always clean enough, and the lane lines are in- the stuff you need to swim. But the water temperature is sometimes so impossibly hot that normal swimming is not possible. It seems that the staff that regulates it doesn't understand what good competition and training temps are. So in all- look past a few flaws that keep this from the perfect aquatic experience, but I can confidently say you wont find a better training program in the city. We have multiple masters world record holders, consistently send people to state and nationals... and Paul is easily one of the most underrated coaches around.

I just want to add that after re-opening during this time of COVID-19, they have done a great job…read moremitigating infection risk at their summer camps. They require the kids to wear their own masks, provide shoe covers and face shields, put up walls between computers and spread them out, limit class sizes, check temperatures on arrival, require parents to fill out a form asserting their child is not infected or exposed to infected people (to their knowledge), and keep parents outside during pick-up/drop-off. Also, my son said they made him wash his hands 5 times today haha. They are doing everything I could think of and more to help us feel safer and prevent the spread of coronavirus. Oh, and my son still likes the classes too.

My son loved digital adventures! For a long time I've wanted my son to get out of the consumer…read moremindset and shift to the developer mindset. I believe that shift is now underway D.A. does a phenomenal job of integrating the fundamentals of coding with his favorite video games, Roblox and Minecraft. The prices are also quite reasonable. I was very impressed with my son's progress and we were looking to give him a more specialized focus in terms of his interests and strengths with the classes they offer. I was so impressed seeing the 4th graders code full robotics applications after only 1 year of these classes. My son also enjoyed bonding with the kids there, and seem to enjoy working with them more than the kids at his school. He made some friends. I highly recommend this place.

Breakthrough Familyplex is a blessing to the East Garfield park neighborhood. It is fairly new to…read morethe neighborhood, and offers community programs for children to adult that live in East Garfield Park and surrounding neighborhoods. I compare Breakthrough to a YMCA, but minus the swimming pool because it offers similar programs. As a resident of East Garfield Park, it is heart-warming to see some of the opportunities it has for pre-schoolers and youth. During most of my visits to Breakthrough, I utilize its fitness center and free WiFi at Bridge cafe to do my college homework, which Bridge cafe sits inside the complex. Within my first few months of getting a feel of Breakthrough, I got the chance to educate myself on the volunteer opportunities also, which range from shelter, food depository and its fitness programs for youth. At the end of the day, Breakthrough is a win for East Garfield Park neighborhood, and surrounding neighborhoods because it gives residents a positive outlet through its activities, and opportunities of growth for the youth & those that take part in making it better. Thomas Gouard