Children participate in a paper craft workshop at Landmark on Saturday. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

It?s almost a dream deal for the little bookworms ? 60 per cent off on a vast range of titles, from fiction to fairytales, comics to quiz books, picture dictionaries, art books and more. The wonderland that is the Children?s Exhibition at Oxford Bookstore will kick off in Calcutta on June 16, and will continue till June 25.

Added to this will be a variety of fun and learning activities for kids, like vocabulary-building games, storytelling sessions, poetry-writing workshops, paper craft, flower decoration, art of cartooning workshops, fancy dress parties, surprise gifts?

For the older age group, there?s the CelebraTEEN festival, with a panel discussion on Media and Youth on June 12, fashion fiesta on June 13 and a salsa workshop on June 14.

Beat the heat or escape the rain, there are plenty of fun things to do for the youngsters during the holidays while the parents take some much-needed time off, too. And the Park Street bookshop isn?t the only venue for students to scout for some summer fun.

The Summer Vacation Hobby Camp at Birla Industrial and Technological Museum is on till June 7. At Rs 500 per child, it isn?t a cheap exercise, but there are only 20 students per batch. Holidays spent learning the ins and outs of physics, chemistry, life science, geography, basic astronomy and robotics may not sound like fun, but there?s plenty of practical experimentation and hands-on learning for the science enthusiasts.

The Crossword Children?s Summer Fest, organised in association with TTIS at the Elgin Road bookstore, ended on June 5 with a wide variety of workshops, from cooking classes to magic shows and salsa sessions.

It was such a success that Crossword is planning to host more activities for the kids on weekend evenings.

If Shinjan Nrityalaya held a nine-day workshop on Odissi dance by Aloka Kanungo that ended on Sunday, Samskritiki Shreyaskar, a dance school under the directorship of Rani Karnaa, will hold summer classes for juniors and seniors, from June 5 to 20, at Dhakuria Ram Roy Institution.

Delhi Public School New Town students from classes IV to VII participated in a summer camp with activities like aerobics, yoga, karate, dance, music and theatre. Birla High School recently organised a six-day camp for boys and girls, with workshops on making stick puppets, mime and movement, scroll painting by artisans from Midnapore, folk songs of Bengal, clay pottery and making pizzas at a leading pizza outlet in the city.

At The Heritage School, 210 children from different schools participated in an eight-day event with 24 activities, including rock and rope climbing, aeromodelling, swimming, wood carving, Madhubani painting by an artist from Bihar, archery and skating.

On the last day, the children demonstrated all that they had learnt through a colourful display of items, like block printed dupattas, coloured glass tumblers, paper lamp shades, waist belts, decorative flowers, etc.

There was also a mime presentation and a western dance performance.

TEFL International Pre School on Dr Sarat Banerjee Road held a series of short workshops for children, with activities like yoga-meditation, T-shirt painting, doll-making, clay modelling, mask-making, calligraphy, glass painting and fireless cooking.

There were also interactive sessions among parents, teachers and children.

The mantra this year was short and sweet. Most summer camps stuck to a duration of two weeks or less. And variety was the keyword, with a plethora of new activities on offer.