Over 340 Wareham students are keeping their minds sharp over the summer as part of the CARE program, now in its 12th year at Wareham schools.

The grant-funded program which runs Monday through Friday, offers students of all ages the opportunity to choose from more than 20 classes such as robotics, chess, foreign langue, music and nearly everything in between.

CARE stands for Community, Academic, Recreation and Enrichment. CARE Director Jane Fondulis said the target students for the CARE program are low-income students, students with disabilities and academically at-risk students, which makes open spots hard to come by. That is why for the past four years there has also been a fee-based program for students who are unable to obtain one of the free spots. Fondulis said both programs mix and match and offer many of the same opportunities.

She said the theme for the summer is KITE: Kids Innovating Through Engineering. The robotics course is run through a partnership with MIT, and students travel to university in Cambridge on a field trip during the summer. Nearly all the students are able to take field trips throughout the summer. A group of 25 K-2 students traveled to the Harvard Natural History Museum last Thursday.

The program also has partnerships with non-profits, such as the Buzzards Bay Coalition, which has been working with the program for the last few years and comes to Wareham Middle School on Thursdays over the summer to educate students.

"It's a nice partnership," she said.

Fondulis said this summer is the first time the program is offering foreign language courses. There are two French classes, three Spanish classes and two Italian classes for students in grades K-3.

"Some students just come for the foreign language classes," Fondulis said. "Their parents drop them off at 12:30 and pick them up at 2 p.m."

Last Thursday afternoon, students in grades K-8 were bustling through the halls of the Wareham Middle School on their way to classes such as woodcutting, where Pat Fernandes was teaching third grade students learned the basics about how to cut wood and handle a saw.

"They're all novices," said teacher Janis Campagnone. " They want to make birdhouses by the end of the summer."

One floor up, 5th and 6th grade students were issued a series of challenges in teacher Helen Gabriel's Lego class. The students were asked to make specific structures, such as constructing the first letter of their name or a building with windows, using at least 40 pieces from different sets of building blocks.

"At the end of the afternoon we go over what worked and what didn't with each construction," Gabriel said.

CARE is also run as a 32-week after school program and this year the programs is adding additional before and after school sessions. The before school sessions start at 6:30 a.m. and the after school sessions start when school ends (3 p.m. at the elementary schools and 2:15 p.m. at the middle school) and run to 4:30 and 6 p.m.