Spring Session runs for 21 weeks with week off for Spring break.

Participants enjoy activities including science experiments, art projects, cooperative games, and imaginative interactions. We create obstacle courses and create crepe paper flowers, build forts out of natural materials, and explore math manipulates. We sew stuffed animals, explore meadows, do origami, practice yoga, sprout beans, and hold mayoral elections.

Our rooms are abuzz with creative energy and collaborative spirit. Adult facilitators provide resources, guidance, and ensure the physical and emotional well-being of participants. Materials and educational supplies are easily accessible, interactive, and open-ended. Events unfold organically and opportunities to develop communication skills abound.

Self-Direction

Participants instigate activities which cover a wide range of interests. For exampling putting on a play may involve script writing, recruiting actors, set making, prop building, costume design, advertising, dancing, music, public speaking, and an immense sense of accomplishment and creative expression.

One individual might spend two hours weaving, one hour interviewing others about their jobs, half an hour telling jokes, and hour and a half outside running, sketching pine cones, and having conversations with both youth and adults. Their afternoon could be spent reading to friends and taking a modern dance class taught by a peer.

Invention

One of our most used items is the "invention box". We set out a container filled with odds and ends such as springs, film canisters, pieces of foam, string, feathers, and pipe cleaners. These items can be put together in endless combinations.

Reading

We read many books, either in small groups, one on one, or young people on their own. We bring books that have to do with changes in perspective, finding details in a larger picture (what's different about these pictures, for example), and unexpected combinations of ideas.