Programs · Open studio
Unstructured, not unsupervised.
Two hours, no assigned project, every tool we own, and an adult whose job is to say yes more than no.
- When
- Mon, Wed, Fri
- Hours
- 5:00–6:00
- Ages
- Enrolled kids
- Cost
- $0
Open studio is the hour when kids who are not in a second block can do whatever they want with the building. Sew, solder, throw, print, repair a bike, build a thing out of scraps, sit in the library and read. It is the least structured hour we run and the one kids ask about most.
What is available
- The workshop, with hand tools and staff supervision on power tools.
- The repair bench, with a staff member and a pile of broken things.
- The clay studio, if the kiln schedule allows.
- The print shop, the sewing bank, and the library.
- The courtyard, the garden beds, and Deb the van (not drivable, but open).
The one rule
You have to be doing something, and you have to clean it up. Not a project, not an assignment — something. Reading counts. Taking apart a toaster counts. Staring at the ceiling does not, and a staff member will gently hand you a broom.
Open studio is why we can say every kid gets unstructured time without it becoming a hallway. The proportion of kids who choose open studio over a second program has gone up every year since 2022, and we have decided that is a good sign rather than a curriculum problem.
The kids who thrive in open studio are the ones who cannot sit through a lesson but will spend forty minutes trying to get a hinge to line up. We built the hour for them.
Pick two. Stay eleven weeks. Show somebody.
Every program runs one afternoon a week for a full term. Kids choose two, and we do not shuffle them around like a tasting menu.