daytime PROGRAMS

January 17 - June 11 2017

Click images to read full class descriptions.

HOW IT WORKS. Our Full Day Program is 3 days a week. Students may register for individual courses (a la carte), or students may register for the entire Full Day Program and receive additional support making specific connections to homeschooling requirements, teacher-advisorship during the semester, and support in creating independent projects and portfolios. Our Full Day Program is designed with complementary curriculum and themes, including two full day curriculum courses: one that focuses on social studies, history, writing and literacy, and the other that focuses on math, science, engineering, physics and technology through the study of machines, mechanics and “how stuff works.” The five-month semester is split into three units of study, (each 5-6 weeks), that will enable students and teachers to dive deeply into their subject matter and content, and then spend the final six weeks of the semester focusing on projects, community connections and opportunities for sharing their learning.

Our Winter-Spring 2017 Full Day Program also includes a full day per week called, OUR NEST, a structured open work day for KN students to work closely with their teachers and peers to create individualized plans to meet their academic and extracurricular goals through independent work, study groups, clubs, service-work, and open work time in the Kite’s Nest space. This time will be an important component of our core-students’ Kite’s Nest experience: one in which students have the opportunity to develop themselves as independent learners, use our resources, build community, take initiative and make connections between their course-work and their own interests/goals. Families enrolled in the Full Day Program will receive additional support making specific connections to homeschooling requirements and at-home instruction, will meet with teacher-advisors during the semester and will have support in creating independent projects and portfolios.

We are now operating on a semester system, which will run from January 17th-June 11th, with two 2-week breaks in February and April. We are also offering two 1-week-long camps during these breaks. Kite's Nest will be closed during the week of February 27 - March 3rd; the week of April 24 - April 28; and on Memorial Day, May 29.

Pricing: Each program has a per-course fee if you are registering for individual courses. There is a Full Day Program price, which includes all three full-day courses. The three-day a week program will enable students and families to use Kite’s Nest as a substantial social and academic support to their homeschooling endeavors.

Program Costs for 17-week semester:
$3000 for the Full Day Program (3 days/week) for the 17-week semester.
Sliding-scale tuition assistance available for families who qualify. Payment plans are available to all. After school programs and school-break camps are a separate fee.

mondays: OUR NEST

Mondays 9:30am - 3pm | Ages 9 - 15
$1000 for the 17-week semester. Sliding-scale tuition assistance available for families who qualify. Payment plans are available to all.

What does independent learning really look like for us? How can Kite’s Nest support us to become life-long learners and engaged citizens? What knowledge, skills, and interests do we have to share with one another? What else do we want to learn? How can we become leaders in our community of learners?

Monday’s open work day for KN students will provide time and structures for students to pursue interests, take on independent projects, and collaborate with one another through study groups, youth-led workshops, band practice, clubs and skill shares. During this time students will take an active role in their educational experience and environment through community meetings, curriculum planning with their teachers, and active engagement with the homeschooling process. Students will meet with their teachers, design independent learning plans, and set goals for this Winter/Spring session.

A typical “Our Nest” day may include a morning community meeting where students create an agenda with any desires, issues, goals for the week that need to be addressed, and then a chunk of supported independent work time in which students might pursue learning a skill, working on a project or new content knowledge, or finish work they have from other classes (weaving, whittling, speaking Spanish, researching the Treaty of Versailles, studying algebra, etc), or head to a morning internship at the Hudson Area Library, WGXC, Full Circle Fuels, Alimentary Kitchen or with another local expert/artist. In the afternoon students might have organized a mini-workshop on App-design or vlogging, or they might have music lessons with Tony Kieraldo, or have scheduled band practice, or a play rehearsal.

These extra hours in the Kite’s Nest space will provide students with the opportunity to ask big questions about their own learning, take ownership over their educational experience, and become leaders in their educational community.

TUESDAYS: BRICKS, BUTTONS & BANKS

Tuesdays 9:30am - 3pm
Ages 9 - 15
$1150 for the 17-week semester. Sliding-scale tuition assistance available for families who qualify. Payment plans are available to all.

Tuesdays at Kite’s Nest this Winter/Spring will center around investigations into local histories of labor, migration, and urban change through research, archeological explorations, interviews, oral histories, writing and reading. In January we'll begin by asking: What is the relationship between labor, migration and urban change? How has history been shaped by industrial development in our region? What is the relationship between work, culture and place? Between labor, civil rights and protest? Between labor, the economy and capitalism? Between capitalism and inequality? How can studying the history of labor, industry and migration help us envision a future for our city?

In this history, literacy and writing workshop, students will investigate the industrial history of the Hudson Valley as an avenue for further exploring the dynamic nature of this place and its long story. Students will develop their research skills, learn to identify useful evidence in primary documents, and put those documents into a meaningful context. This course will include off-site field trips and expand on some threads from Mobile Classroom. We will work closely with the historians and archivists at the Hudson Area Library History Room, Historic Hudson, and the Columbia County Historical Society. We will also travel to significant sites of industry in the region, bringing along an archaeologist's tools of discovery to explore the remnants of these places of production; the factories and industries that have existed in Hudson and the surrounding areas, from ice houses and brick factories, to candy, mushrooms and button factories, from the pocketbook industry to the prison industry. We’ll deepen our understanding of the relationships between geography, migration, work and industry -- and the connection between these histories, and where we are today.

FRIDAYS: HOW STUFF WORKS

Fridays 9:30am - 3pm
Ages 9 - 15
$1150 for the 17-week semester. Sliding-scale tuition assistance available for families who qualify. Payment plans are available to all.

On Fridays at Kite’s Nest this Winter/Spring we will take apart, experiment with, rebuild, invent and create machines, motors, robots and more! We will begin by asking ourselves: What makes an engine run? What powers my computer and phone? How do batteries work? What’s under the hood? Behind the keyboard? Inside the radio? Can I fix my own broken stuff? Can I create robot to make my tea in the morning? How can we learn the skills to repair, re-wire, recreate the mechanical and electrical appliances in our lives to spend less, consume less and live more efficiently?

In this Mechanics, Math, Design, Engineering and DIY workshop we learn by working with machines, small motors, and electronics through reconstruction, repair and experimentation. In collaboration with The Catskill Maker Syndicate we will learn mechanical, electrical and engineering skills along with the math and science concepts behind them. We will build model bridges, catapults, trebuchets, create robots, toys, apps and games. We will take apart, rebuild and repair broken stereos, fans, engines and discover some of the mysteries of electricity, combustion, and mechanics. The educators at Catskill Maker Syndicate will bring their expertise in toy-building and robotics alongside their knowledge of open source coding, 3D printing and their inventive DIY attitudes!

Let’s make, create, and invent together, in the name of knowledge, humor, joy, reuse and recycling!

INTERESTED? HERE'S WHAT TO DO:

Our programs fill up very quickly, so please get in touch right away to enroll.

If your child has already participated in a Kite's Nest class, please email hello@kitesnest.org or call 518-945-8445 to enroll.

If your child is new to Kite's Nest:

Fill out this form, email hello@kitesnest.org, or call 518-945-8445
We'll contact you shortly with registration forms, and answer any questions you may have.

Sliding-scale tuition assistance is available for families who qualify. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.