Campus: Brownsville
Hi-YA! Explore the discipline and skills of taekwondo alongside local instructors. Early elementary-aged students gain confidence, coordination, and dabble in self-defense skills as they learn about a new way to move their bodies.
What happens when early elementary-aged students receive a loan to start their own business? Students embark on an entrepreneurship adventure to learn about the basics of personal finance as they experience how it feels to hatch a business idea, receive a loan, put the business idea to action, and pay the loan back.
Explore the mind-bending magic of biology, astronomy, geology, and more while practicing reading and following directions. Early elementary students explore their world as they gain independence in pursuit of becoming an Alpha Mad Scientist.
Focus and intensity skills are put to the test as students create mazes and escape rooms through a trial and error process. Planning ahead, using peer feedback, and successfully achieving milestones along the way will make you say, “That’s a-mazing!”
Can your team… put itself in birth order without speaking? Identify which survival items it needs most if stranded in the desert? Run blindfolded through an obstacle course with only your teammates to guide you? In this workshop, early elementary students practice cooperation and teamwork through age-appropriate challenges. By the end, students will understand the basic building blocks of great teamwork: clear communication and respect for others.
Alpha students drop the hammer and pick up basic carpentry skills in this workshop. Our carpenters-in-training take on a bird feeder, bat house, toolbox, and a project of their own design. Students are given the tools and directions for all projects. They have to manage their own time, materials, and pay attention to the details to build their masterpieces!
Calling all adventurers! Students explore the world around them, delving into cultural differences as they learn from a variety of resources such as books, virtual field trips, videos, tasty snacks, and hands-on activities. New learnings and desired travel destinations are documented in a travel journal. Passport paperwork not included!
Every Alpha student has an incredible story inside them. Students prepare and perform personal five-minute narratives in the style of The Moth podcast. The group focuses on community and trust-building, giving and receiving feedback, and, of course, telling a great story.
Let’s draw back the curtain to examine why and how great ads can convince people to do just about anything! Students design and distribute their own ads to sell treats to the campus community. The goal? Run the most successful ad campaign and earn some Alphas!
Who doesn’t love a good party? Students try their hand at coordinating a budget, theme, intricate logistics, and a few curveballs for their fictional client’s on-campus event. The best part? Students of all levels get to enjoy the carefully-designed party as the culminating project, and party planners get real feedback from their peers.
Have you ever seen a toothpick disappear? Students perfect sleight of hand tricks as they explore and practice how to be an engaging performer. Confidence and control are critical as students give feedback on their peers’ performances in preparation for the culminating magic show.
Students flex their language muscles in a new way, learning basic American Sign Language (ASL) using True+Way ASL, a self-paced application that educates through videos. The workshop is punctuated by “silent” days during which students can converse only in sign language. As their final project, students make a video entirely in sign language to communicate a message to their peers.
Got a sweet tooth? In this workshop, students teach themselves how to bake by utilizing the endless number of cooking and baking resources on the internet. Final competitions put newly-acquired skills to the test through a signature bake, a technical challenge, and a show-stopper culinary creation.
Use logic and reason to build and advance a world of your own. Students form their governments, evolve their technologies, and overcome the crises their civilizations face by studying the civilizations of the past and present and putting history’s lessons into action.
The topic of this musical is….to be determined. A cast of middle schoolers use theater games and brainstorming techniques to understand the kinds of stories they like to tell and the way they’d like to tell them. Sit in the audience to enjoy the script, set, direction, and ultimately, performance, collaboratively designed by the group.