JEWELRY DESIGN

Beading, metalwork, and wire-wrapping. Ages 8-14.

Mondays, 3:30pm - 5:30pm.
September 18 - October 30: 6 weeks. Kite's Nest will be closed on Monday, October 9.
Program fee: $160 | Sliding-scale tuition and full scholarships are available for families who qualify. Payment plans are available to all.

In this after school design studio, we'll learn to hand-make our own personal lines of earrings, bracelets, necklaces and pendants. Students will learn basic design concepts, and the techniques of beadwork, metalwork, and wire-wrapping. 

DESIGN RECLAIM

Reclaiming materials to build furniture and functional objects. Ages 8-14.

Mondays, 3:30pm - 5:30pm.
November 6 - December 11: 6 weeks. 
Program fee: $160 | Sliding-scale tuition and full scholarships are available for families who qualify. Payment plans are available to all.

In this after school design studio, we'll learn to hand-make our own furniture and functional objects using materials that we find and rescue. Working with artist Elise McMahon, we'll explore the idea of resourceful design: how can we empower ourselves to make the things we need? What can we make when we combine recycled post-industrial materials and natural local materials? For inspiration we’ll learn about material and design cultures from around the world, looking for how people across the globe have built economies and technologies around local recycled and natural resources. With ice people build igloos and natural air conditioning systems. With bamboo people have built bikes and scaffolding. With discarded rubber tires people build walls and vertical gardens. What can we make with the materials around us?

WISEBODIES: WHOLE BEING SEX ED

What do we know about the body? What don't we know? Open, honest, fun, and age-appropriate sexuality education. Ages 12-14.

Tuesdays, 3:30pm - 5:30pm.
September 19 - December 12: 13 weeks. 
Program fee: $350 | Sliding-scale tuition and full scholarships are available for families who qualify. Payment plans are available to all.

Join us in learning about the sexual/reproductive body through activities, games, and conversations with amazing experts and teachers from WiseBodies. What do we know about the body? What don’t we know? How are our bodies constructed, and how do they change? This will be a space for honest communication, laughter, and for wide-open, fearless learning. During our time together we’ll also share what we learn with the world: we’ll turn our new knowledge into books for younger children, and lesson-plans for teaching our community. Our books will continue to build the Kite’s Nest library of beautiful books about the body for youth of all ages. This program is open to students who've studied with WiseBodies before, and also open to brand-new students.

MAKER SPACE: GIRL'S CLUB
with the Catskill Maker Syndicate.

Building an off-grid playhouse from the ground up. Ages 8-14.

Tuesdays, 3pm - 6pm. 
September 19 - December 12: 13 weeks. 
Located at the Catskill Maker Syndicate in Catskill, NY. Pick up & drop off available from Kite’s Nest.
Program fee: $425 | Sliding-scale tuition and full scholarships are available for families who qualify. Payment plans are available to all.

What is self-reliance? How does a modern house work? Are lights powered by Elfin Magic or something else? Why do we have flush toilets? Are there other ways to make a house and the bits inside of it? Let’s find out by building our own fully-functional off-grid playhouse! Together we’ll look at the different systems that are used in houses, discover their histories, and explore alternative methods. We’ll dive into the mechanics of the things we usually take for granted, like water or heat systems, and then we’ll re-imagine how things could work. By the end of our time together we’ll have created our own playhouse, powered by alternative energies and built by our own hands.

EXPLORATORIUM

Creative exploration, arts, performance and play. Ages 5-7.

Wednesdays, 3:30pm - 5:30pm. 
September 20 - December 13: 13 weeks. 
Program fee: $350 | Sliding-scale tuition and full scholarships are available for families who qualify. Payment plans are available to all.

Our weekly exploratorium is a space for creative exploration and play. Each week, we’ll engage our hands and bodies in a group activity -- it might be an interactive art project, an outdoor expedition, or a collaborative performance -- to learn about the world around us. The exploratorium is based on the idea that play is a fundamental way of learning: our weekly activities will be designed to engage all of our senses, and to foster imagination, curiosity, and hands-on inquiry. Teen leaders will be present each week to assist and support, contributing to our multi-age learning community.

WAYFINDERS

Outdoor, live action role playing, fantasy and adventure. Ages 8-14.

Wednesdays, 3pm - 6pm. 
September 20 - November 8: 8 weeks. 
Program fee: $425 | Sliding-scale tuition and full scholarships are available for families who qualify. Payment plans are available to all.

This outdoor after school program is run by The Wayfinder Experience, a live-action, role-playing company and experiential organization that creates a safe environment outdoors to explore team-building, cooperative gaming, and improvisational theater. This program weaves together art, athletics, theater, writing and play. The centerpiece of the program is the Adventure Game: a transformative experience that immerses players in an exciting world of fantasy, while fostering communication skills, conflict resolution, and imagination.

WISEBODIES: BOTANY AND THE BODY

What can plants and flowers teach us about our bodies? Ages 8-11.

Thursdays, 3:30pm - 5:30pm. 
September 28 - November 2: 6 weeks.
Program fee: $160 | Sliding-scale tuition and full scholarships are available for families who qualify. Payment plans are available to all.

Botany and the Body is an outdoor and movement-based introduction to the whole human being and body. Together we’ll explore human anatomy and physiology, learn about flowers and plants, and engage in honest and fearless conversations to ask questions like: How are our bodies constructed? How do we change through adolescence? And how can food and movement support us? Spending time together outside, we’ll deepen recognition of our intimate connection with the natural world, and gain understanding about what makes us who we are.

MAKER SPACE: ROBOTICS
with the Catskill Maker Syndicate.

Immersion into the world of robotics, automation, and machine control. 
Ages 10-14.

Thursdays, 3pm - 6pm. 
September 21 - December 14: 12 weeks. 
Located at the Catskill Maker Syndicate in Catskill, NY. Pick up & drop off available from Kite’s Nest.
Program fee: $425 | Sliding-scale tuition and full scholarships are available for families who qualify. Payment plans are available to all.

In this after school maker space, we’ll dive deep into circuitry, microcontrollers, and electronics. We’ll learn the basics of robotics, mechanics, and physics. As we develop our skills and understanding in both electronic and mechanical design, students will create their own original projects: we might make a video game, or a weather station, or a robot. We might make a go-kart, a wind or solar powered generator, or a catapult with electronic controls. Have an idea? Let’s do it.  

ROOTS & REBELS GARDEN CLUB

Get your hands dirty at the River City Garden. All ages.

Fridays, 3pm - 5pm. 
September 22 - October 27th: 6 weeks.
Free! Donations welcome.

Join us every Friday afternoon to grow our own plants, make our own soil, tend to our own garden and eat our own food! In this weekly drop-in garden club, we’ll tend to the garden, preparing for winter as our growing season ends. We’ll examine the insects and microbes in our healthy soil, harvest vegetables we planted earlier in the summer, make observations about what’s happening in our garden, and take breaks to play games and each snacks. The Roots and Rebels Program is funded in part by the generous support of the United Way of Columbia and Greene Counties and by the Green Pastures Fund of th Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation.

SPACE 2.0

A weekly open space for Hudson teens. Explore your interests, go on field trips, share meals, be community leaders. Ages 13+

Fridays, 4pm - 7pm. 
September 22 - December 14: 12 weeks.  Kite's Nest is closed on Friday, November 24th.
Free for Hudson teenagers; donations welcome.

Space 2.0 is a space for teenagers in Hudson to have as their own. It’s a place where teenagers can have open dialogue about issues around the world, in Hudson, and in their lives. It’s a place where teenagers can explore their own interests, share meals together, go on field trips, and develop the skills to be leaders within their own lives and communities.