FALL 2019 AFTERSCHOOL CLASSES

SEPTEMBER 2019 - DECEMBER 2019

WORLD OF GAMES

Mondays, 3:30pm - 6:00pm | Ages 8-14 | September - December 2019

Hilarious game shows and play from around the world. With Sharece Johnson and Pamela Badila.

In our weekly after school game space, we explored different cultures and styles of play. We practiced all the classic playground games -- jump rope, hopscotch, duck duck goose, and tag -- while switching up our language, playing in English, French, and Spanish. We hosted our own hilarious group game shows, like Are you smarter?, Minute-to-WinIt, and game-show Pictionary. We played board games too: including jax, uno, mancala, pick-up sticks, and chess. And we traveled to House Rules Café, to bring our play out into the community. Throughout the semester we discovered together how games are not only a way to have fun, but are also a way to carry out traditions and culture, and to learn about ourselves and each other.  

MOVEMENT & WRITING CLUB

Tuesdays, 3:30pm - 6:00pm | Ages 8-14 | September - December 2019

Stretch, jump, write, repeat: telling stories with our bodies and words. With Rebecca Posner and Chelsea Arend.

In this weekly creative movement and writing space, we told stories with our bodies, our voices,  and our pens. Each week we played movement games -- practicing yoga poses, doing vocal exercises, closing our eyes to imagine worlds of characters, and acting out stories as they’re told. Together we watched and discussed different types of storytelling, including spoken word, music videos, animation, and shadow dance. We traveled to Mettabee Farm and Arts, where we learned the West African “Kuku” dance to live drumming. And we created our own written pieces: like a Book of Feelings to explore the worlds of our emotions, and ancient scrolls adorned with quotes and poems. We also discussed the “inner critic” inside each of us, brainstorming ways to combat it. At the end of class each week, we shared our works of art and our observations, recognizing and celebrating each others’ creations. 

LANDSCAPE DESIGN

Wednesdays, 3:30pm - 6:00pm | Ages 8-14 | September - October 2019

Designing our dream parks, secret gardens, hidden tunnels and more. With Emily Carpenter and Kristen Jones.

How does a treehouse make you feel? What about water falling into a pond? What kind of garden makes you want to play? What makes you feel peaceful?  In this class, students put their imaginations to work on design challenges that ranged from fictional scenarios to the grounds of the future Kite's Nest building itself.  We even met with one of the landscape designers for the new Kite’s Nest site (at 59 N. Front Street) to learn the ins and outs of landscape design, and visited a local plant nursery and an elaborate private garden to experience various design elements for ourselves. For a final project, we voted on one project to get our hands dirty with together, and created our own zen garden near the picnic pavilion and fire pit, in the center of the River City Garden.

SUPERHERO STYLES

Wednesdays, 3:30pm - 6:00pm | Ages 8-14 | November - December 2019

From comics to costumes: illustrating, stitching, and constructing our alter egos. With Ngonda Badila.

In Superhero Styles, we first started by looking at the "superpowers," strengths, and qualities we already have - such as intelligence, patience, compassion, and humor. Then we let our imaginations run wild -  what powers do we wish we had? Super strength, telepathy, super sound, shape shifting, healing, telekinesis?! We explored which shapes, colors and natural elements represent our superpowers, and created symbols and "identity cards" for our characters. We dove deeper into the backstory of our characters by creating comics to explore the origin story of how each character got their power. Then our characters began to come alive as we constructed the costumes they wear in the world! Other questions we considered were how characters focus their power, how they sustain it, what their purpose is, and where they live. Our class was an opportunity to explore and feel empowered by both our real and imagined superpowers!

BEFORE & AFTER:

OBSTACLE COURSE ADVENTURES

Thursdays, 3:30pm - 6:00pm | Ages 8-14 | September - December 2019

Tricky obstacles, team-building games and mind-bending challenges. With Zebi Williams and Heylan Tsumagari.

For 3-hours each week, we transformed Kite’s Nest into a fitness circuit club: we did circuit training, jumped on trampolines, threw medicine balls, ran coordination drills and balanced on exercise balls, all while listening to our favorite soundtracks of 2019. To cool down, the group developed a multilingual countdown, with each student sharing a stretch and counting in their family language or a language they were learning in school: collectively we stretched in Spanish, Haitian Creole, Arabic and Korean. We also enacted some of our favorite obstacle course TV shows: we had our own “Amazing Race” by traveling to bodegas and playgrounds in Hudson. We had our own “Double Dare,” digging through pie tins of shaving cream for puzzle pieces and squeezing out buckets of sponges on our heads. On other days we explored obstacle courses in the area: playing putt putt golf and running through corn mazes. On our final day students built on their experience to make their own obstacle courses, using the key features of agility, focus, aim, speed, strength, coordination, memory, and balance - and of course, teamwork, mutual support, and joy.

ROOTS & REBELS GARDEN CLUB

Fridays, 3:30pm - 6:00pm | Ages 8-14 | September - October 2019

Get your hands dirty at the River City Garden. With Kristen Jones, Briggin Scharf, and Kaya Weidman.

This semester, Roots & Rebels was bigger and better than ever, as we were joined each week by our friends from the Hudson Youth Department. We learned about insects by catching and examining them, and as usual, dug up lots of worms. We also built a bug hotel and painted stone bug buddies to adorn our new raised beds. We made our own garden fashion, constructing flower crowns, necklaces, and bracelets. Magic made an appearance at the garden too, as we made garden wands, fire cider, and scented potions using herbs and flowers from the garden. We also channeled the beauty of nature to make art: kids made art using old seeds, created leaf-inspired art, and crafted some paper mache pinatas. One of the most important aspects of garden club is creating a culture of friendship and togetherness, and we have found that this is usually achieved through food. Thanks to help from our teen staff, we harvested herbs and vegetables for snack time, including a new favorite: cucamelons! Kids collaborated to create weekly snacks -- fresh garden salsa, miniature grilled pizzas -- practicing their knife skills. As the days grew cold, we made piping pots of garden tea and had weekly campfires. On our final day of class, we had a huge community potluck party where we carved pumpkins, painted each others faces, bobbed for apples, and were even visited by a few spunky Nigerian Dwarf goats!

SPACE 2.0

Fridays, 4:00pm - 7:00pm | Ages 13+  | September - December 2019

A weekly space by and for teens. With Sharece Johnson, Heylan Tsumagari and Jalal Sabur.

Space 2.0 is an after school space for teenagers in Hudson to have as their own. This fall it was our goal to learn about different places and resources in our community. We did a scavenger hunt at the Hudson Planned Parenthood, learning about local resources around healthy relationships and sexual health. We went to see a production of Pipeline at WAM Theater, and had powerful discussions about the school-to-prison pipeline. We participated in a weekend-long film production workshop with Youth FX, where we produced two films: one serious film to explore how we each carry hidden struggles, and another comedic film for fun. We visited the Harmony Land Project, where we spent time outside and shared a meal together. And we got to know places in our own community: visiting the Juice Branch, helping out at the garden party at the River City Garden. At the end of our semester we went bowling, and remembered that Space 2.0 is really about being here for each other as friends and family.

REGEN TEENS

Environmental Justice Leaders. With Briggin Scharff.

This Fall semester, the ReGen Garden Teens adventured up and down the Hudson River watershed, visiting other urban garden projects and gathering innovative eco-resilience knowledge and skills. Our program kicked off in Hudson when we hosted 40 teens and food justice educators at the River City Garden, and together made herbal medicine, played lawn games and shared a homemade meal on a gorgeous sunny day. A month later we went to the Kingston YMCA Farm Project site to convene with the same teen group and learned about language justice and access, built greenhouse tables for new seedlings, and prepared annual and perennial garden beds for winter. In preparation for the launch of the ReGen Teen’s first business venture, we spent over 30 hours clearing the former compost dump site and building safe and accessible disposal containers for the public disposal of  food scraps. To inform our project, we also visited the Radix Ecological Sustainability Center in Albany to research their vibrant urban food forest with ducks, chickens, aquaponics and bees! Between visits to our neighbors’ gardens, we hiked and explored Beebe Hill with field guides, cooked rainbow-colored meals with local meat and vegetables and packed with myriad nutrients, brewed fire cider medicine to keep away winter germs, and invited 10 additional teens to participate in our weekly work sessions.

See photos from our Fall 2019 Expo, here!