crearte
Other Programs
Afterschool Program
**Currently not being offered**
During the school year, we partner with Highland’s Tieton Intermediate School (grades 4–6) to offer a co-curricular, holistic learning experience, where kids learn through artmaking and creative play, inspired by alternative school models like Montessori, for 15–20 students.
Three afternoons per week, after the school bell rings for the day, students walk (and jump and folic) with program leads from the school to The Fueling Station, where they have time to eat a snack, catch up with one another, and finish their homework, and choose their own art activities and games. In the second half of each session starting around 4pm, we focus on a project of the week that builds over the three days. The curriculum is culturally responsive, responding to interests and inquiries, with the students, and holistically incorporates both STEM and ESL. The adult to student ratio is 1:5, ensuring that we can differentiate and help students learn through relationships and informal dialog, rather than taking the traditional top-down, empty vessel, blank slate approach.
In its first year and continuing to evolve, students, teachers and parents offer ample praise, and program retention week over week and recommendation to friends has been very high. We are collecting anecdotal data, observing students’ demonstration of learning objectives in their art products, tracking shifts in social emotional learning behaviors like the length of time students are willing to engage unfamiliar problems, try new things, or help each other.