About the Kaleidoscope Center
The Kaleidoscope Center is taking enrollment for September 2008.
We offer individual classes, a full week program, and the option to come part-time (1 - 4 days/week.) We are taking children from ages 5 to 13.
We will be located in Arlington/Waltham/Lexington area.
We strive to work with a socio-economically diverse population. We aim to work with every family regardless of ability to pay. Full tuition for the 5-day-a-week program at the center will be $10,000/year (with the option of coming part-time at $2000 per day, per year.) If you are interested in enrolling your child in the center but have financial concerns, please don't hesitate to speak with us about it.
We encourage parental involvement both in the center's activities as well as in their children's individual programs. We welcome parents running activities and programs at the center and their help with the classes, workshops, and activities that we'll be running at the center.
Our center's goal: creativity
The goal of our center's community is to have children engaged in creative activity as much as possible. We will be greatly encouraging our students to make things -- both in the traditional sense of the word (making machines) as well as in terms of making stories, videos, art, music, and other forms of media and expression. We believe that every skill that is useful to learn has, somewhere, a powerful use.
By fully promoting creativity -- through the activities we offer as well as in the set-up of the environment and available materials -- we are giving kids a way to see the power in the skills they are currently learning and at the same time see the power of skills they have yet to learn. We believe that learning happens best through meaningful and creative activity.
How will things work on a day to day level?
Every day will start with a morning meeting, where the community comes together to discuss and plan the coming day's activities. Children will be able to attend a wide variety of workshops and courses offered by the staff, and make their own suggestions for what should happen in a given day. They will always be eligible to elect to work or play on their own. We believe that by offering a wide variety of exciting and engaging workshops and classes and then allowing chidren the freedom to pursue their own ideas and activities, children will have something deep and meaningful to work on and learn from every day.
To this end, staff will work to make sure activities and workshops are offered that meet all of the children's interests, and also offer activities on topics that kids may fall in love with but haven't had the exposure to yet. These include activities like electronics, engineering, computer programming, or cooking. A more complete list of activities and offering will be coming in the next few months.
We will also be offering classes that cover more traditional academic ground, like reading, writing, and mathematics, using the community's creative projects as a context for learning these skills.