In Tinkering, students explore materials, supplies, tools and concepts in an open-ended, adult-guided way. Past Tinkering sessions have involved making custom Minecraft controllers with Makey Makey, exploring linkage mechanisms with cardboard and brads, testing out paper circuits to make light-up cards and pictures, taking apart consumer electronics and toys to see what’s inside, and a multi-week construction of an elaborate Rube Goldberg device. Tinkering is where we try out new ideas as a group, and encourage one another as we try to get our thing to work.

Much of what we do in Tinkering is fine-motor intensive. Students should be able to properly use scissors well before signing up for Tinkering, in order to prevent a great deal of frustration for them on our projects.

Tinkering is very popular, and class size is limited. If this Tinkering session fills, another may be added – please let us know if you’re interested in a different date or time!

Our primary core program consists of 2 hours of classroom instruction per week,with lessons introduced in the invitation-based style known as the Reggio Emilia approach. A weekly syllabus of activities is provided for 3 additional days of home engagement. Our goal in these early years is to stoke enthusiasm and confidence in learning, build literacy, and develop skills that will serve the students as they pursue further study. Together we will share books and songs, play with numbers and letters, build a strong foundation in science through inquiry and observation, and practice being kind, encouraging, and accepting with one another.

Planned curriculum includes the Five in a Row series, Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding, and a D’Nealean italics approach to letter formation. Math concepts will be introduced with a Montessori approach.

Explore art techniques on the page! Students will learn a variety of techniques and work with several different materials, including watercolor, acrylic, pastels, charcoal, markers, and paper collage. Due to the small class size, the curriculum course will be somewhat child-directed as the course progresses, with the focus on encouraging students to try new skills and explore new media.

Share and discuss favorite poems and enjoy a snack! Students meet for weekly teatime with Desiree, as presented by Juile of Bravewriter. Poetry is enjoyed as it was meant to be, in a relaxed environment that encourages reading aloud and lively discussion. Students will take turns providing teatime treats for the class, and IfSpace will happily provide the tea and china.

Join the IfSpace Invaders, our premier middle and high school robotics competition team! FTC is like a sports team for robots – each year, the FIRST organization dreams up a new challenge for our bot. We work as a team to strategize how to score the most points, design our mechanisms, assemble and tune the robot, CAD new parts and pieces, and program its operation. You don’t have to be an experienced roboticist to join FTC, however! We need team managers, graphic designers, team spirit leaders, historians, and all around hard workers to be successful as a group!