Grades 3rd – 4th   9:30 – 11:00

Peasants, knights, lords – unite if thou durst and journey back with us to the Middle Ages! Explore the daily life of the upper, middle and lower classes. What was life REALLY like back then? What did people wear? Eat? What were their homes like? Design a medieval town, build a LEGO castle, and create your own coat of arms! Learn how geography was vital to settlements. And how those settlements worked together. Avoid the Black Death as you catapult your way into the Middle Ages!

Instructor:  Nate Taylor

Ages 5-6   9:30 – 11:00 (Adventure Lab)
Ages 7-8  11:15 – 12:45 (Discovery Lab)

ADVENTURE LAB: Explore! Create! Discover! Join us for a wild adventure exploring the amazing world of animals! Children will learn about animals through fun crafts, active games, stories, movement, and hands-on activities. Each session features a new animal theme—from safari animals and penguins to butterflies, ocean creatures, nighttime animals, and dinosaurs. Children will learn, create, move, and explore while building curiosity, creativity, and early science skills!

DISCOVERY LAB: Investigate! Create! Solve! Calling all animal detectives and explorers! Children will investigate the fascinating world of animals through hands-on experiments, creative art, games, challenges, and mysteries. They’ll explore adaptations, animal senses, food chains, ecosystems, fossils, and more. A fun-filled lab where kids use creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills to discover how animals survive and thrive!

Instructor: Carolyn Recke

Grades 2nd – 3rd  9:30 – 11:00
Grades 4th – 5th  11:15 – 12:45

Where should you move first in Connect 4? What is the best property in Monopoly? And how can pi help you win at rock-paper-scissors? Embark on a global tour of the world’s greatest games and discover the mathematics that underlies them.

Explore how mathematics and games are intertwined, and discover how understanding math can help us play games better! Each week, you’ll learn games from a different region of the world, investigate the strategies involved in seemingly simple games of chance, and explore mathematical ideas through games, challenges, and experiments. Along the way, we’ll test strategies, look for patterns, make predictions, and see where the math takes us.

Instructor: Ryan Lutker

Grades K – 3rd Beginning  9:30 – 11:00
Grades 3rd – 8th  Advanced  11:15 – 12:45

Beginning:  If your child is just learning chess (or wants to learn!), this class is the perfect place to start. Learn the basics of chess, how to begin the game, strategies such as pins and forks, how to queen a pawn and how to checkmate with Queen and King or Rook and King at the end of the game, all while playing and having fun.

Advanced:  Learn advanced concepts in chess, including openings to produce swift checkmating attacks or the win of material, learn how to plan ahead in chess and create positions where tactical themes can be used, all while playing and having fun.

Benefits of the game for all levels: Problem solving skills, coping with the consequences of your decisions, and good sports behavior.

Instructor: Steve Randoll

Grades 5th-8th   9:30 – 11:00
Grades 3rd -4th  11:15 – 12:45

Why do engineers care about simple machines? How do such devices help us solve problems? Simple machines are vital in our world, and we use them on a daily basis, like crowbars, wheelbarrows, highway ramps, fans, elevators, and even butter knives.

The same principles of simple machines used by ancient engineers to build pyramids and aqueducts are employed by today’s engineers to construct towering buildings, supersonic airplanes, and everything in between. Get hands-on with a mechanical engineer to learn how simple machines are all around us and how they’re used.

Instructor: Isaac Clark

Grades 1st-2nd  9:30 – 11:00
Grades 3rd-4th  11:15 – 12:45

Sharpen your logical and critical thinking skills as you tackle various escape room challenges. Develop strategies to solve complex puzzles and piece together clues with precision. Work with fellow detectives in a series of thrilling escape scenarios. Strengthen teamwork skills while racing against the clock to beat the ultimate escape room challenge! Learn to design intricate puzzles that will challenge the sharpest minds. Can you beat your parents on the last day?? From cryptic codes to devious riddles, discover how to create immersive experiences that leave players on the edge of their seats!

Instructor: Shelly Gross

Grades 2nd -4th  11:15 – 12:45

Explore creation myths, deities and mythologies from across the globe as we dive into Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Chinese and Japanese cultures. Design your own Greek hero and their story. Draw and decorate Yggdrasil the World Tree. Create an Orisha artifact. And much more! Who were the people who created these mythologies? Where did they live? And what was important to them? This fast-paced class will tackle a different culture each week.

Instructor: Nate Taylor

Grades 3rd – 4th   9:30 – 11:00
Grades 5th – 8th  11:15 – 12:45

Get your building and coding on with these colorful kits. You’ll use the engineering design process to meet a different challenge each week, then use that knowledge to create your own build. The 3rd-4th class will focus on building and programming using a variety of templates. They will use their newfound knowledge to create their own invention and program in the last week. The 5th-8th class will work on creating more complex robots. They will use problem solving and critical thinking to create a robot of their own design. The challenges will be different from previous classes.

Instructor: Hannah Noack-Ruebling

Grades 4th – 8th  9:30 – 11:00

Do you have what it takes to be a medical professional? In this hands-on class you’ll learn about different body systems including the respiratory, circulatory, digestive, neurology, musculoskeletal, and integumentary system.  How do the systems work together? What’s a balanced meal, and how does your body get energy from food? Then, what can you do with that information? Learn how to take a heart rate and compare resting vs. active heart rates, test ranges of motion, and master sterile preparation techniques.

Instructor: Emma Taylor

Ages 4-5   11:15 – 12:45

How are music and movement intertwined? Learn about instruments from different cultures and investigate how geography, available materials, and traditions influence their design and use. Explore what makes sound, how vibrations travel, and how changes in sound affect what we hear. Compose your very own musical story! To get up and moving even more, we’ll learn dances from around the world.

Instructor: Emma Taylor

Grades 1st – 3rd

Calling all builders, thinkers and inventors! In Novel Engineering we will learn about the Engineering Design Cycle, read a story, and design a project. We build from cardboard, hot glue, tape, and interesting odds and ends. We will test out our builds and exercise our perseverance by adding to it and making changes. This really tests students’ “stick-with-it-ness.”  Students will bring their builds home each Saturday. If you have taken Novel Engineering before we have different stories and tasks.

Instructor: Rebecca Lee

Grades 2nd – 3rd  9:30 – 11:00  Intro to Spy School
Grades 4th – 8th  11:15 – 12:45  Master Spy School

Peek into the secretive world of espionage in Spy School! Students will explore how real-world intelligence agencies gather and analyze information. We’ll dive into Human Intelligence (HUMINT) by practicing observation, disguise, and the art of blending in; crack secret messages using Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) through codes and ciphers; and investigate Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) by analyzing maps, photographs, and other visual clues. Put your spy skills to the test through hands-on missions, challenges, and investigations!

Instructors: Tracy Bednarick-Humes and Laura Hubbard

Grades 3rd-8th   9:30 – 11:00
Grades 1st – 2nd  11:15 – 12:45

Do you like toys and games? What happens when they break or you lose a piece? What if we learn how to create new, original toys? Take your creative skills to new heights in this class where you’ll use some ingenuity and hands-on work to create something original. New toys and games are often based on existing ones, whether updating them, remixing them, or combining them. Choose a toy or game that you’re no longer using and remake it in a creative and unique way. What parts will you use? What parts or ideas from other toys would be fun to merge with yours? Join our Toy Workshop to create your own fun!

Instructor: Amy Harfst

Grades 1st – 3rd  11:15 – 12:45

Do you like geography? History? Art? Trivia?  This is the class for you! We will be “traveling” by learning about the geography, culture, art, and history of 3 different parts of the world (2 Saturdays per location). For example, we’ll visit Australia and create our own topographical map of the continent, learn about the people who have lived in Australia past and present, discover the most dangerous creature, explore the rock and bark carvings of the Indigenous people, dot painting, and more! Where will we go next? Join GRC and find out! (Students will bring home projects each Saturday.)

Instructor: Rebecca Lee