After School Enrichment - Brookside

Chess is a game going back thousands of years with a deeply rich history, though many children today do not grow up learning the game and taking advantage of its many cognitive and social benefits. Chess is a fun activity that trains many crucial life skills like strategy and analysis. This class will be an introduction to the game of chess with topics beginning with how the pieces move and branching out to tactics, openings, and more. Playing chess is a lifelong skill and this class will position your child to be able to enjoy the game for years to come. Each class is accessible at any skill level and will involve lots of participation and group work. Classes will include chess practice, puzzles, and tournaments with each providing a new way to train in-game skills. Boards and sets will be provided, and all that is required is to come ready to learn and excited to play!

Each week, we will create a new project using airdry clay and polymer clay. Students will learn important hand–eye coordination skills while having fun shaping clay. Using airdry clay and polymer clay, we will express their creativity in creating bowls, plant pots, animals, charms, wall décor, and more!

This class provides a great introduction to physical science and the senses. First, for the flash, we learn about light, making shadow prints and seeing all the colors of rainbows. Then, we play with reflections and lenses. Then we compare animal eyes and learn how much fun it is when our eyes are tricked. For the zap, we explore static electricity and electrical circuits. For the boom, we will investigate sound, by making spinning buzzy bees and Pan pipes and learning how bats echolocate, and how our own ears work. For the bubble, we create a variety of concoctions, including glow in the dark slime. Through discovery–based science learning, your child will explore the natural world with a fun, credentialed science teacher. Class size is capped at ten students to ensure quality instruction. Beth Touchette is a credentialed science teacher with 25 years’ experience and a local mom.

After School Hoops® is a weekday afternoon basketball program for aspiring young players. The one–hour instructional sessions combine fundamental skills instruction with organized team competition with the goal of providing an enjoyable and educational after school athletic event. Developing players benefit by improving their individual skills such as passing, dribbling, shooting, rebounding, and defending while, at the same time, learning how to work within the framework of a team. Children of all skill levels are encouraged to join. One of the many merits of After School Hoops® is that it provides school children with an organized after school event at which they can learn, socialize, and most of all, have fun. Parents and teachers often express concern that idle and unsupervised after school hours provide too many negative temptations for their children. Using athletics as the vehicle, After School Hoops® provides children with an opportunity to improve their overall physical fitness, develop sportsmanship and athletic integrity, and gain an understanding of the game of basketball.

For our Fall Sewing, we'll make beautiful, warm blankets, soft, holiday scarves, mittens, beanies, socks, stuffed animals and more! Sewing involves both engineering and mathematical skills as kids will learn to make 2D designs, cut and figure out how to place different pieces together prior to sewing them. Learning to sew both clothing & crafts allows your children to broaden their sewing knowledge as well as help improve their fine motor skills. Projects are designed for kids to achieve their very best and be able to succeed as they learn something new each week! Sewing brings out kids’ creativity, problem solving ability, and hand-eye coordination skill! Instructor: enBRiDGEment |[email protected] | www.enbridgement.com.

Join us for an hour of nonstop fun and creativity! We’ll experiment with colors and create beautiful, amazing pieces to bring home. If your kids love making things with their hands, then they’ll fall in love with these fun crafts we’ll make! We’ll explore mixed media of watercolor, acrylic paint, and pastel, and test out different fusions of shades and tones. We’ll work on canvas, paper and other mediums. Painting, drawing and crafting are all forms of self-expression. Every child will create the same object differently. Crafting involves a lot of engineering and mathematical skills and uses both left & right brain as well as strengthens hand coordination and while improving fine motor skills. All materials included. Instructor: enBRiDGEment|[email protected] | www.enbridgement.com

If your child loves to tinker with things and make them spin, light up, sing, make interesting sounds, or move, then this is the class for them! We’ll be building plenty of cool gadgets using simple circuits! A circuit is a path for electricity to move through. Kids will learn the basic components of a circuit including: 1) power source, which pushes the electricity through the circuit, 2) connectors, which connect all the parts of the circuit and create the path or loop that the electricity travels through, and 3) load, which is powered by the circuit.
We’ll explore what happens when the load or source changes. There are countless devices in our children's lives that conduct electricity and somehow maintain electrical energy! We’ll do plenty of hands-on activities and build plenty of simple circuits with batteries, bulbs, wires, plastic propellers, wheels and more! Your kids will be amazed at the gadgets that they can build and see their them actually perform a cool task! Instructor: enBRiDGEment |[email protected] | www.enbridgement.com.