Elementary School Microcourses
Microcourses provide students the opportunity to explore interdisciplinary subjects with real-world applications on an abbreviated schedule. During each three-week course, students have the chance to discover, explore, question, propose, and develop projects of their own creation. Our microcourse offerings are designed to prompt students in being purposeful and playful with their learning, in the hopes they discover a passion with the potential to evolve into future academic or professional pursuits.
Grades K–2 Microcourses
K-2 Art Adventures
Students will discover world-renowned artists and the styles that made them famous before trying out these techniques in their own artistic creations. Our youngest students will experiment and have fun while learning various ways and reasons to create art.
K-2 Music Adventures
In this course, students will go on a musical journey as they explore nature and the weather in the great outdoors. Multiple stories, compositions, and hands-on activities woven into lessons with vocabulary and classical artists will help students grow in their discovery and love of music.
Grades 3–5 Microcourses
LS Funtastic Food
Funtastic Food is an exciting, hands-on course where students will apply everyday academic skills to real-world cooking fun. Through a guided investigation of the mathematics, science, and nutrition skills used in preparing delicious recipes, students will create a menu meeting various needs to enjoy with their family or friends. They will document what they’ve tried out and learned on their way to becoming a capable chef through pictures and a journal leading to a final demo video or cookbook for kids.
LS Back to Life
Welcome, student scientist. You are invited to join us on an experiment, one that could bring the past back to life. Once upon a time, in Earth’s very distant past, creatures we can only imagine roamed our planet. Did a wooly mammoth ever graze right in the spot where your house stands today? Can you imagine a one-ton armadillo called the Glyptodon, trundling past you, the ground quaking with each thunderous step? Get ready to research what de-extinction scientists are learning and design a plan to welcome one of these creatures back to the modern day.
LS Powerful Graphic Novels
In this course, students will discover how authors put the “POW” into their graphic novels by using the POWerful text features and literary devices that make this type of literature so exciting to read. Through guided exploration and hands-on practice, students will investigate how POWerful plots, characters, and script-writing can bring their own stories to life. At the end of this course, students will be amazed by the project that they create showcasing all the POWerful knowledge they gained about graphic novels. Who knows, maybe they will create the next big hit like Marvel or Dogman!
LS The Power of the Sun
Students will begin by considering the environment where they live: how often does the sun shine there? How do the solar panels they see work to provide electricity to homes and buildings, and why aren’t there more solar-powered structures in all communities? They will go on to discover how solar energy works and the ways even kids can harness it in their everyday lives, beginning with how to make solar-powered s’mores in their very own backyard. Students will leave with the understanding that their generation is needed to help solve the problems modern scientists are facing to make this renewable resource a reliable source of energy for the future.
