Arlington Community Education

Take a look at our big blue planet and find far away habitable worlds. Look deep into space and explore an alien atmosphere. Build a model rocket and learn about satellites. Next, journey to a new world and analyze the makeup of the planet’s surface. Build a rover to explore the land, and terraform a new colony for future space explorers.

Meet two young Tejanos (Texans with Mexican heritage) named María and Redolfo Rocha, and journey with them as you learn and practice Spanish vocabulary, verbs, and phrases. Through books, stories, songs, and activities you will learn all about these two youngsters as they visit la granja, el supermercado, el zoológico, y la playa. Learn everyday Spanish with your friends as you follow the story of la familia Rocha.

Travel the world as we explore the cultures and crafts of people from countries near and far. We’ll discuss geography, history, and traditions as we work on projects including aboriginal dot art from Australia, brightly colored textile molas from Panama, and designer fashion posters and accessories from the glory days of England’s pop music scene. At the end of the week we’ll pack it all up and take home a vacation portfolio.

The sky's the limit in Expert Architects! In this math, writing, and presentation class, serve as president of a new architectural firm tasked with designing and building the city’s next skyscraper. Study a kid-friendly history of skyscrapers and create a blueprint of your own stylized tall building. We will weigh other considerations including the environment, traffic, and surrounding buildings using Google Earth to find the perfect location for our project. As an expert architect, create a three-dimensional model of the structure to present to your classmates.

Tinker with electronics while learning the basics of computer programming. We begin by experimenting with the fundamentals of electronics and circuitry, and step up to projects where our class of young makers will design their own interactive and programmable devices. Participants use the latest tools including Arduino (for building interactive devices) and Raspberry Pi (for learning about computers and coding) to experiment with LEDs, resistors, motors, and programming.

Learn amazing tricks that will wow your friends and family. Real circus performers will teach you skills including hula hooping, spinning plates, balancing objects, twirling flags, and juggling. We will also make a circus backdrop, and end the week with a performance.

In a one-of-a-kind experience, explore community, art, and self-discovery by becoming your own personal hero in an interactive world of live-action roleplay (LARP). Through themed games, art projects, and interactive theater, create a world of magic and wonder, go on fantastic adventures, and discover magical mysteries.

Learn to draw animals, vehicles, plants, ocean creatures, and more, using a combination of basic shapes. Pick your favorites and combine them to make a scene that you will color with a variety of media. Each day we will focus on a different theme, and build on our drawing knowledge to make more elaborate pictures. There’s no right or wrong in this class—drawing is all about having fun!

Spend your vacation making a movie trailer or shooting a commercial. Working in small groups, you will script, storyboard, rehearse, and film while learning techniques like script writing, rule-of-thirds, and mise-en-scene. We'll import our footage into Final Cut Pro and learn to edit as you add titles, sound effects, and music. You'll fine tune your overall look and have a finished film by the end of the class.

Learn math, economics, civics, geometry, and how democracy works as we join together to create a city within a virtual Minecraft world. Through this engaging, problem-solving class, design your own house and business as we learn about budgeting, profit and loss, and supply and demand. As we serve on a city council, study how laws are made and work together to create and vote on a city constitution. Work in committees to make key decisions and design buildings for your city. We will use mathematics and geometry to construct a working urban environment.

Channel your inner artist. Whether dipping paint brushes into smooth paint or mixing in sand and salt and using a palette knife, we’ll explore different ways to apply pigment to your canvas. From truly flat and 2D to heavily textured, we’ll create painted masterpieces including landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and collage. Have fun with color, composition, and creativity.

Challenge yourself to get from point A to point B in the most creative, entertaining, fastest and most efficient way possible, without the help of equipment. Parkour is like urban gymnastics, and lets you turn the entire world into your personal playground. In a non-competitive atmosphere, you’ll conquer natural and man-made obstacles by running, vaulting, jumping, climbing and rolling. Improve balance, coordination, strength, spatial awareness, and flexibility through games, exercises, and drills.

Learn about what it means to write, debug, and execute computer programs that communicate with different robotic devices. Using the power of code we’ll turn Sphero SPRK+ robots into magic 8 balls, automated red light/green light games, and the arcade classic Pong. Unruly Splats will become voting machines, relay races, guessing games, or anything else you can think of.

Always a blast, Sports of All Sorts will get you playing many active and exciting gym games cooperatively as teams, and as individuals. Activities may include castle ball, messy backyard, capture the flag, tic-tac-toe relay, and monster ball. With unique and sometimes crazy spins on traditional sports and gym games, this class is guaranteed to get you moving, and having fun.

Riddles, puzzles, and games will fill our mornings with good thinking fun. We’ll have group trivia and riddles, acting and drawing games, and whiteboard logic puzzles. We’ll play board games as well as design and make some of our own. Apples to Apples, Mad Libs, Pictionary, Sushi Go, and Telestrations are just a few of the games we’ll play.