S&E Classes
Did you know we also offer Pre-K and middle school classes as well?
Contact us to learn more!
FALL 2025 OFFERINGS
Motion Commotion Grades K-1 or K-2
What makes things move! How does a tightrope walker balance? How well do you smell? How does color move and change through absorption? Explore natural energy to answer these questions with lots of fun activities and creative endeavors. Make a butterfly fly and paper clips levitate using magnetic power. Race static magic cans and make a hygroscopic fish wiggle in the palm of your hand. Create a magnetic fishing rod and catch sea creatures; test your balancing power with a gravity fighter; and make things move with soap and water!
Action Attraction Grades 2-3 or 2-4
Join the shocking adventure and explore static electricity and magnetism! How do you test if an object has a static charge? Which poles attract, which repel? Discover the science behind water and gravity using a spinning turbine and mix colors using capillary action. Make a static testing electroscope, slimy magnetic goo, and experiment with mini submarines! In this exploration of natural energy, students will do hands-on activities and experiments to investigate the power and properties of air, wind, water, gravity, magnetism, and static electricity.
Invisibilia Grades 3-5 or 4-5
Discover the science behind invisible forces! In this exploration of natural energy, students do hands-on activities and experiments to investigate the power and properties of air, wind, water, gravity, magnetism, and static electricity. Observe a magnetic field using iron filings and use your knowledge to make a compass; explore potential and kinetic energy with an ‘Energy Can’ you can take home; study capillary action with Suminagashi paints; make an electroscope to test static charge; use solar panels to make a buzzer buzz; and connect conductive copper to make a colorful piece of LED light art!
Building Big and Small Grades 2-4 or 3-5
Build miniature greenhouses and life-size tipis! In this hands-on series, children will stretch their understanding of what makes structures strong, apply geometry and measurement concepts, and learn new history, vocabulary, and craft skills. Projects alternate between life size structures and scale models. Build new projects such as a castle, pyramid, and car every week, all using our Knowledge Infused Design (KID) process!
Introduction to Coding and Robotics Grades K-1, K-2, 1-2, or 1-3
Big Learning uses the screen-free KIBO robotic system to teach computer coding, logic, and loops. Learn what a robot is and isn’t, and what you have to tell KIBO to make it move. How can you command KIBO to make noise, avoid obstacles, shine its light, dance, and then do it all over again? Start out with learning the basics and add a new module each week such as lights, sound recording, repeats, catapults, distance sensors, conditionals, light sensors, Lego® add-ons, and more.
Lego® Spike Essential Robotics Grades 3-5 or 4-5
Craft Lego® machines and vehicles and learn the physics underlying movements and simple forces. Program your creations using Scratch. Explore all of Scratch and learn to make Sprites. Some weeks students will work on the same project, some weeks students will be able to choose their project. Students will work in pairs with each pair sharing an iPad and complete Lego® Spike Essential Robotics sets.
WINTER 2026 OFFERINGS
Incredible Forces Grades K-1 or K-2
What does friction have to do with a rolling YoYo? How do wheels and axles work together? How does the size of a wheel change the distance it covers? What can you move with a pulley? Children will build and create mazes, pinwheels, paddle boats, Bristle Bots, electric art, and more to test the properties of Mechanical Energy
Invention Convention Grades 2-3 or 2-4
How far can you send a cotton ball with your catapult? How can you make a pulley to send messages? How fast can your Bristle Bot move? How much water can an Archimedes Screw lift? Make your own electromagnet and see how many paperclips it can lift. Race a Bristle Bot. Construct a variety of fun machines to test and explore the forces of wheels, levers, wedges, inclined planes, pulleys, screws, electrolysis, and electric circuitry.
Gadgets and Gizmos Grades 3-5 or 4-5
Be an inventor! Make your own electric PlayDoh. Build a battery out of pennies and lemon juice, make a microphone out of a matchbox, and construct a steady hand tester. Try your hand at copper plating and a device that looks as if it’s defying gravity. Make your own Bristle Bot, Color Bot, electric motor, and flashlight to explore electric circuitry.
Building Big and Small Grades 2-4 or 3-5
This class is a repeat of fall
Build miniature greenhouses and life-size tipis! In this hands-on series, children will stretch their understanding of what makes structures strong, apply geometry and measurement concepts, and learn new history, vocabulary, and craft skills. Projects alternate between life size structures and scale models. Build new projects such as a castle, pyramid, and car every week, all using our Knowledge Infused Design (KID) process!
Introduction to Coding and Robotics Grades K-1, K-2, 1-2, or 1-3
This class is a repeat of fall.
Big Learning uses the screen-free KIBO robotic system to teach computer coding, logic, and loops. Learn what a robot is and isn’t, and what you have to tell KIBO to make it move. How can you command KIBO to make noise, avoid obstacles, shine its light, dance, and then do it all over again? Start out with learning the basics and add a new module each week such as lights, sound recording, repeats, catapults, distance sensors, conditionals, light sensors, Lego® add-ons, and more.
Lego® Spike Essential Robotics Grades 3-5 or 4-5
This class is a repeat of fall. In some cases, we can take a mix of new and continuing students.
Craft Lego® machines and vehicles and learn the physics underlying movements and simple forces. Program your creations using Scratch. Explore all of Scratch and learn to make Sprites. Some weeks students will work on the same project, some weeks students will be able to choose their project. Students will work in pairs with each pair sharing an iPad and complete Lego® Spike Essential Robotics sets.
SPRING 2026 OFFERINGS
Bubbles to Rainbows Grades K-1 or K-2
Explore our very own star! How can we eat sunshine? Can you make ultraviolet beads change colors? What happens when bubbles heat up? How does a sundial work? Create your own sun print pictures with light sensitive paper. Check out the heat keepers and what shadows tell us; make your own creations to test the properties of sunlight and answer all these questions.
Hot Stuff Grades 2-3 or 2-4
Explore the power of the sun! Split light with your own crystal prism and rainbow glasses. Use shadows from your sun dial to tell time. Test sunscreen SPFs and make your own UV detection bracelet. Make art with sunlight. Use your thermometer to measure how quickly afternoon sun can warm water and then bring your water heater home to test it at different times of the day. Grow a bean plant that will respond phototrophically to navigate a maze.
Solarific Grades 3-5 or 4-5
How can we use the sun to tell time and location? To see how fast the earth spins? To make drinking water from the ocean? Prepare for star gazing with a constellation finder and luminosity tester. Fracture sunlight through a crystal and spectroscope. Students will make a sun dial, theodolite, periscope, solar cooker, solar car, and create solar art with sun print paper in their exploration of our sun and how we can harness its power.
Eco-KID Grades 2-4 or 3-5
Each week young ecologists design and construct amazing habitats and explore plant and animal life cycles. Unlike our science classes, where students work on several activities each week that support the class theme, students in ECO-Kid take a more in depth look and work on one project a week. Over the course of the session they will create a nesting cache, a grass scape, a wick-fed farm, and a salt water habitat for their own brine shrimp, among other projects. This program introduces students to the themes of sustainability, extinction, and biodiversity using our Knowledge Infused Design (KID) process.
Introduction to Coding and Robotics Grades K-1, K-2, 1-2, or 1-3
This class is a repeat of fall and winter. Students are free to repeat with the understanding that the teacher will be repeating the weekly lessons while continuing students may use the more advanced modules from week one rather than waiting for them to be introduced.
Big Learning uses the screen-free KIBO robotic system to teach computer coding, logic, and loops. Learn what a robot is and isn’t, and what you have to tell KIBO to make it move. How can you command KIBO to make noise, avoid obstacles, shine its light, dance, and then do it all over again? Start out with learning the basics and add a new module each week such as lights, sound recording, repeats, catapults, distance sensors, conditionals, light sensors, Lego® add-ons, and more.
Lego® Spike Essential Robotics Grades 3-5 or 4-5
This class is a repeat of fall and winter. In some cases, we can take a mix of new and continuing students.
Craft Lego® machines and vehicles and learn the physics underlying movements and simple forces. Program your creations using Scratch. Explore all of Scratch and learn to make Sprites. Some weeks students will work on the same project, some weeks students will be able to choose their project. Students will work in pairs with each pair sharing an iPad and complete Lego® Spike Essential Robotics sets.
If you missed our program last year, we can also offer the following three courses in 2025-2026
Dive into Dimensions Grades K-1 or K-2
Dive into the world of engineering where we will land in a sea of shapes. Join us as we learn how to create cones from circles and cubes from squares. Use different shapes and building materials to make the strongest bridge and a tower taller than you! Balance on a zip line and discover who lives in domes and cone shaped homes. Make models of these and more while exploring what key shapes make them so strong.
Hums, Buzzers & Whirligigs Grades K-1 or K-2
Shake, rattle and go! Toot tunes on test tubes and buzz on kazoos to explore how sounds are made, how they travel, and how we hear them. Create rhythms and waves in different ways to explore the concept of vibration. Build and experiment with different fliers that soar through the air and compare them to parachutes that create drag. Which design will fly the best?
Good Vibrations! Grades 3-5 or 4-5
Strum, buzz, and pop! How does sound travel? How do your ears hear? Investigate the complex auditory system and how things fly in this fun hands-on adventure! Build a guitar and whistle from scratch and simulate sound waves while exploring pitch, tones, and frequencies. Then discover the science behind flight and test different model airplanes, kites, and boomerangs while exploring aerodynamic forces!