Program Specifics: Middle School Xploration
Everything You Explore
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Study Your Favorite Stuff
Xploration Workshops cover an incredibly wide range of interesting subjects. This is your chance to discover new ideas, skills and experiences in a friendly atmosphere of exploration and growth. Don’t worry if you’re trying something for the first time! We have several groups for each class and will make sure you’re in the right one for your level of experience.
How to Choose Your Xploration Workshops
Workshops meet for 90 minutes each day, either Monday, Wednesday and Friday (MWF) or Tuesday and Thursday (TTh), except for The Sports Experience and Tennis, which meet for 3 hours. Be sure to select workshops that meet on alternate days. Students choose their morning courses for the full session while completing their application.
Each week, all campers also choose two afternoon workshops from a list that changes weekly. Offered from 1:00 to 2:30, these workshops give you a chance to take your morning program a little further or try something completely different. Click here for a comprehensive list: Afternoon Workshops
Art: Sculpting Massive Models
We’re livin’ LARGE! In this course, you’ll take ordinary objects such as pennies, pencils, iPods and cell phones and re-imagine them on a colossal scale! Looking at the art of such famous artists as Claus Oldenburg, you’ll take the stuff from your pocket and make it fill a room. Take whatever you like and re-create it … BIG!
Art: The Inner Artist
We’ll develop our awareness of shape and form, using sketching pencils and charcoal to create gesture and contour drawings. We’ll experiment with all kinds of media — from ink and pastels to anything we find in the studio. You’ll learn a variety of watercolor techniques, including wet-in-wet, blooms, and how salt and plastic wrap can be used to create texture. Come and express yourself through art.
Codes, Tricks & Puzzles
Uijt dmbtt sjmm ufbdi zpv ipx up efdpef boe sfbe tfdsfu nfttbhft! Know what I mean?
If you have an inquiring analytical mind, this is the course for you. In addition to cracking simple codes, we’ll explore puzzles, tricks and logical paradoxes that will amuse and bewilder you for hours. (For example, the first line above really says: “This class will teach you how to decode and read secret messages!”)
Practicing this kind of reasoning can make math and science easier for you in the future. It can also develop the systematic thinking you’ll need later in school work and all areas of life.
Computers: Web Page Design & Beyond
If you intend to become a credentialed webmaster or online publisher or just want to post your own homepage or blog, this is the course for you.
Through a series of hands-on lessons, you’ll acquire the essential tools and skills needed to build Web pages. The pages you create will include graphics, animation, sound, video, forms, mouseovers, scrolling banners and more. Coursework includes an introduction to Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), scanning, creating graphics, game design, and audio and video compression for the Web. Work with Google websites and Apple and Facebook applications.
Cooking: Fast, Fresh & Fun!
For the beginner to intermediate cook, Cooking is the perfect opportunity to work on kitchen basics and fundamental culinary knowledge while learning to prepare a variety of fresh, fun modern dishes.
This course lets you work hands-on to develop your food prep and presentation abilities. Classes will cover kitchen safety and hygiene, knife techniques, use of herbs, oils and seasonings, the history and tradition of many of the ingredients used in our dishes, and — of course — the recipes themselves.
If you love sampling new foods and want to learn to whip up a delicious variety of new appetizers, entrees and desserts, this is the perfect program for you, the seriously interested but still “unseasoned” cook.
Dance: Hip-Hop
Let loose with this free-flowing, high-energy dance class. Move to the rhythms of pop music while learning how to control your body according to the beat.
Creating original routines from basic dance techniques and your natural ability, we’ll work out our own original choreography based on class makeup and interest.
Drama: Life on Stage
We’ll teach you techniques to improve the quality of your audition, develop a character, and memorize your lines. Practice will include rehearsal exercises and a variety of short skits and scenes.
Engineering Intro: Robots to Race Cars
Welcome to a dynamic introduction to the field of engineering. Each day you’ll dive into a new field of study applying art, science and mathematics to today’s technology.
You’ll learn about hardware, logic, programming and mechanics in this interactive course.
Create your own robot, build engines, fly rockets, race model cars, and discover sources of energy in nature as you work with your hands and your mind.
English as a Second Language: ESL
With so many cultures meeting at JKCP, why not practice your English with other students from around the world?
This time, forget classrooms, chalk boards and constant repetition. Instead, our ESL program takes you around campus. Learn foods in the kitchen, then head to the gym to learn sports and recreation phrases.
You’ll be learning on the go as your ESL teacher weaves English lessons into everything you do. And don’t worry if you’re just starting the language: You can always get help in French or Spanish.
Fashion: Design & Creation
This workshop will show you how to start with an inspiration and create your own fashion statement.
You’ll learn how to illustrate your designs, then work one-on-one with an instructor to choose the colors, fabrics and lines that suit your own personal style. Top designs from the class will be selected for complete creation for a final fashion show at the end of the session.
Whether you sew it, zip it, tape it or glue it, you’re sure to create a fashion item that’s uniquely you.
Film Studies: Animation
From Disney to Dreamworks, we take you on a journey through the legendary animated films of all time.
Find out the history of this magical art form and how it fits into the larger cinematic landscape. We’ll watch the greatest animated films that have ever been made and figure out how their messages and audiences have changed.
Film Studies: Classics to Current
For some people watching a movie is just couch time. For others, it’s a passion.
Students intrigued by film are invited to take this insightful course that looks back in time to compare current film remakes with the original classics.
Discover how cinema has changed by examining the way characters and dialogue have been updated — all while enjoying our recommended lineup of current and classic films.
Gaming: Tactical Maneuvers
Are you ready to exercise your brain, anticipate your opponent’s next move and visualize the outcome of the game?
Come and challenge your new friends to a colossal chess match or a game of “Axis & Allies.” Contemplate the “Risk” you are willing to take as you formulate your next move on the board.
You’ll develop new strategies and learn new tactics as you face a wide variety of challengers in an array of intriguing games.
Guitar Intro: The Real Guitar Hero
How many times have you thought about learning to play the guitar? Really mean it? Here’s a chance to get started this summer.
This is an introductory course, so everybody is going to be starting from the beginning. Come and learn how to tune the guitar, play chords, and melodies and accompany a song. Bring your guitar or use one of ours.
Magic: The Art of Illusion
Mesmerize your friends with close-up and street magic, card tricks, coin tricks, levitation and other cool illusions. Learn the art of magic performance from a professional magician — including how to wow even the toughest crowds with easy-to-do tricks that work every time!
Origami: Fascinating Folds
This centuries-old art form uses a combination of delicate and hard folds to create intricate shapes and constructions from a sheet of paper.
During class, you’ll work on a series of projects, from birds to boats and more. Soon you’ll be able to fascinate friends with an origami present that you make on the spot.
Performing Arts: Stage Presence
Got talent? Want to learn how to maximize it in front of an audience?
For singers, dancers, actors, jugglers and everyone who likes to be on stage, this course examines the building blocks of stage presence and how to create an award winning performance.
Photography: Stop Motion
Learn how to use camera functions to take great pictures. We’ll show you how shutter speed can stop fast-moving action, how depth of field can create an artistic background, or how changing your point of view can turn an ordinary subject into an outstanding photo.
The class will cover digital photography, as well as the use of imaging programs like Photoshop.
Science: E3 (Experiments, Explosions & Excitement)
This is a hands-on course that will keep you on your toes. You’ll be riveted with a project-based curriculum designed to keep you involved. You’ll use and develop science skills as you create geysers, watch volcanoes explode, investigate nature and more.
Hypothesize an outcome and analyze the results to see if your conclusion is correct. If you’re ready for fun, come research, test and probe the wild world of E3.
Self-Defense: With Confidence
The key to defending yourself is confidence. This workshop will identify your strongest physical assets and teach you how to use them to defend yourself. Students will learn various skills from a mix of martial arts disciplines.
Speed Reading: Fast & Furious
Imagine reading faster and still having a great understanding of the material. We’ll use a variety of techniques such as identifying words without focusing on each letter, not sounding out all words, spending less time on some phrases than others, and skimming small sections. At the end of this course, you’ll breeze through magazines, books and essays like a pro.
Tennis: Beginner to Advanced
(3-hour MWF or TTh workshop)
Take your tennis game to the next level working with coaches from the world-renowned Julian Krinsky School of Tennis. The tennis workshop is designed to be enjoyable yet challenging for players of all levels. It features a low player-to-coach ratio so that each student receives personal attention and instruction.
Time on the tennis courts is divided between instruction and competitive play. Beginner players work on developing basic skills and learning new strokes. More advanced players focus on skill refinement, practice and match play, with the ultimate goal of becoming a more consistent, well-rounded player.
The Sports Experience: Instruction & Tournament Challenge
(3-hour MWF or TTh workshop)
Whether you are picking up a tennis racquet for the first time, working to improve your outside jump shot or trying to make your school softball team, we’ll provide the appropriate instruction and coaching.
Choose from more than a dozen activities, including basketball, baseball and soccer. The Sports Experience combines instruction in solid fundamentals and sportsmanship with innovative games and drills.
Video: Claymation
At some point, every enthusiastic movie-goer and TV fan wants to get behind the camera. This course makes you the filmmaker. But instead of using real actors we’ll use clay figures!
Try your hand at direction, set design, costuming, production, editing and script writing. Design a television advertisement, script a drama, choreograph a music video or direct a documentary. Our Claymation track gives you the chance to explore all aspects of the art.
Video: Your MTV
Ever since The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” hit the airwaves in 1981, people have been hooked on music videos. This is your chance to pick your favorite song and direct your very own music video. You can choreograph dance moves with your friends or create illusions with various props and video techniques. Either way, you’ll have an original music video to show off when you get home.
Yoga: Yogalaties: Get the Fusion
Change the way you think about exercise by blending the best of two of the most popular systems of health and fitness. Combine the core emphasis of Pilates with the postures and breathing of yoga and you get fusion. Can fitness get any better?