Little City Afterschool
Curriculum
Our afterschool curriculum is built around a simple idea: everything we create is an assembly of smaller parts working together to make a whole.
Throughout the year, students will explore the foundational elements and principles of art and design through projects in art, architecture, engineering, technology, and making. Concepts such as line, shape, form, color, texture, space, scale, balance, rhythm, pattern, contrast, structure, and composition will take precedence throughout the curriculum.
Rather than teaching these ideas only as vocabulary, we want children to experience them through making.
A line can become a drawing.
A drawing can become a shape.
A shape can become a form.
Forms can be joined into a structure.
Structures can become spaces, sculptures, machines, or entire imaginary worlds.
Our projects will change from month to month, but these foundational ideas will continually reappear in new ways. Students might investigate line through drawing one month and encounter it again as wire, thread, structural framing, a path of movement, or a digital tool later in the year.
This repetition is intentional. Each new project gives students another opportunity to recognize a familiar principle, apply it in a different context, and gradually build a deeper understanding of how things are made and why they work.
Projects are also designed to grow in complexity. Early explorations may focus on individual elements and materials, while later projects begin combining them: part to whole, 2D to 3D, idea to plan, plan to prototype, prototype to finished work.
The goal is not for every child to arrive at the same result. Instead, we provide a shared foundation and enough room for students to experiment, make decisions, solve problems, and develop their own creative language.
A Year of Building Ideas
Our month-to-month curriculum provides a rough roadmap rather than a rigid script. Projects may stretch across 2 to 3 sessions, evolve with the interests of a group, or lead us somewhere unexpected. That flexibility is an important part of the studio.
As the year unfolds, students aren't simply completing a collection of projects. They are building a toolbox of ideas they can carry from our 3 main subjects, Expression Studio to Design Studio to Dreamineers Lab and eventually use independently.
September 2026
Expression Studio | Ugly Jugs + String Art Prints | Mondays
Students will explore the history and tradition of Ugly Jugs, using clay to create expressive vessels full of personality and character. Beginning with flat clay slabs, students will investigate how 2D shapes can be assembled and transformed into 3D forms.
Along the way, we’ll explore form, texture, proportion, and expression, while learning clay-building and surface techniques including slab construction, appliqué, and sgraffito. Students will experiment with adding, carving, layering, and exaggerating features to discover how even a functional object can become a work of art.
Students will also create String Art Prints, exploring how line, repetition, pattern, and movement can create unexpected compositions.
Design Studio | Wireframe Models | Tues & Thurs
Before a building gets its walls, there is structure. Students will create wireframe models to explore how line can become form in three dimensions.
By bending, joining, shaping, and balancing wire, students will investigate line, form, volume, negative space, and structure. The project introduces an important design idea: complex forms can begin with surprisingly simple parts.
Dreamineers Lab | Suspension Bridges | Wednesdays
Using popsicle sticks, string, and other simple materials, students will design and construct suspension bridges while investigating how structures carry loads.
We’ll introduce the difference between tension and compression and experiment with how these forces work together to create strength and stability. Through building, testing, and revising their bridges, students will see how individual structural elements work together as a larger system.
Across all three projects, September focuses on a foundational idea: everything we create is an assembly of smaller parts working together to make a whole.
October 2026
Expression Studio | Artist Sketchbook | Mondays
In October, we’ll explore bookbinding and the art of making a book by hand. Students will design and bind their own Artist Sketchbook, learning how individual pages, folds, covers, and bindings come together to create a finished book.
These sketchbooks will live in the studio throughout the year, becoming a home for drawings, observations, experiments, plans, strange ideas, big ideas, and ideas that aren’t quite ideas yet. Over time, they’ll become part of our growing studio library and a record of each student’s creative process.
Beeps & Boops | Sound as Play
October will also bring some noisy new additions to our Beeps & Boops Table!
During project breaks, students will have opportunities to experiment with synthesizers, sound, rhythm, buttons, knobs, switches, and electronic instruments. Synthesizers give us another way to think about making: music doesn’t always have to begin with knowing how to play an instrument. It can begin with curiosity.
What happens if I turn this knob? What changes when I connect this to that? Can a strange sound become a rhythm?
Like drawing, building, and sculpting, sound can be explored through play and discovery.
We plan to be noisy in October.
November 2026
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December 2026
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January 2027
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February 2027
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