DPIE

Hello Cottonwood Creek Families!!!!

We are delighted to be offering in-person after school classes again. We have some of your favorite teachers back and some new courses to offer you.

We are offering a dynamic selection of courses available from 1st Grade through to 5th Grade.

Spring Session 2022-2023

Actors’ Workshop!

Instructor: Professional Actors from Kenn Adams Synergy Theater
Grade Level: 1 -5
Day/Dates: Wednesday – March 8, 15, 22, 29 | April 12, 19, 26 | May 3, 10, 17
Sessions: 10 x 1 hour
Time: 2.05 - 3.05pm
Room: TBA
Tuition: Early Bird Pricing -$195 After February 22nd - $205

It’s laughter, learning and limelight with the After School Drama Club - The Actor’s Workshop! Through a fun series of theater games, acting exercises and scripted scene work, this introductory acting class teaches the fundamentals of the actor’s craft. Students explore the “three tools of the actor” – voice, body and imagination – as they learn how to create characters, interpret scripts and perform for an audience. The class teaches true theater skills such as stagecraft, emotionally truthful acting, and professional theater etiquette, while encouraging creativity and inspiring the imagination. The class culminates with a workshop presentation of scenes and monologues for an invited audience.

Take it once or take it again and again! Students are encouraged to repeat the program several times. While the overall objectives remain the same, there are always new games, new activities and new performance scenes to keep the program varied and interesting. As students progress through successive iterations of the program, they continue to work on more sophisticated material in order to ensure that their skills continue to grow and that they are being appropriately challenged.

Enrollment Open

Advanced LEGO™ Robotics

Instructor:   CompuChild Instructor
Grade Level: 2 - 5
Day/Dates: Thursday - March 23, 30 | April 13, 20, 27 | May 4, 11, 18, 25
Sessions: 9 classes x 67 minutes
Time: 3:05 - 4:12pm
Room: TBA
Tuition:   Early Bird - $190 After February 21st- $200

Prerequisite: To enroll in this course you MUST have first completed our Lego Robotics, WeDo Lego Robotics for Elementary Students or some other beginning Robotics class so your child is familiar with the basics of block coding. Otherwise, students should enroll in the Lego Robotics class at least once before enrolling in the Advanced Lego Robotics course.

Do you have a budding engineer in your family and a child who just can’t get enough of building and problem solving? Then the Advanced Lego Robotic course might be just the class you’re looking for. Working in teams, students will participate in an interactive engineering design process and will be challenged to construct more complex and dynamic robot projects that enable them to successfully complete a series of engineering challenges.

Note: Students can enroll in this class twice without repeating any of the projects.

Enrollment Open

Chess Academy for Kids (Monday)

Instructor: Pacific Chess Academy
Grade Level: 1 - 5
Day/Dates: Monday – March 13, 20, 27 | April 10, 17, 24 | May 1, 8, 15, 22
Sessions: 10 X 1 Hour
Time: 2:05 - 3:05 pm
Room: TBA
Tuition: Early Bird Pricing - $190 After February 27th - $200

Learn chess with Pacific Chess Academy! This program is a great opportunity for kids to learn how to overcome obstacles, think strategically, and stay focused. Specifically designed for young players with various levels (Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced), the course offers video lessons, easy-to-follow instructions, individual recommendations, and preparation to chess tournaments. The use of the modern technology (projectors, iPad, teaching software) makes the learning process easy, fast, and fun! All necessary equipment (boards and pieces, clocks, demo tools) provided. Participants receive certificates and trophies at the end of the school year. It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or a Chess Champion, this class is for students at all ability levels.

6 Reasons Kids Should Learn Chess

Improves concentration, attention span and memory abilities.
Enhances reading and math skills.
Fosters critical-thinking and creativity in young minds.
Encourages and rewards hard work.
Develops problem solving skills.
Exercises both sides of your brain

Enrollment Open

Creative Writing for Primary Grades: Introduction to Mystery & Adventure

Instructor: Talent Nook Writing Academy
Grade Level: 1 - 2
Day/Dates: Tuesday – March 7, 14, 21, 28 | April 11, 18, 25 | May 2, 9, 16
Sessions: 10 x 1 Hour
Time: 2:05 - 3.05pm
Room: TBA
Tuition: Early Bird Pricing - $195 After February 21st - $205

Inspire your child to write in the world of mystery and adventure!

This course will explore the art of mystery plot stories and adventure realistic fiction. Reading spurs imagination and mysteries and adventure stories teach how to evaluate clues and inferences with unknown events. Clues that are both indirect, direct and unknowns are the focus of writing for inspiration, and adventure stories and mysteries are full of detective work which motivates young children to learn language and develop writing skills. Detective stories inspire the mind to “think twice,” and adventure stories elicit fun and excitement.

Students will read and hear mystery stories and adventure events and be encouraged to write some of their own. Often, the story changes when the ending is up to the student. We will also encourage students to create their own characters through mentoring, examples, and templates. Through the art of mysteries and adventures with characters, your child will recognize fictional characters and create some of their very own stories that take them to the depths of their imagination. What fun!

This course will enable your student to:

Develop creative writing skills with sensory details.
Write about characters, plot, and conclusions.
Complete their own writing storybook.

Enrollment Open

Creative Writing for Grades 3 - 5: Introduction to Mystery & Adventure

Instructor: Talent Nook Writing Academy
Grade Level: 3 - 5
Day/Dates: Friday – March 10, 24 | April 14, 21, 28 | May 5, 12, 19, 26
Sessions: 9 x 67 Minutes
Time: 3:05 - 4:12pm
Room: TBA
Tuition: Early Bird Pricing - $195 After February 24th - $205

Inspire your child to write in the world of mystery and adventure!

This course will explore the art of mystery and adventure and the ingredients that go into creating this type of fiction. This course is all about unknowns! Students will read several mystery stories and adventure events and develop an appreciation of a compelling story: plot, dialogue, figurative language, character development, sequence of events, and imagery. Mysteries from children’s books and adventures like Gulliver’s Travels and other classics will be read. Meaning and characters will develop imaginative writing. Each student will attempt to create their own story with guidance from the instructor on how to realize detective details, inference, and many unknowns that are learned from human behavior. Students draw on all materials read aloud in class and get their chance to create their very own stories. Imagination through reading and writing allows each student to have fun and share their voice through mysteries and adventures which allows the characters to come to life and mimic human behavior in the worlds of motivation and pleasure seeking. Distinguishing between fact and fiction, characters and situations come alive with your child’s voice. What fun!

This course will enable your student to:

Develop creative writing skills.
Read, sample, and write in different genres.
Complete their own short stories with fun and guidance.

Enrollment Open

For the Joy of Singing!

Instructor: Ms. Laura Marotto, Cottonwood Instructor
Grade Level: 2 - 5
Day/Dates: Thursday – March 9*, 16*, 23 April 13, 20, 27 May 4, 11, 18, 25
Sessions: 10 X 1 Hour
Time: 3 - 4pm
*NOTE: March 9 & 16 are minimum days and class will run from 12:45 – 1:45 pm
Room: E206
Tuition: Early Bird Pricing - $186 After February 23rd - $196

Learn to sing with this fun and interactive class that teaches students beginning/intermediate choral skills. Students will engage in learning solfège to develop singing skills such as pitch, rhythm, beat, and tempo. They will also learn strategies and techniques to warm up the voice which will help develop vowel sounds and singing in unison. Students will build from their solfège and warm up skills to learning repertoire. The repertoire will be varied as students will learn different styles of songs to gain a variety of exposure to music. Each session will highlight new songs for students to learn, therefore students are encouraged to sign up for multiple sessions! The class will culminate with a showcase performance for parents where a set of songs are performed. Don’t miss out on this wonderful opportunity to develop a love for singing.

Enrollment Open

Game Development

Instructor: CompuChild Instructor
Grade Level: 2 - 5
Day/Dates: Monday – March 13, 20, 27 | April 10, 17, 24 | May 1, 8, 15, 22
Sessions: 10 X 1 Hour
Time: 2:05 - 3:05 pm
Room: TBA
Tuition: Early Bird - $190 After February 27th - $200

This is a beginner’s course in design and building games. Students will be using the roblox game engine to build 3D games and learning the fundamentals of programming doing so. This is a fun way for kids to learn programming while applying their creative side to design games. They will be learning and practicing the concepts of variables, IF ELSE conditions, Loops, timers, functions, checkpoint, and events in this course.

Note: Students can take this class twice without repeating any projects.

Enrollment Open

LEGO® Robotics

Instructor:   CompuChild Instructor
Grade Level: 1 - 5
Day/Dates: Friday – March 10, 24 | April 14, 21, 28 | May 5, 12, 19, 26
Sessions: 9 classes x 67 minutes
Time: 3:05 - 4:12pm
Room: TBA
Tuition:   Early Bird - $190 After February 24th - $200

Kids will have a great time in this hands-on Robotics course while also being introduced to various aspects of mechanical, electrical, and computer science Engineering. Students will be introduced to a block coding language in order to provide an intuitive understanding for programming as well as provide easy to follow instructions to build many simple machines.

In every class session students will use Lego pieces to build figures like airplanes, alligators, a smart spinner, etc., and they will be introduced to mechanical and electrical mechanisms like sensors, gears, pullies. They will then use block programming to help their fit all these pieces together to create their own moving project.

Note: Students can enroll in this class two times without repeating activities.

Enrollment Open

Masters of Public Speaking: Present with IMPACT!!

Instructor: Gurus Education, East Bay
Grade Level: 2 - 5
Day/Dates: Tuesday – March 7, 14, 21, 28 | April 11, 18, 25 | May 2, 9, 16
Sessions: 10 classes x 1 hour
Time: 2:05 - 3:05pm
Room: TBA
Tuition: Early Bird Pricing - $195 After February 21st - $205

Kids learn how to think critically and impact an audience effectively. Students begin to conduct research on more current issues, and make powerful presentations with the use of Power Point, Charts, Posters and other Audio/Visual Aids. This course will help kids formulate their thoughts with a clear, creative and concise structure.

This is an excellent course that reinforces presentation skills in 6 easy steps:

Non Verbal communication skills
Banish Mannerism
Vocal Expression
3 P’s
First Impressions
Having Fun

Our goal is to develop well-rounded confident individual and to give kids with any level of prior knowledge a HANDS-ON experience in each class!!

Enrollment Open

Reading Comprehension Strategies for Primary Grades

Instructor: Talentnook Writing Academy
Grade Level: 1 - 2
Day/Dates: Wednesday – March 8, 15, 22, 29 | April 12, 19, 26 | May 3, 10, 17
Sessions: 10 classes x 1 hour
Time: 3:05 -4:05pm
Room: TBA
Tuition: Early Bird Pricing - $195 After February 22nd - $205

Empower your child to easily understand text material and develop their toolbox of Reading Strategies

Phonics awareness builds reading comprehension skills. Decoding one-syllable and

two-syllable words, digraphs, common prefixes and suffixes, and irregularly spelled words are skills necessary for improved reading through our vocabulary section. The instructor will read aloud text which helps students understand how individual words connect together to form a fluent sentence. Reading aloud also promotes an understanding of how language flows and demonstrates how to pronounce multisyllabic words. Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? (WWWWH) direct their attention as they read, so students can decode new and unfamiliar words and information. The main ideas, tone, and predictions of "what will happen next," and how the tone in which a passage is written are discussed.

This course will enable your student to:

Identify age-appropriate vocabulary words in context
Understand reading text to answer comprehension questions
Accurately recall textual information to put into writing practice

Enrollment Open

Reading Comprehension Strategies for Grades 3 - 5

Instructor: Talentnook Writing Academy
Grade Level: 3 - 5
Day/Dates: Wednesday – March 8, 15, 22, 29 | April 12, 19, 26 | May 3, 10, 17
Sessions: 10 x 1 hour
Time: 2:05 - 3:05pm
Room: TBA
Tuition: Early Bird Pricing - $195 After February 22nd - $205

Empower your child to easily understand text material and develop their toolbox of Reading Strategies

Advanced skills are used in reading unfamiliar vocabulary words and text. Syllabic patterns, prefixes, suffixes, and root words are reinforced to accurately read unknown words. Students will be able to explain cause and effect, comparison, or chronology. Readers visualize text to understand it which focuses on events, people, places, things, and prior knowledge to decode unfamiliar words and word structures in different types of settings. The course will explore word meanings to identify roots, prefixes, or suffixes through graphic organizers associated with synonyms or antonyms. Summarizing textual content, identifying the main idea and topic sentence, and learning about predictions, foreshadowing, word cues, and connections are emphasized in comprehension.

This course will enable your student to:

Identify vocabulary words in context with their word meanings
Understand text and be able to improve reading comprehension
Recall text with accurate information to put into writing practice

Enrollment Open

Writing and Comprehension

Instructor: Talentnook Writing Academy
Grade Level: 1 - 2
Day/Dates: Thursday – March 23, 30 | April 13, 20, 27 | May 4, 11, 18, 25
Sessions: 9 x 67 minutes
Time: 3:05 - 4:12pm
Room: TBA
Tuition: Early Bird - $195 After March 2nd - $205

With formative assessments and engaging reading and writing exercises, students improve their grasp on grammar, reading comprehension, writing, and the use of language. Special focus is given on selected reading passages, spelling, punctuation, and vocabulary.

Analysis of Text Students learn to reflect on the author's purpose and distinguish their own point of view from that of the narrator and characters in popular children’s fiction and nonfiction books. Critical thinking skills aid in building proficiency for the grade level reading standards.

Speaking & Listening Skills Students continue to build skills through conversations on grade level topics and texts in a harmonious atmosphere. Students improve comprehension by oral, visual, and auditory information.

Writing Practice To support reading, writing, and use of language, students go through assessments and practice sessions to reinforce grammar with a specific focus on spelling and punctuation. Vocabulary is adapted through Language Standards for grade level.

By the end of the course, students will be able to: