ABOUT THE PROGRAM: 

• Student Age Range: entering 1st through 3rd grade
• Previous Experience: none
• Individual private lessons arranged with instructors
• One group lesson each day: Instrument Making from 1:00-2:00

Program Description: Each day of the week will be filled a variety of fun musical activities featuring a combination of pre-recorded video activities that you can complete at your convenience and live ZOOM meetings with lively interactions among the students and teachers.  Every day will include: a ukulele lesson video, a sing-along music and movement video, a general music lesson video that will introduce students to new musical concepts and ideas (like reading music, kinds of instruments, and new styles of music), and a live ZOOM meeting where students will get to make their own instruments from simple items they find around the house.  Each student will also get a 20-minute private ZOOM lesson with their ukulele teacher during the week. 

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTORS: DAN PRINDLE is a Ph-D candidate in Music Theory with an emphasis in pedagogy who has over two decades of experience teaching music privately and in the classroom at the elementary, secondary, and college levels.  He is also a successful composer, performer, and session musician. Dan has played bass and cello with artists like Simon Kirke (of Free, Bad Company, and Ringo Starr’s All-Star Band), Kurtis John (of The Last Goodnight), Jennifer Hartswick (of the Trey Anastasio Band), Sean Kelly (of the Samples), and Rex Fowler (of Aztec Two-Step). His innovative and tasteful cello playing can be heard on recordings from innumerable artists, notably Frank Black (of the Pixies) and Mark Mulcahy. Dan appears on several tracks on Mulcahy’s 2005 release, In Pursuit of Your Happiness, an album that Thom Yorke of Radiohead called the best of that year.

MICHELLE MARINELLI PRINDLE is an active soprano with a Bachelor of Music degree in classical vocal performance from The Hartt School in West Hartford, CT, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2002. She is an active performer, having appeared most recently in PANOPERA's productions of Sweeney Todd, Carmen, and The Ride of the Valkyries from Wagner's Die Walkure.  In addition to performing throughout southern New England throughout her singing career, she has performed concerts and lecture-recitals internationally in Salzburg, Austria; Heidelberg, Germany; and Florence, Italy.  Michelle is a certified Waldorf early childhood educator, has completed the Kindermusik instructor certification, and is currently training in John Feierabend's First Steps in Music program. Michelle is also an experienced and accomplished private music educator in piano and voice. Her students have been admitted to competitive voice and musical theater programs throughout the United States, including those at Wagner College and the Conservatory at Shenandoah University, and have been accepted to Regional and All-State Music Festivals in Connecticut and Massachusetts. 

PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS: A ukulele, a ukulele tuner, crafting supplies (we will provide a specific list shortly, but it will be mostly things around the house.  The one item they might find really useful if they don’t already have it will be a hot glue gun, but we’ll include that on the more complete list shortly). 

Here are some links to online vendors who sell provide ukuleles, tuners, etc.

• Tuner
• Ukulele's with a tuner included and without a tuner

July 13-17; ages 6-9. Max occupancy 12.

Everything needs characters, from books, plays, movies, to even drawings and paintings. We’ll talk about what goes into our favorite characters, how to create fully thought out backstories for your own original characters, and even what it feels like to inhabit your characters. 

Manda Jacobi is a theatre maker and educator based in the Philadelphia area. She spent four summers teaching at the Montessori School of Northampton for classes including Film & Videography, Graphic Novel & Comic Book Art, and various travel programs. She worked in the Springfield Public School system as a math tutor, then as the inaugural drama teacher at the Springfield Conservatory of the Arts, teaching 6th-10th graders. Manda is currently in the middle of receiving her M.A. in Theatre from Villanova University.

Dates: July 13-17. Ages: For rising 4th through 8th graders. Schedule: 11:30-3:00

Spend a week learning how to wake up, take action, and do the work of anti-racism. This week long program will empower young folks to share time and space with one another and work together. Through guided activities and journal prompts the participants will explore the various aspects of their social identities, examine privilege, power, and oppression, and begin to understand their personal role in society. We’ll focus on building community, the history of racism and anti-racism, and working in solidarity to make a plan to stand up and respond to racism.

Tiffany Jewell is a biracial twin, mama, writer, Montessori educator and New York Times bestselling author. She spends her time baking bread, building LEGOS, watching British detective shows, and dreaming up how she can dismantle white supremacy. She has been working at the Montessori School of Northampton for 14 years and serves on the founding board of Montessori for Social Justice. Tiffany has traveled the country for the past few years presenting her social justice curriculum to other educators and is so excited to be sharing this with students! Her first book for young adults, This Book Is Anti-Racist was published in early 2020 and is currently No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller list for Young Adult paperback. 

Ages: For students entering grades 2nd through 6th grade

This summer, set out on an adventurous week loaded with a variety of fun and challenging art projects. Our work will include tie dye with traditional and less traditional types of patterns.  We will paint on watercolor paper exploring abstract art and representational approaches with brightly colored inks, and make sculptures with clay. We will also use collage to play with scale and content, creating unexpected combinations of objects, people, animals, and places.  

The instructor will create supply packs for families to pick up at the school the week before class starts. We ask that students familiarize themselves with their art supplies. Families will need to set up a dedicated work space for the week: a table that can be covered with plastic or heavy paper, and a spot for work in progress to dry.

Schedule:

• 9:00 - 9:30: live video lesson and demonstration.
• 9:30 - 10:30: Instructor remains live for students to check in with questions/comments as they work on daily projects. 
• 10:30 - 11:30: independent work time.
• 11:30 - 12:00: check in on work/sharing/questions and prep for the next day's work. 
• 12:00 - 12:30: group drawing prompts in sketchbooks
  

Barbara Neulinger has been a painter and art educator for over 20 years. She has taught art at the primary, elementary, middle school, high school and college level and has been the art teacher at the Montessori School of Northampton since 2001. She received her MFA in painting from Indiana University. Barbara has exhibited her art work in New York City, Boston, Mexico City, and Lecce, Italy, and locally at the Oresman Gallery, Smith College, and at the Hampden Gallery, UMass. In addition to teaching art, Barbara works as an architectural color consultant:  barbaraneulingercolor.com

Ages: for students entering Kindergarten through 2nd grade

The Force Awakens in this introductory engineering course for young Jedi! Explore engineering principles with LEGO® materials as we construct the Ewok Village on Endor, fly through space on our X-Wings, and defend the Echo Base on Hoth. Create motorized and architectural projects with imagination and engineering to defeat the Empire!

Daily Schedule

• 9:00  First LEGO meeting
• 9:15  LEGO projects and programming
• 10:30 Break time
• 10:45 LEGO programming resumes
• 12:00 Dismissal. 

Play-Well TEKnologies was founded in 1997 and has run LEGO® building system programs for summer camps and after schools all across the country. Through the use of fun-filled LEGO® engineering and architectural projects, Play-Well helps children learn problem-solving skills and self-reliance while fostering creative expression.

Dates: July 20-31 (two weeks). Ages: 9-14. Schedule: 10:30-12:00 & 1:00-2:30 daily

We’ll be going over the different genres of podcasts, including fictional storytelling, book or movie review, interview format, history, and many more. Then we’ll decide the type of podcast we want to make, we’ll write it out and record! Featuring guest speaker Michael Jacobi, who has over 40 years of experience in film and television, including credits such as Apocalypse Now, Law & Order, Gossip Girl, and Elementary.

Manda Jacobi is a theatre maker and educator based in the Philadelphia area. She spent four summers teaching at the Montessori School of Northampton for classes including Film & Videography, Graphic Novel & Comic Book Art, and various travel programs. She worked in the Springfield Public School system as a math tutor, then as the inaugural drama teacher at the Springfield Conservatory of the Arts, teaching 6th-10th graders. Manda is currently in the middle of receiving her M.A. in Theatre from Villanova University.

Ages: for students entering 3rd grade to 5th grade

The Force is strong in this advanced engineering course for young Jedi! Use the force and tens of thousands of LEGO® parts to raise your X-Wing from the Dagobah swamp, challenge the AT-AT walkers on Hoth, and fly the Millennium Falcon through the Kessel Run. Apply real-world concepts in physics, engineering, and architecture while you explore a galaxy, far, far away.

Daily Schedule

• 1:00 First LEGO meeting 
• 1:15 LEGO projects and programming
• 2:30 Break time
• 2:45 LEGO programming resumes
• 4:00 Dismissal

Play-Well TEKnologies was founded in 1997 and has run LEGO® building system programs for summer camps and after schools all across the country. Through the use of fun-filled LEGO® engineering and architectural projects, Play-Well helps children learn problem-solving skills and self-reliance while fostering creative expression.

Ages: For student entering 4th through 7th grades

Students will learn more advanced techniques of filmmaking to create documentaries, and recreating a scene from a TV show or movie. We’ll be working on skills like creating a script with other writers, recording good audio, interviewing techniques, shooting B-Roll, reverse angle shots for dialogue, and editing with iMovie. Everyone will have opportunities to try their hand at all aspects of the process in front of and behind the camera. 

Schedule:

• 10:30-12:00 - Session I
• 12:00-1:00 - Break for Lunch
• 1:00-2:30 - Session II

The instructor will also schedule small group meetings in addition to the morning and afternoon sessions to check in on projects, etc.

Tom Knight is a videographer and filmmaker who loves teaching. Besides making videos for musicians and web sites, Tom is also a puppeteer and songwriter and has been performing regularly at schools, libraries and festivals for over 25 years. To learn more about Tom Knight go to TomKnight.com or view his video “Elephant’s Lullaby” on YouTube. This is his fifth year teaching in the MSN Summer Program.