Design + create pieces to wear, tote, and accessorize!

Girls spend the week creating original designs to showcase their personal style + add flair to their space. The fun is in the projects! Projects include a framed paint chip calendar, fringed and beaded t-shirt totes, duct tape wallets, morse code bracelets, emoji pebble necklaces, wall weavings, and batik art. By the end of the week, girls will have an array of fab new accessories for themselves + their room!

Delve into food science!

This theme focuses on the science behind mixing and combining ingredients. Girls mix, measure and experiment using kitchen ingredients as science tools. They explore states of matter; super-saturation; the chemistry behind fizzy, repellent or delicious combinations; and the molecular change when things are heated and cooled. But what are they really doing? This is the fun part! Favorite projects include rocky candy and egg geodes (crystallization), liquid spherification (a favorite!), no bake granola, shake-it-up butter, solar s’mores ovens, and, definitely, diy ice cream. Equal parts chemistry, recipe experimentation, and fun!

Design in miniature! Create your own composition, people, furniture and accessories.

For our CJ girls who loved DIY Dollhouse, Miniature World is a chance to make more! We’ve added a few extra projects like twig teepees and mini tins to keep things fresh. And this group puts a finer finish on the elements DIY Dollhouse. Girls start with pre-fabricated wooden boxes and assemble their own structure. (A trapeze school, toy museum, or ultra-modern home? They’ve made it!) With their architect’s hat on, they think about setting, scale, and who they are designing it for. They plan out the surface finishings and add extended spaces; they design the furniture and accessories; and they incorporate all sorts of clever engineering – like a pulley-system elevator or cantilevered swimming pool for tree frogs (yes, we’ve seen this!) Girls are doing so much learning while they are making, and they constantly amaze us with their creativity. The classroom becomes their studio and miniature world. Got designer’s block? Just visit the swap shop or inspiration station. This is a super popular class, so sign up early! And for girls who’ve taken it before, we’ve added new twists and projects to keep it fresh.

Learn five print-making techniques and design your own papers and textiles!

We love print-making here at Curious Jane, and we’re excited to introduce it to CJ girls in this new theme! Why is print-making a favorite for us? First, it focuses on key concepts in design – positive and negative spaces, composition, layering and color fields. But even better, it’s an incredibly accessible technique that any age and skill level can use and have fun with! Techniques include screen-printing, lino-cuts, stamping and cyanotype prints. Girls make their own screens and stamps, then print onto a variety of media. Projects include poster prints, small textiles, stamped stationery and gift papers, plus a screen-printed tee or two. Create something you’re delighted with? Make more! It’s the beauty of the print-makers studio.

Bring stories to 3-D life in stage-set dioramas and miniature characters!

Girls will take their ideas off the flat page and into the realm of 3-D project-making and creative invention. Girls’ minds are bursting with stories, and this class gives them a chance to visualize them in all different ways. While they develop the “who, where, what and how” of their story, they design their characters, settings and scenarios. Projects include pandora’s box of ideas, 3-D character trees, finger puppets with their own theater and props, timeline garlands, imaginative and large-scale setting maps, and their own story portfolio to take home at the end of the week.

Learn to sew on a machine and start your own collection of wearables!

We’re bringing our machine sewing program from our Gowanus workspace to our Berkeley Carroll location and back. Girls can join us at these two locations to learn machine sewing and create a variety of projects to use and wear. Girls start with the basics of sewing – they learn how to navigate a machine, thread a bobbin, sew various stitches, draw and cut out a pattern and more. The class size is limited to 8 girls, and this small group setting allows girls to collaborate over ideas and work individually on projects. We offer two to three weeks of sewing (depending on the location), with different projects each week, so girls can take multiple weeks without repeat. Examples include tote bags, hair bands, soft toys, elastic-band skirt or shorts, pillows and more. This has been a favorite workshop all fall, so we’ve expanded our program for the summer. Join us!

Mix, layer, shake, scent and make your own spa goodies!

Mix it, make it, try it out and take it home! Girls become spa scientists for the week as they learn about soothing, fizzy and smell-good ingredients and how to combine them. They start the week by inventing their own spa brand and packaging – complete with spa caddy and eye mask – then they make all the products to go along with it. The week closes with a spa party (of course!) for the girls to sample and share what they’ve made. The packed line-up of projects includes fizzy bath bombs, chocolate body butter, peppermint foot scrubs, lip smackers, bath salts, soapsicles, yummy face masks, and soooo much more!

Learn the science behind everything *SPY* and use the clues to solve the case!

Always a super-popular theme! Girls learn the science behind everything SPY in a clever mix of chemistry, physics and biology. Over the course of the week, they use their findings to create a case file, collect clues and solve a mystery. Solving the “whodunnit” is the best way to end the week! Projects include DIY intruder alarms, cipher disk and scytale decoders, sneaky spy periscopes, and extracting DNA (from a strawberry!). Other activities include analyzing footprints, dusting for fingerprints, sending secret messages in invisible ink, and crafting their own gumshoe bag of disguises. See if you can crack the case!

Stop. Seriously. Okay now go. And stop. Animation at CJ. Make your own film!

Make a stop-motion animation film from start to finish. Each girl creates her own character, setting and scene as part of a class collaboration. At the end of the session, the scenes are shot and edited together to create a fantastic, camper-created film, complete with a pop-corn fueled screening. Girls learn visual sequencing and storyboarding; they build their own clay characters, and they design their own setting and props for the story. Creative, visual storytelling taken to a new level!

Wire your own projects that move, wiggle and light up!

In Wired 101, girls learn to construct circuits and incorporate them into fun and inventive projects. Girls use accessible yet remarkable materials (like copper tape and electrically conductive paint) to engineer their creations. Projects include light-up quiz boards, marker draw-bots, LED circuit cards, bristle-bots, constellation star maps, and mini-pets – engineered with a switch and motor to let them wiggle and bounce.

Make your own mini-magazine and contribute to ours!
LIMITED! Only at Corlears (Chelsea), and CJBK (Gowanus).

Here at CJ, we make a magazine… and this summer we’re bringing everything we’ve learned about it to camp! Girls get all the ins-and-outs of making their own magazine – brainstorming a theme + concept, developing the content and visuals, and finishing with extra touches, compilation and binding. Girls take home a ‘zine of their very own. And they also have the opportunity to contribute their ideas and work to our very own publication — Curious Jane Magazine!