Our Workshop Wednesdays are back!
Every other Wednesday afternoon, we will once again open up our program to students from the community to join with our current cohort for a mini project-based learning “sprint” tackling a real-world problem in just 3 hours, end to end!
These immersive, drop-off programs give kids who are looking for additional enrichment for their school-based programs or who are in home-schooling, medical homebound or 1:1 programs the opportunity to develop critical thinking, executive function and peer collaboration skills, together with bright, gifted and twice exceptional peers.
Every week is a new project, so you can come for just a week or join them all. Each project is developed by Cajal Academy staff, or our current students! Previous projects have ranged from, “How can we create a spring garment out of upcycled fashion” to “How can we create a water filtration system using only household goods?” Each project is announced at the start of the program, so kids work through the problem as a group, working within a closed set of information provided to them over the course of the afternoon.
For our currently-enrolled students, these bi-weekly workshops provide opportunities to develop mini projects in areas of their own interests—like the project increasing conservation of Connecticut’s native carnivorous plants that one of our high school students developed for the inaugural series last year! By bringing in students who aren’t already in our community, they also offer the opportunity to develop the unique social skill of connecting, collaborating and sharing your thought leadership with new people: a critical skill in our Vision to Voice Curriculum.
All Cajal Academy programs are open by application to kids who have high analytical reasoning and/or creative thinking skills, including students who have learning, social-emotional, neurophysio and/or chronic medical differences, even ones as complex as connective tissue disorders like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. As with all Cajal Academy programs, learner needs are support through our unique Neuro- and Trauma-Informed Approach to understanding and supporting gifted and/or neurodivergent kids’ learning and social-emotional needs.
All Cajal curriculum is developed in ability-based groupings but part of the power of our program is the nurturing, mixed-age community that develops among our students so our Workshop Wednesdays Series is open to kids in grade-equivalencies of 2-12 who are not physically aggressive towards staff or peers and do not have a current history of elopement or substance abuse. For older learners, this provides unique opportunities to develop leadership skills, together with teens currently enrolled in our high school program.
