The Line Up
Parkour Generations
Parkour Generations Boston was founded in 2012 as a branch of Parkour Generations Americas and is based in Somerville, Massachusetts. PkGen Boston runs classes and workshops for all ages and abilities throughout the New England region, working with a variety of municipalities, community organizations, schools, private companies, and individuals.
Classes offered:
Parkour Movement [Monday-Thursday from 4:00-4:50, All Ages]
Let some energy out and have some fun while learning parkour movements and techniques at home. These sessions will help you to see your home as just another training environment, full of movement challenges to master, obstacle courses to conquer, and new techniques to unlock!
The Beautiful Stuff Project
The Beautiful Stuff Project inspires creativity and increases access to play and the arts through reuse. They will be offering creative exploration workshops, similar to their popular classroom treasure box workshops, using recycled materials available at home.
Classes offered:
Spy Academy Creativity Challenge [Tuesdays 4:00-5:00, All Ages]: Make disguises, devise codes, train on our own obstacle courses, investigate suspicious activity, and more while you complete our Creativity Challenge Bingo Board. Prizes for spies that complete the whole board!
Artist Trading Cards [Thursday 4:00-5:00, All Ages]: Art Trading Cards are mini masterpieces. Just 2 ½ x 3 ½” cards to make for yourself or mail to a friend, You can draw, collage, sticker, print, and or paint in your own way. Spend an hour Thursday afternoon with like- minded artists sharing ideas and creating together. Art Trading Cards and fun materials available from The Beautiful Stuff Project. Contact mseevak@thebeautifulstuffproject.com to reserve your supplies.
Farrington Nature Linc
Farrington Nature Linc’s mission is to enhance the well-being of children from low-income communities through a connection with the natural world. They will be leading workshops on nature and the outdoors!
Classes offered:
Nature Club [Wednesdays and Fridays, 3:15-4:15, Grades K-5]: Join us for active games, art with natural materials, building projects, gardening, learning about animals, and more. Our focus is on connection with nature from the comfort of your own home, emphasizing well-being and discovery. Pre registration is required so that we can deliver materials to participants before the first class - contact meg@naturelinc.org. (Note please: Wednesday and Friday activities will be mostly the same.)
Somerville Media Center
Somerville Media Center (SMC) is a vibrant electronic media maker-space that exists to foster creativity, innovation and community expression through training, production resources and global distribution. The goal of SMC’s Youth Media Program is to empower the next generation of young people to be critical and creative producers who use the power of media to share their stories.
Classes offered:
Reel Talk [Mondays 4-5pm, Grades 5+]:Learn about how media and society influence each other in this class aimed at middle and high school students. We will be watching and critiquing classic and modern cinema and TV shows with social themes and analyzing how our world has been shaped by the media all around us. Electronic Music Production [Wednesdays 4-5pm, Ages 8+]:Learn how to make your own lo fi beats, bedroom pop songs, hard hitting hip hop and more in this fun, hands on class. Note: You must have access to a computer or tablet with Chrome installed to participate. We will be using a program called Soundtrap, please test it for compatibility.Animation Station [Thursdays 4-5pm, Ages 8+]:Learn how to make your own animated shorts using Piskel, Scratch, Cloud Stop Motion and other awesome free internet tools. We'll learn how to create GIFs, 8 bit animated loops, stop motion masterpieces and more! A device with Chrome is preferred. Please note that this class is similar to our previous online animation courses.
Teen Film Club [Fridays 3:30-5:30, Grades 5+]Watch fun movies with Kat, Chris, and all your friends and record your own movie reviews! We will be using a streaming program called Kosmi (https://kosmi.io/) to watch movies together, please check your device for compatibility. Please note that we will be screening PG and PG-13 movies in this film club, which is aimed at a tween and teen audience. Each week we will announce the movie and provide a link to the Parent Guide for you to decide what would be best for your child.
Parts and Crafts
Parts and Crafts is a member-supported, 501(c)(3) family makerspace and community workshop based in Somerville, MA.
In our programs we encourage kids to play, think, make, and learn through the exploration of the arts, science, computer programming, and engineering – a cluster of disciplines we refer to as “the creative application of technical skills.”
Classes Offered:
8 Bit Animation with Bitsy [Mondays, 3:30-5pm, All Ages]:
Learn how to use bitsy, a free online tool for making tiny computer adventure games with an 8-bit aesthetic to make your own computer game or interactive story. A class for absolute beginners to the world of Java coding. Processing is a language that uses computer graphics to introduce basic coding concepts like variables, functions and loops while creating amazing graphics. Kids will need to make an account openprocessing.org, a free online development environment, so Chromebooks will work, but some tablet devices might not.
Scratch Club [Tuesdays, 3:30-5pm, All Ages]:
Scratch is a free, online, drag and drop coding interface for kids developed at MIT. Each day we'll set a challenge for ourselves, but kids are free to work on whatever project they wish. Absolute beginners welcome! Kids will need to create a free count at scratch.mit.edu.
Somerville Arts for Youth
Somerville Arts for Youth was founded to empower all Somerville youth to discover and share their potential through the transformative power of performing arts education. They believe the arts provide a unique opportunity for students with diverse talents, learning styles, strengths, and challenges to work together.
Classes Offered:
Drama Club [Tuesdays 3-4pm - Grades 3-5, Thursdays 3-4pm - Grades 6-8]
Students will spend 6 weeks learning the performing arts from professional teaching artists on voice, acting, improvisation, devising/play-writing, technical theatre, stage management and more. (All classes will be taught via ZOOM)
Teen Empowerment
Teen Empowerment employs teens to identify the most pressing issues in their communities and to develop a strategy to address those issues. At each of TE’s four youth organizing sites, 2-3 adult staff members and 12-15 youth organizers work as a group every day, all-year to plan and implement initiatives that involve a large number of their peers and community adults. Somerville Program Director Danny McLaughlin leads fun fitness classes for all ages, join him every Friday and get active!
Classes offered:
