Week 7: August 2 - 6

Tuition: 345

Course: Ever wonder which insects make all that racket in the summer months here in North Carolina? If so, get ready to spend some time this summer turning over rocks, digging in the dirt, and looking closely in trees and bushes to investigate local insects up close. We'll record what we discover about insects, read books about insects, study insect anatomy, build insects using clay and other materials, and sing insect songs.

Instructor: CFS Middle School Teacher Alice Turner (pronouns: she/her) is a Chapel Hill native and a Carolina Friends Lower and Middle School alum. She got her B.F.A. in Acting and minor in French from Elon University. She spent three years teaching pre-k, two of them in an experiential, Reggio-based environment, and is now in her third year back at CFS. When not teaching or making theater, Alice enjoys reading, cooking, playing ukulele, painting, and spending time with her cats.

Tuition: 320

Course: Do you have what it takes to be in Friends Got Talent? We think you do! Bring your special talents, whether it’s song, dance, magic, jokes, or a unique talent you would love to share, we want to see it! Students will spend the week crafting a performance. We will explore the different performance categories the students choose, play games that encourage movement and being comfortable with our bodies, participate in fun team activities and challenges, have a Karaoke party, and, of course, bring it all together for Friday’s Friends Got Talent!

Instructor: Leites Chiong has been playing guitar for almost 30 years and teaching guitar for over a decade, with stints in various bands along the way. He's a father of four, including two children at CFS.

Leites teaches all styles of music for acoustic and electric guitar, as well as bass guitar and Ukulele (including in CFS’ after-school music program for children AND adults). He helps beginner through advanced students learn how to play and how to write songs. Leites enjoys working with children and seeing the love of music grow within them.

This course is offered in multiple weeks:
Week Seven / August 2-6
Week Nine / August 16-20

Tuition: 320

Course: A few steps into the woods and we’ll enter a world of bird nests and calls, trails of mice and voles, evidence of beavers and flying squirrels. How do you find your way in the woods? How does the weather affect animals and plants? Where, how, and why do animals hide? And how do we avoid animal pests? We’ll find answers to these questions and more as we explore the woods, fields, and streams around CFS.

Whatever the weather, we’ll be out and about, getting wet, dirty, and sweaty exploring, collecting, wading, and creating—and navigating—scavenger hunts and other games, and designing nature-inspired prints and drawings. Not only can nature teach us a lot about ourselves, but when we look close together,  we’ll find lessons in teamwork and the importance of taking care of our planet. Young adventurers will need appropriate clothing and plenty of energy!

Instructor: Bo is a musician, an oboist, composer, and educator, teaching students at his home (or on Zoom) and at Duke. He frequently creates and presents programs and residencies for young people, and attended workshops presented by Kennedy Center’s program for teaching artists. He developed a general music program and created original operas with children in a remote public school on an island in Maine. 

To satisfy his sweet tooth in a house with few sweets, Bo started baking pies, cakes, and cookies when he was little. His favorite pies are anything citrus, chocolate, pecan, peach, peanut butter, or coconut. I guess he’s really never met a pie he didn’t like. In addition to cooking, Bo’s been a lover of animals, architecture and art, and a collector of treasures as long as he can remember.

This course is offered in multiple weeks:
Week One / June 21-25, Tony Arias Sorto
Week Two / June 28-July 2, Tony Arias Sorto
Week Four / July 12-16, Leslie Atherholt
Week Six / July 26-30, Achiri Acha
Week Seven / August 2-6, Sefton Dennis
Week Eight / Aug 9-13, Achiri Acha
Week Nine / Aug 16-20, Tony Arias Sorto

Tuition: 320

Course: An active, fun-filled week of sports adventure just for you! We learn how to play a variety of sports, focusing on skills and learning the rules. We work on team building and create some crafts that go along with our new indoor and outdoor games! We concentrate on learning how to play, building confidence, keeping in shape, and receiving guidance and encouragement from our coach. An excellent class for the active or wannabe active camper!

Instructor: Sefton Dennis is a Friends School alum, Class of 2008. He has been coaching Boys and Girls varsity soccer at CFS for four years and has been a private skills development coach for seven years. He also works part time for a family business that is a consultancy for public and environmentalhealth research. Before that, he worked with a non-profit in Durham that advocates for food security and also worked as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer. Since then, he has continued a studio practice as a visual artist and wants eventually to work as an educator in visual arts and art history.

This course is offered in multiple weeks:
Week One / June 21-25
Week Seven / August 2-6

Tuition: 345

Course: Take home projects you design, engineer, and build! You’ll learn how to safely use an electric drill and hand tools to craft and customize your own tents or scooters, bee houses, marble mazes, catapults, and more. We’ll also enjoy plenty of outdoor activities. If you like to build and specialize your projects, this course is for you.

Instructor: Cyrise Davis holds a B.A. in Art Education K-12 and a B.S. in Commercial Art and Photography. In addition to her freelance photography, she worked for 10 years as an art and photography teacher at The Hawbridge School in Saxapahaw, as a site coordinator and lead teacher for a middle school after-hours program, and as a YMCA summer camp counselor.

Seven years ago Cyrise joined the CFS family as the Extended Day (AfterHours) Director, substitute teacher, and Summer Programs instructor. Currently, Cyrise is the CFS art teacher for Fountain class (3rd and 4th years) while working with teachers and students throughout the school day. Cyrise employs her child-centered style of teaching (and passion for art, engineering, and science) to help CFS summer students and Lower and Middle Schoolers learn to explore and create.

This course is offered in multiple weeks:
Week One / June 21-25
Week Seven / August 2-6

Tuition: 320

Course: Exploring the ways to use wet media on absorbent paper. Brushing, watching, changing our tools, appreciating what starts to happen. We’ll be creating art, as well as a base for more art. Using a range of pigments, brushes, pens, inks and absorbent papers... the WOW starts to happen! Unpredictable and fascinating. It is a step off the path of painting pictures. Opening up and imagining more things to create.

Instructor: Rowena Bowman grew up in the vibrant culture of New Orleans where everyone is deeply influenced by storytelling, music, and visual art. She studied at the Corcoran and the Torpedo Factory in Washington, DC, held studio space at Glen Echo Park, and taught at Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. In 2018 she brought her spirit and energy to our area where she now works with our young students at CFS. She is a teaching specialist, a mixed media artist, and a lover of art made by children.

Tuition: 320

Course: Sharpen your sense of wow! in this hands-on, inquiry based workshop. You are an artist and scientist all in one as you bring together familiar ingredients and transform them into the unexpected. The fun comes when you perform cool experiments that pop, bubble, propel, and fizz! Tickle your senses and start to wonder about...What happens now? How does it work? What if I try this? We’ll explore the science behind your creations as we play and make new friends!

Instructor: Kathleen Rogers loves to understand the hows and whys of our world and enjoys fostering excitement in others about science and nature. Science is a key to so much cool stuff! She studied chemistry and molecular biology at Lynchburg College, UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke, earning a Ph.D. in cell biology.

She is quite happy when hiking, digging in the garden and bird watching, and participates as a citizen scientist with the Cornell Ornithology Labs Feederwatch program. Quilting and gardening tap into her love of color and design.

You can find Kathleen around CFS working as a substitute teacher, tutor, teaching assistant, and Summer Programs instructor. She loves being around the energy and creativity of kids and is looking forward to joining them in their summer workshop fun!

This course is offered in multiple weeks:
Week One / June 21-25, Kyle Gouchoe-Hanas
Week Seven / August 2-7, Kyle Gouchoe-Hanas
Week Eight / August 9-13, Marshall Wilfong

Tuition: 320

Course Description: Here's a chance to build up your wilderness survival skills! Learn how to (safely) build and cook over a campfire, put up a tent or build a shelter, recognize local trees, plants, and animals, and explore the amazing trails and rivers in the state parks in our area. We’ll develop an understanding of intense survival situations and how to get out of them. And put our abilities to the test. For the hardy, the adventurous, the nature lover, and the fun-seeker. Prepare to get wet!

Instructor: Kyle Gouchoe-Hanas is a Carolina Friends School alum and a graduate of Smith College, where she majored in Education and Child Study and Studio Art with a concentration in oil painting. A former middle school teacher and coach at the Friends School of Wilmington and San Francisco Friends School, she is now in a graduate program in social work at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Kyle’s interests span far and wide from athletics and dance to painting and fashion, to social justice and human development. Her teaching experience began at CFS as a young student and she is looking forward to continuing her study of the teaching and learning process in the place she calls home.

This course is offered in multiple weeks:
Week Five / July 19-23 (ages 7-12)
Week Seven / August 2-6 (ages 9-15)
Week Eight / August 9-13 (ages 9-15)
Week Nine / August 16-20 (ages 9-15)

Tuition: 320

Course: It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a... Frisbee! Ultimate Frisbee is one of the fastest growing youth sports in the US, and we want to teach you how to play! Ultimate combines the continuous play of soccer, the end-zones of football, and the pivoting of basketball all with a frisbee to create a fast-paced, exciting game! This camp will teach the fundamentals of the sport, going over different types of throws and the basic strategies of offense and defense. Participants will learn about Spirit of the Game, a fundamental part of Ultimate that focuses on sportsmanship and respect for all players. Each camper will receive an Ultimate Frisbee disc with registration!

About Triangle Ultimate: Triangle Ultimate is a local nonprofit whose mission is to collaboratively build a community emphasizing accessibility, relationships, and engagement through learning, playing, and teaching the sport of Ultimate in the Triangle region of North Carolina. Triangle Ultimate is excited to strengthen our relationship with the Carolina Friends School community through great summer camp experiences. The camp will be led by some of the top leaders in the Triangle's Ultimate Frisbee community!

This course is offered in multiple weeks:
Week One / June 21-25
Week Two / June 28-July 2
Week Three / July 5-9 (Advanced)
Week Four / July 12-16
Week Five / July 19-23
Week Six / July 26-30
Week Seven / August 2-6 (Advanced)

Tuition: 320

Course: For our older students, here’s an opportunity to enhance your skills in comic drawing. Led by Jamie Charles who has been teaching Comic Design in CFS Summer Programs for many years, the workshop provides a meeting place for expanding skills and talents. You do NOT have to have taken Comic Design prior to this. This is for those students who want to work a bit intensely on their creations. Share your techniques, exchange tips, learn new skills, collaborate with a partner, and learn from the community.

Instructor: Jamie Charles, a working illustrator, graduated from UNC-G in Fine Arts. Besides exhibiting his own work, Jamie works at CFS as an art instructor for Middle School students. He is also a champion Capture the Flag leader, having coached his workshop groups to many victories (not that he is bragging). Jamie offers private lessons in drawing and art.

This course is offered in multiple weeks:
Week One / June 21-25, Achiri Acha (in-person)
Week Five / July 19-23, Marshall Wilfong (in-person)
Week Seven / August 9-13, Achiri Acha (in-person)
Week Nine / August 16-20, Marshall Wilfong (virtual)

Tuition: 350

Course: Anyone ever told you to “get lost?” If so, there’s no better way to take their advice than to delve into the amazingly expansive and immersive world of Minecraft. For a moment, let’s step away from the term “video-game” and substitute “wildly-versatile-open-ended-world-manipulating-art machine.” Minecraft’s critically acclaimed, sandbox-style gameplay is a constant exercise in collaborative exploration, goal-setting, and boundless “Imagineering”—whether hunting and gathering to build agrarian homesteads across various landscapes or configuring an automated railway/refinement system that acquires, transports, and processes raw materials the player can use to create their own scaled recreation of the Taj Mahal.

The objective of Minecraft Community is to “get lost, together,” building community. With a little direction and a lot of improv, students will enter into Minecraft’s Survival Mode, banding together to outlive the Mobs and Elements, within a democratic community. With inventive jobs (e.g. Hunters, Explorers, Architects, Artisans, etc.) and responsibilities and a community lot-casting system, students will forge ahead to establish a lasting society amidst wiles of Mobs and the unforgiving wildernesses.

We will be using Minecraft: Education Edition on Chromebooks.

Instructor: Achiri Acha has been at CFS since he was six years old! He mentored with Jordan Shamp in Sports camp, became a counselor-in-training, and then moved on to become a camp assistant and instructor for the past seven summers. Achiri has worked in Extended Day at Lerner School and School’s Out Camps at the Jewish Community Center and currently works at USA Ninja Challenge during the school year. Achiri's goal is to be an elementary school physical education instructor and coach.

Tuition: 320

Course: Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. Oscar Wilde, Personal Impressions of America (1883)

These expensive, these is red bottoms, these is bloody shoes. Hit the store, I can’t get ‘em both, I don’t wanna choose. Cardi B, Bodak Yellow (2017)

Calling all designers! Project Runway: CFS Edition is a highly interactive fashion design course delivered through a mix of fashion history, psychology of dress, identifying trends in pop culture, and visual analysis of fashion. Campers will learn how to think critically about the choices they make in regards to what they wear every day and the significance of fashion in our world. Each day we will explore a different theme as it pertains to fashion, including fashion as a form of expression, a way to protest, the sustainability issues of fashion, and fashion as art. Campers will compete in daily fashion design challenges, creating “looks” to go with each day’s theme using 2D and 3D media. By the end of the week, participants will have created a Capstone Wardrobe Journal, a protest tote bag, a look for a “Trashion Show” using recycled materials, a Mood Board Collage, and a Final Collection representing everything they have learned over the course of the week.

No fashion design or sewing experience required. This course will be focused on design, not the technical sewing aspects of fashion. Just bring your own sense of style and… Make it Work!

Instructor: Connor Kirkpatrick (he/him/his) is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. in English and Nonprofit Leadership and Management. He is a nonprofit professional, working at Student U as a Development Associate. He is also an experienced educator and loves working with young people.

As a guiding principle, Connor believes that young people are our most powerful asset to our community with the capacity to contribute to real world issues, and much of his experience is in empowering young people through engaging activities to find their passion and create their own service projects to meet genuine community needs. When not breaking down a dance move or running half marathons, you can find Connor wrapped up in a good mystery novel.

Course: You’ve heard of soccer…but have you ever paired it with slacklining? This camp is a great way to spend time outdoors and enjoy a game of soccer, practice drills, learn new skills, and challenge yourself with the balancing act of slacklining. Slacklining is as simple as walking on rope, from one tree to the other. Easy enough, right?! Okay, it’s definitely not as simple as that, but if you enjoy a challenge and would like to learn how to balance on a rope like a gibbon monkey, slacklining is a great way to learn a new skill. All ages and experience levels are welcome. Instructor Tony has been slacklining for more than five years and, while it’s incredibly fun, it also encourages an appreciation for the values of patience and practice. 

Soccer is team driven and slacklining is an individual activity, but both will provide a great opportunity to go outside and get moving! We’ll spend our week playing soccer in the mornings and slacklining in the afternoon--plus some awesome outdoor games. Come try something new with us!

Instructor: Tony Arias Sorto is from Honduras and moved to Massachusetts in 2014. He moved to North Carolina in 2018 and is now the Before and After Care Program Coordinator at Leesville Elementary in Raleigh. Tony earned his A.A. in Education and B.A. in English and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Leadership for Sustainability. Tony believes in creating spaces for children to fill with laughter and he’s very excited to join the CFS team for the first time this summer. 

He was raised playing soccer but enjoys anything from volleyball and basketball to slacklining and trail running. Tony lives in Pittsboro where he loves running with his two dogs and exploring the woods.

Tuition: 335

Course: Breakfast, Lunch, Appetizers/Snacks, Dinner, Dessert: What are your favorite meals of the day? What are your favorite tastes? Each day this week we’ll feature a particular time-of-day menu and on that day we’ll prepare a variety of those dishes. Breakfast might include pancakes or frittata. Lunch could be soups, salads, or sandwiches. Perhaps for dinner we’ll have Italian risotto, a taco tuesday, or a casserole delight. Desserts will likely feature fruits, along with chocolate, cream, and lots of spices. And snacks might be dips, chips, smoothies and more.

Instructor: Mary Barber began her work in education before her formal training as a teacher. After college she opted to take a job at SOAR, an outdoor education summer camp and boarding school nestled in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

During her two years there, she was in charge of a summer program for ADHD and LD youth ages 8 - 10. This program had the unique aspect of backpacking with llamas! The campers hiked, whitewater rafted, and rock climbed during their 10-day course in addition to the Llama Trek. She was a field instructor at the boarding school during the Fall and Spring, which meant that Mary and a partner took a group of eight students (ages 12-18) all over the country, and even internationally, to explore the great outdoors. In between rock climbing, whitewater rafting, snorkeling, and canoeing excursions, she taught English, Science, and Math to her students.

After these wonderful adventures, Mary elected to attend Duke University in Durham for her Masters in the Art of Teaching. She had the opportunity to intern for 28 weeks in Durham Public Schools, teaching sophomores and juniors. Because of her internship, Mary was able to take on a long-term substitute position at Riverside High School in the Exceptional Children Department. She worked for over two months leading a sheltered class for students with severe exceptionalities. Working with populations such as these has always been a passion for Mary and she was very grateful for this wonderful opportunity.

Mary came to CFS’ Upper School as a language arts teacher in 2018 from a local charter school. She spent her time there immersing her students in the Project-Based Learning approach to education. A priority for Mary is to make learning apply to the contemporary world, and to her students' lives, through interactions with texts and experts. Mary’s goal is simple: to bring experiential education into the classroom. Through projects, group work, nature study, and "hands-on" work, she hopes to make subjects come alive for her students.

Tuition: 320

Course: Do you play an instrument? Have interest in playing an instrument? Enjoy singing, or just making noise in general? Come on down to School of Rock Camp! Spend your week practicing, rehearsing, and playing music with your friends. Find songs to learn or write originals of your own, prepare a set list, and get ready to rock out with your pals during our Friday afternoon concert!

Instructor: Marshall Wilfong was born and raised in Durham. An Eagle Scout from Troop 400, he’s been volunteering and working as a summer camp counselor since the age of 12. When he was 15 he got his first job as a merit badge counselor at Camp Raven Knob instructing First Aid, Search and Rescue, Safety, Camping, and Wilderness Survival. His time in the Scouts gave him a massive amount of respect for the outdoors as well as for the youth he instructs. Marshall has also been an after-school counselor at the Orange County Sportsplex and Aldersgate UMC.

He now works as the Extended Day Teacher for the Carolina Friends Middle School as well as a substitute for the Middle and Upper Schools.

Tuition: 320

Course: In this class, students will tackle the songs, monologues, and moments of famous Musical Theatre leading roles! In Learning The Lead Role, young performers will play roles from Hairspray, Oliver!, The Wizard of Oz, Annie, and more. Students will also learn ways to achieve the authentic and fun character portrayal on stage.

Instructor: Jesse Farmer is a recent Musical Theatre graduate from William Peace University. He has performed in many theatrical productions around the Raleigh area and he has a great passion for singing, dancing, acting, and music! Jesse is very excited to share his passion with young artists at Carolina Friends! He loves to collaborate, have fun, and make discoveries through theatre and storytelling.