Event Types: Education

John Markelon, President of the Litchfield Land Trust, will share how to “Establish Pollinator Pathways in Your Backyard.” Each presentation is free and open to the public and will be presented over Zoom. Registration is required.

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Join the Washington Environmental Council on April 20th from 10am – 2pm for an Earth Day Celebration at Judy Black Park and Memorial Gardens:

• Home water testing by York Labs
• Family friendly activities
• Refreshments
• Live Music
• Community fun

Thank you for your commitment to keeping Washington beautiful!

Wednesday, April 24, 7:00pm 
Virtual Program

Looking to expand your reading list and discuss a variety of issues and topics important to Native people? Please join our virtual book club, As They Speak: Native Voices in Today’s Literature. Based on a variety of topics and featuring a range of genres, all of the books we will be reading have been written by contemporary authors.

This month, in celebration of National Poetry Month, we will be reading and discussing Dragonfly Dance: Poems by Denise Lajimodiere (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa). In this collection of poems Lajimodiere opens a door into the lives of Native girls and women. Her poems, remarkable for their candor and sense of catharsis,  often reflect tensions between Native and white cultures. Unadorned, direct, and often raw, these riveting poems sear their way into our imaginations, inviting us into a world we might never have known.

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Join The Hickory Stick Bookshop for a day full of fun and games to celebrate 11th Annual Independent Bookstore Day on April 27th along with hundreds of other independent bookstores across the country – including all 21 stores on the CT Book Trail!

In addition, join the Connecticut Bookstore Passport Program where participants are eligible to win over $4,000 in prizes. Learn more

Sunday, April 28, 1:00pm and 3:00pm 
In-person Event

Have you ever wondered how traditional indigenous communities knew which types of materials to use for making tools, and how to source them? Join Traditional Skills Expert and IAIS Head of Fabrication and Exhibit Production Griffin Kalin for a class in which he will focus on identifying and processing useful local minerals for use in tool making. This program will include discussion of local materials, as well as demonstration of traditional techniques used in ceramics, crafting stone axes and adzes, and flintknapping. The program will also include a walk down to a tributary of the Shepaug River to further investigate the onsite minerals. Join one of two sessions for a Program that is bound to “rock” your world!

Please note: Participants should dress appropriately for the weather, and wear sturdy footwear if they plan on joining the walk portion of this program. Portions of the hike will involve a steep section of trail.

Space is limited in each session and pre-registration is requested. Please visit our website to register online. Questions? Please email [email protected] or call (860) 868-0518. Price of participation: $10 for Members, $20 for Non-Members.

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WAA is passionate about arts education. Whether you are an experienced artist or a novice, WAA offers a range of opportunities for creative exploration. We provide a nurturing place for people of all ages to develop their skills and explore new artistic directions with classes in painting, ceramics, sculpture, drawing, and more.

View current class offerings

In an immersive forest setting with no locks, keys or clocks, Wigwam Escape’s thematic puzzles challenge game players to hunt, find water and prepare food similar to how Native people did for thousands of years prior to European contact. The Institute for American Indian Studies, proudly presents a new way to interact with history, a themed escape room, Wigwam Escape.

Our museum’s mission is to “preserve and educate through discovery and creativity the diverse traditions, vitality and knowledge of Native American cultures”. We chose an escape room setting as an interactive and captivating way to educate the public about how pre-contact Native peoples lived within their environment over 500 years ago. This hand-on experience of history is demonstrated through a series of custom puzzles and hand crafted set, complete with a full sized traditionally sourced wigwam.

The full experience is 90 minutes in the museum’s Research Center. This includes a pre-game orientation, the one hour escape room centerpiece, and post-game popcorn snack and discussion when your team returns to the 21st Century. The game is set for 3 to 7 players and the cost is $25 per person, or $20 for our museum members or students.

More than just a game, Wigwam Escape is built to teach through experience and foster dialogue in a game that’s dynamic, challenging and entertaining. Visit Wigwam Escape for this must-do team building experience for friends, families and co-workers.

For more information or to book your escape room, go to: wigwamescape.org.

Advocacy services for assisting elderly with the complexities of aging

This program is led by by Art Mulligan and Sara Lynn Leavenworth of Senior Advocacy Services and Jade LaBella of Berkshire Hathaway. This group of specialists has united to assist you and your family in gracefully navigating the aging journey with dignity. The process can be overwhelming and intimidating, but the team is dedicated to providing guidance and support along the way.

The team will talk with you about how to plan for your later years, short and long-term. They will also provide information to guide your decision about whether to age in place or sell your home and choose a senior living community that is right for your lifestyle needs. They will also discuss navigating the complexities of our healthcare system and insurance coverages and how to partner with financial and legal advisors as well as a Seniors Real Estate Specialist® to answer your questions and provide you with information based on their collective experience.

Register here

Join the Gunn Memorial Library and Museum on Thursday, May 9th at 6:00pm for our program Cooking Through Time. For May, we will explore the history of American Tea Rooms and their menus. Tea Rooms were the rage starting in the 1920s, Washington boasted two tea rooms.

Participants will receive recipes upon registering. Please feel free to bring your creations to our meeting for fellow participants to taste. Participants do not need to cook. For more information please visit our website.

Register here

Come explore the thawed trails in Hidden Valley Preserve with SRA Naturalists Peary and BK Stafford and discover the magnificently rich community of spring ephemerals adorning the forest floor. Participants should wear hiking boots or other appropriate shoes, and we highly recommend bringing water and binoculars. We will meet in the main parking lot at 198 Bee Brook Rd., Washington Depot. Please note, this program is limited to 12 participants.

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The Gunn Memorial Library in collaboration with The Hickory Stick Bookshop presents an author talk with Karen Chase, “History is Embarrassing.”

In her collection of essays, Karen Chase weaves together threads from one single contemporary life and recounts how that life collides with history. As a girl with polio, a Jewish woman, poet, writer, and painter, the author is an outsider as are most of the characters in these pages – undercover cops, poets, a gay couple in 1500s India, bear poachers, psychiatric patients, even a president. Each of these characters is one tiny dot in the enormous flow of humans from the beginning until now. Each life is equally a story that adds to the human story, to history.

What binds the characters all together is her distinct voice, the startling directness, immediacy, and intensity of her writing, and her fearlessness to go wherever her interests and imagination take her. Yet there are no easy conclusions or phony epiphanies here, no designs on the reader, but instead many surprises. Chase prizes authenticity and has it in spades.

Register here

About the author: Karen Chase is the author of two collections of poems, Kazimierz Square and BEAR, as well as Jamali Kamali, a book-length homoerotic poem that takes place in Mughal India. Her award-winning book Land of Stone, tells the story of her work with a silent young man in a psychiatric hospital where she was the hospital poet. Her childhood bout with polio sparked her memoir Polio Boulevard, as well as FDR on His Houseboat: The Larooco Log, 1924-1926. She and her husband live in western Massachusetts. Visit her online at www.karenchase.com.

The Judy Black Memorial Park and Gardens invites the community to its fourth annual plant sale and Gardenpalooza on Saturday, May 18 from 10 am to 1 pm! The sale will feature a variety of perennials, annuals, flowers, vegetable and herb plants available from Meadowbrook Gardens. Stock up on plants to start (or add to!) your own home garden.

Additionally, several community organizations will be on site sharing information about various projects and initiatives they are involved in.

This event will take place at One Green Hill Road, Washington Depot, CT 06794.

In an immersive forest setting with no locks, keys or clocks, Wigwam Escape’s thematic puzzles challenge game players to hunt, find water and prepare food similar to how Native people did for thousands of years prior to European contact. The Institute for American Indian Studies, proudly presents a new way to interact with history, a themed escape room, Wigwam Escape.

Our museum’s mission is to “preserve and educate through discovery and creativity the diverse traditions, vitality and knowledge of Native American cultures”. We chose an escape room setting as an interactive and captivating way to educate the public about how pre-contact Native peoples lived within their environment over 500 years ago. This hand-on experience of history is demonstrated through a series of custom puzzles and hand crafted set, complete with a full sized traditionally sourced wigwam.

The full experience is 90 minutes in the museum’s Research Center. This includes a pre-game orientation, the one hour escape room centerpiece, and post-game popcorn snack and discussion when your team returns to the 21st Century. The game is set for 3 to 7 players and the cost is $25 per person, or $20 for our museum members or students.

More than just a game, Wigwam Escape is built to teach through experience and foster dialogue in a game that’s dynamic, challenging and entertaining. Visit Wigwam Escape for this must-do team building experience for friends, families and co-workers.

For more information or to book your escape room, go to: wigwamescape.org.

In this immersive summer program at Hartford Art School (HAS), high school students grades 10-12 learn how to use analogue technology in black and white photography, and develop a method for integrating this special process into their photographic work. A HAS photography professor guides students in understanding 35mm cameras, film exposure, processing and printing, lab equipment, and materials. In addition, artist lectures and guest artists introduce students to the larger photographic world.

Daily lunch breaks offer opportunities to step outside or visit HAS’s art galleries. The program culminates in a mini exhibition of student work in a professional gallery setting. Transportation to and from HAS is provided daily from Woodbury and Waterbury, CT. Lunch provided daily. Special thanks to Project Concept Development Advisor Jessica Rose.

June 24th to 28th
9:30 AM to 3:00 PM
12 to 16 Year Olds
On the Campus of The Frederick Gunn School
$395.00
.
This one-week intensive will demystify, decode, and deliver Shakespeare!
Students will explore improv, text and voice work, movement, stage combat, rehearsal techniques, and good old-fashioned fun!
The week will culminate in a 45-minute production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

With Kent Burnham
Director of Theatre Arts at The Frederick Gunn School
MFA in Classical Acting from The Shakespeare Theatre CompanyGWU in DC
Former Associate Artistic Director, Southwest Shakespeare Company
Professional director, actor, and theatre-maker

For registration information please email [email protected].

The Institute for American Indian Studies is planning for summer camp in 2024. Join experienced educators and camp staff on a journey through one, or several, themes related to our museum’s mission. Each week, while hiking in the woods, playing games, doing crafts, and making friends, campers will work together to complete a group project. By doing so, campers will not only learn valuable life skills, but will also have a positive impact on future visitors, students, and campers.

Who: Children Ages 6-12
When: June 24th through August 9th (Mondays through Fridays from 9:00am – 3:00pm)
Where: The Institute for American Indian Studies in Washington, CT
Pricing: $315 for Members, $375 for Non-Members. Camp pricing includes a deposit of $100, to be paid at the time of registration

Register here

In this immersive summer program at Hartford Art School (HAS), high school students grades 10-12 learn how to use analogue technology in black and white photography, and develop a method for integrating this special process into their photographic work. A HAS photography professor guides students in understanding 35mm cameras, film exposure, processing and printing, lab equipment, and materials. In addition, artist lectures and guest artists introduce students to the larger photographic world.

Daily lunch breaks offer opportunities to step outside or visit HAS’s art galleries. The program culminates in a mini exhibition of student work in a professional gallery setting. Transportation to and from HAS is provided daily from Woodbury and Waterbury, CT. Lunch provided daily. Special thanks to Project Concept Development Advisor Jessica Rose.

The Institute for American Indian Studies is planning for summer camp in 2024. Join experienced educators and camp staff on a journey through one, or several, themes related to our museum’s mission. Each week, while hiking in the woods, playing games, doing crafts, and making friends, campers will work together to complete a group project. By doing so, campers will not only learn valuable life skills, but will also have a positive impact on future visitors, students, and campers.

Who: Children Ages 6-12
When: June 24th through August 9th (Mondays through Fridays from 9:00am – 3:00pm)
Where: The Institute for American Indian Studies in Washington, CT
Pricing: $315 for Members, $375 for Non-Members. Camp pricing includes a deposit of $100, to be paid at the time of registration

Register here

The Institute for American Indian Studies is planning for summer camp in 2024. Join experienced educators and camp staff on a journey through one, or several, themes related to our museum’s mission. Each week, while hiking in the woods, playing games, doing crafts, and making friends, campers will work together to complete a group project. By doing so, campers will not only learn valuable life skills, but will also have a positive impact on future visitors, students, and campers.

Who: Children Ages 6-12
When: June 24th through August 9th (Mondays through Fridays from 9:00am – 3:00pm)
Where: The Institute for American Indian Studies in Washington, CT
Pricing: $315 for Members, $375 for Non-Members. Camp pricing includes a deposit of $100, to be paid at the time of registration

Register here