Education Improvement Tax Credit

Target Audience: student’s k-8
Particular curricular focus: visual arts
Program Description: The Banana Factory, a community art center and gallery, recognizes the importance of the visual arts and has dedicated itself to promoting and sharing them with everyone, regardless of age, race or economic background. The Banana Factory offers schools a unique after-school enrichment program taught by experienced, professional artists in residence. The after-school program featuring traditional arts of pottery and painting as well as the high tech arts of digital photography, graphic design and videography. This unique program offers students the opportunity to create beautiful works of art, compelling photographs, decorative pottery and glass flowers.

Creative, critical thinking is stressed in all classes and offers students a new visual language and an enhanced sense of worth and accomplishment. This program also emphasizes teamwork and commitment to finishing a project. The skills that are instinctively learned via the arts promote developmental assets in students by providing a new and constructive way to problem solve. Whether it’s filming a video or working in a group to create a mosaic mural to liven up public spaces, students are able to integrate skills that prove integral to development, academic achievement and professional growth.

Special emphasis: hands on learning
Time: 90 minutes once a week

Target Audience: students grades K-3
Particular curricular focus: reading and literacy skills
Program Description: Artist/educators from Civic Theatre of Allentown use the works of award-winning children’s author Theodor Seuss Geisel to develop reading skills in young children. Activities in this program begin with the presentation of a book by an artist/educator in character from book. Children learn to read aloud, individually and as a group, recognize words and rhyming patterns from the book, and talk about lessons learned from the book and how they apply to students’ every day lives.
Special emphasis: student engagement in discovering joy of reading.
Time: one hour a week for 5 weeks.

Target Audience: Students k-8
Particular curricular focus: science vocabulary, concepts and practices emerge with each topic of study
How it works: The mission of the Da Vinci Discovery Center of Science and Technology is to advance inquiry-based learning in science and technology for children in Leonardo Da Vinci’s image – thereby promoting academic excellence in these crucial disciplines. The Center provides every young person with fun, hands-on educational opportunities through its demonstration facility and its classroom outreach initiatives. Students visit the Da Vinci Discovery Center to engage in an After-School Laboratory on a specific topic such as “the human body, wind and weather, all about bugs, under the earth, starry nights” and others.
Special emphasis: Hands-on learning
Time: 1 hour/week x 5 weeks for 30 children/per session

Target Audience:  Students k-8
Particular curricular focus: science, concepts and practices emerge with each topic of study
Program Description: The mission of the Da Vinci Science Center is to advance inquiry-based learning in science and technology for children in Leonardo Da Vinci’s image – thereby promoting academic excellence in these crucial disciplines.  The Da Vinci Science Center’s summer camps are fun, interactive week-long experiences during which they become scientists - conducting experiments, solving mysteries, and discovering the fascinating world around them. Campers have the opportunity to explore the outer regions of the Milky Way, travel back in time to explore the world of dinosaurs, learn tricks of magicians, conduct chemistry experiments with Messy Matter, and build their own roller coaster.
Special emphasis:  Hands-on learning
Time:  3 hours/day x 5 days for 25 children/per session

Target Audience: students grades k-8 (Limited Schools)
Program Description: The Leader in Me helps develop the essential skills and characteristics students need in order to thrive academically and in life.  Using the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (proactive, goal-setting, prioritization, the effects of a can-do attitude, awareness, teamwork, and developing an interest in learning), the Leader in Me program teaches students critical thinking and analytical skills that help to deepen the academic lessons learned in language arts, science, and math through problem-solving activities as well as reading and writing exercises.  The leadership principles are embedded into daily instruction and existing lesson plans. The Leader In Me has noted success in the more than 40 partner schools improving math and reading tests, decreasing discipline referrals, and impacting overall academic achievement. The Leader in Me is integrated into a school’s core curriculum and everyday language so that students have a renewed approach to learning.
Time: 60 minutes a day

Target Audience: students grades 1-5
Particular Curricular Focus: performing arts
Program Description: Creative Drama Enrichment is an after-school enrichment program that teaches important life skills such as communication and teamwork while supporting the standards of language arts in schools.  Creative Drama Enrichment is open to all students in the target audience at the five United Way partner Community Schools. Creative drama activities are used to spark the imaginations of the students and to provide the framework for the work.  Students work on a variety of exercises and activities (tailored depending on participants’ ages) that respond to existing texts like poems and set them in motion using drama strategies.  Older classes explore ideas through improvisation and storytelling.

Each class meets once weekly for one hour throughout fall and spring semesters (September through December and January through May of the following year).  The program begins with a performance by Muhlenberg College’s Theatre students and Tap Dance Ensemble at the school.  Creative Drama Enrichment is taught by Muhlenberg students who are trained and supervised by the Adjunct Drama Professor to be teaching artists. The program culminates into a semester-end performance by the students.

Through theater techniques, Creative Drama Enrichment helps teach important life skills including:

• Concentration – focus activities such as the mirror exercise, tug of war with imaginary rope, and other pantomime activities.
• Cooperation - group problem solving activities are used to engage the students and give them an opportunity to understand compromise and consensus building.
• Collaboration – sharing of ideas as in creating a group poem based on an emotion, concept or idea.
• Communication – listening and speaking skills.
• Conflict resolution – exploring choices and consequences for choices through drama.  

Target Audience: varies depending on class – focus on students k-5
Particular curricular focus: Enrichment programs that engage students in hands-on activities that span the curriculum to enhance the development of a child in all areas: socially, emotionally, academically and physically.
Program Description: Northampton Community College is celebrating their 40th anniversary this year. The Horizons for Youth Program has been offering youth classes for students in kindergarten through high school for over 15 years. The goal is to offer quality classes in a safe, caring and stimulating environment. Horizons for Youth provides hands-on, creative and fun enrichment programs that capture children’s interests and develop and strengthen student’s skills over the curriculum. The enrichment programs are available as summer camps and throughout the school year and focus on literacy, languages, math, science, history, dance, cooking, chess, art, computers and fitness.

Alphabet Academy: Students explore the alphabet through poetry, books, fingerplays, crafts and more.  Activities include an alphabet scavenger hunt, riddles, and games like bingo and concentration.  Available to students k-1.

Mouth-Watering Math: Students explore the world of mathematical concepts by using nutritious and fun foods as manipulatives for hands on learning.  This program incorporates concepts such as sorting, making patterns, graphing, fractions, measurement and basic addition and subtraction.  Available to students k-1. Munchie Math: Students will explore mathematical concepts by using fun foods as manipulatives for hands-on learning. Concepts include graphing, multiplication, division, fractions, and decimals.  Available to students k-5.

Math Rules: Students solve word problems and computation, which draw on skills learned in the regular curriculum. Students learn, practice, share and apply different problem solving strategies through a variety of exercises that are completed individually, with a partner and in small groups.  Available to students k-5.

Real Life Math: Students discover the excitement and challenge of using problem solving skills to solve an array of real-world math problems.  Activities include formulating equations from word problems and solving problems faced by a recycling center technician, a doctor at a children’s clinic, and many more.  Available to students k-5.

Time: The summer program runs for three hours/day five consecutive days.  The after-school program meets for 1 ½ hours, once a week for eight weeks.

Target Audience: students grades 6 – 8
Particular curricular focus:  Literature and communication skills development
Program Description: PYT’s ensemble building and improvisation program uses theatre games, scene and monologue reading, and improvisation to explore literature and themes related to class work in subjects including social studies, math and science.  Students develop confidence in their writing and presenting skills as they work individually and in small groups creating short theatre works.  Students develop important listening and critical skills as they alternate from being presenter to audience throughout the program.
Special emphasis:  hands-on engagement in creative process
Time: 90 minutes a week for 10 weeks

Target Audience: 10-15 students in grades k-5
Particular curricular focus:  music
Program Description: The After-School Music Program provides students with the opportunity to experience music in a fun setting – for their own enjoyment and to experience growth in music appreciation, knowledge, and skill.  The goal of the After-School Music Program is to help build self-esteem, express creativity, and enjoy positive peer interaction while students learn about instruments, enjoy playing those instruments and learning basic technique.  After-school Music Program focuses on basic technique and on performance patterns in various musical mediums including percussion, woodwinds and piano.  After-School Music helps promote self-confidence, self-esteem, critical thinking skills, math proficiency, and team and leadership skills through musical education.   Students will ultimately share and experience the satisfaction of performing.
Time: After-school = 1 hour per week x 36 weeks

Target Audience: 10-15 students in grades k-5
Particular curricular focus: music
Program Description: The Summer Music Camp provides students with the opportunity to experience music in a fun setting – for their own enjoyment and to experience growth in music appreciation, knowledge, and skill.  The goal of the Summer Music Camp is to help build self-esteem, express creativity, and enjoy positive peer interaction while students learn about instruments, enjoy playing those instruments and learning basic technique.  Summer Music Camp focuses on basic technique and on performance patterns in various musical mediums including percussion, woodwinds and piano.  Summer Music Camp helps promote self-confidence, self-esteem, critical thinking skills, math proficiency, and team and leadership skills through musical education.  Students learn the names of instruments and basic playing skills. All programs involve hands-on learning.  Students will ultimately share and experience the satisfaction of performing.
Time: 1 hour/day x 2 days/ week for 4 weeks

Target Audience: Students grades 1 and 2
Particular Curricular Focus: literacy and creativity
Program Description: Curtains UP on Reading is a creative drama program designed to expose students to a wide range of stories and motivate them to use their artistic and analytical skills in a fun and creative way.  This ten-week program is taught by an artist-drama teacher from the Pennsylvania Youth Theatre and meets once a week for one hour.   Curtains UP on Reading is designed to expose students to a wide range of stories and motivate them to use their artistic and analytical skills through creative role-playing, the program contributes to students’ literacy and fluency as they interpret, imagine, and invent in creative drama activities.

Curtains UP on Reading is process-oriented form of drama in which students are guided by an artist-teacher to respond to literature through creative role-playing and also contributes to students’ literacy and fluency as they interpret, imagine and invent in creative drama activities.  Curtains UP on Reading implements all of the elements of language curriculum to encourage and improve reading skills and vocabulary, and foster creative thinking and problem solving.  Creative ideas stimulated by reading can find expression in story dramatization.  Space requirement consists of one separate open space in classroom or gymnasium.  The two learning environments of the classroom and the creative drama program will have a reciprocal relationship.

The program objectives include:

• To increase student literacy, fluency and comprehension through the dramatization of children’s literature; 
• To enhance communication skills through creative opportunities to speak, understand, and respond to reading through drama, movement, music and the theater arts;
• To foster creative, critical, and cooperative thinking through story dramatization and arts based instruction;
• To help children respond to music, to move expressively, and to communicate ideas and feeling through the visual arts;
• To foster an appreciation for the arts; and, 
• To make learning meaningful and fun through a multi-sensory and active approach to teaching.

The artist-drama teacher reads the story with the group and begins a discussion.  The children are led in various drama activities such as role playing, improvisation, and pantomime.  They learn about story elements including plot, character motivation, setting and language.  The students also learn communication skills and confidence in their ability to contribute to the group while learning teamwork and cooperation.  The program concludes with a final “sharing” session in which children dramatize the story in the company of family and friends.

Target Audience: students grades 3 – 10
Particular curricular focus: literacy and communication skills
Program Description:  Touchstone Theatre’s Young Playwrights’ Lab is a school-based residency designed to improve reading and writing skills, achievement in academic standards, and provide tools to generally enhance communication skills for students.  During the residency the students are guided through the process of creating an original, one-act play.  Throughout the program students learn improvisation and basic theatre skills, as well as monologue and dialogue writing, character and plot development, journaling, critiquing, editing, and other fundamentals of playwriting.  Using all of these elements students compose a full scene that can be expanded into a one-act play for presentation.
Special emphasis: developing critical thinking and communication skills
Time: 90 minutes twice weekly for 8 weeks.