It’s finally summer! And with it, the season of sunshine brings the annual question parents ask themselves: ‘What’s the best way for my child to spend his/her time?’
When searching for potential options, you don’t have to venture further than your local community centers for a wealth of educational and entertaining summer programs on offer. Recreation centers are great go-to sources for such purposes since they provide easily accessible spaces for leisure and learning within the comfort of your own neighborhood, helping build close-knit communities and spaces where people can come together to bond, learn and discover.
Rare Learning
In this blog series, we will be highlighting three community centers in the Texas-Fort Worth area to help parents gain a sense of the various choices available to them this summer.
For the first installment, RARE Learning spoke to Assistant Recreation Supervisor Jessica Ferguson to get an idea of what’s on this summer at the Tom Muehlenbeck Recreation Center located in Plano, Texas.
Children and Youth Programming
From musical theatre to robotics, aviation, paleontology and even artificial intelligence, the Tom Muehlenbeck Recreation Center offers a wide variety of classes to suit a variety of interests.
Among the many new additions to the roster of offerings this summer, as Jessica described, is a program called Little Medical School, a unique introduction to the world of medicine for 8-12-year-olds. With all the instructors possessing the professional medical knowledge and a low student-teacher ratio, children will be introduced to the basics of real medical procedures- such as how to scrub in for surgery, tie surgical knots and sutures
RARE Learning
RARE Learning also offers filmmaking and photography camps at the Tom Muehlenbeck Recreation Center alongside preschool-based programs. The preschool morning classes, in particular, Jessica points out, are a popular option for the summer, with summer classes filling up quickly.
The filmmaking classes introduce students to not only filming digital video but also editing and production techniques. Photography classes teach students important visual concepts such as composition, lighting and the art of editing.
For more information on what’s on at the Tom Muehlenbeck Recreation Center this summer, check out the recreation catalog listed here or browse the website for details on another programming. Happy summer planning!
