Programs & Services
Creative Expressions Afternoon Programs-- Tzaharon Days
We invite children to come explore, create, and grow their imaginations in an English immersion experience. Our inspiring teachers lead a wide range of hands-on activities, explorations of urban and nature environments, social entrepreneurship and performative projects, alongside interactions with local shops and the public as both "subject" and "audience".
Our program time centers around hands-on text-integrated creative projects, where the children engage in working towards some reading and writing in English to produce works through which they express their thoughts and feelings in response to the bigger concepts and cultural phenomena we are tackling, while also exploring these themes through the natural world around them, and diving into materials to explore new ideas.
Some of our groups spend time at The ARC Garden House, which allows hands-on cooking and gardening explorations and deeper material investigations at the big project table. All groups work outside and enjoy time learning about our city and the local natural habitats. Projects include games, street art, signage, urban interventions, book art, photographic experiments, and public art projects. We play with spoken word poetry, joke writing, group storytelling, comics, and text-led “exquisite corpse” illustrations. And the children practice expressing their voices through more public sharing of their ideas and opinions. Of course all our Creative Play is only in English~
Registration for each next school year is first offered on a priority basis to current ARC program students and siblings, then to families from our partner Wonder School. By late June we open registration to the public to fill remaining spots. Spaces can also open up during the year, so feel free to check in(!)
Creative Explorers Friday Program
A play-based, nature-centered early-learning program, focused on outdoor activities and creative explorations in the garden environment. The program invites children to “free range” and engage with a variety of materials in child-centered projects that will spark curiosities, imaginations, and the joy of discovery. We support an emergent curriculum to follow the children’s lead and go deeper into materials where their interest lies.
The Garden House offers a Nature Atelier filled with scrumptious loose parts, an open garden area for digging in the dirt and mud, a vegetable patch to tend our edibles and sample fresh produce, baskets of stone collections from across Israel, a shaded hammock area, a pagoda covered deck with big project work table, a Makers Space with cut wood, Montessori inspired wooden toys, an incredible book collection, a 4 meter long art wall, water hose play, and endless art supplies to explore alongside all our nature bits, recycled materials and real-world resources. The Environment is indeed a third teacher~
Our values derive from a play-based nature pedagogy, through which we prioritize conscious-bearing practices and social emotional learning. Our practices are informed and inspired by Reggio Emilia approaches, Shefer philosophies, and Visible Child care perspectives. We support children to know themselves and thrive in the world around them as they explore all their senses, their community of peers, and the natural environment.
Afterschool Chugim Classes
The ARC offers a wide range of chugim at a few sites across Tel Aviv. From Eco Arts to Funky Dance to Creative cooking, there are groups for all ages, including parent and child classes. Contact us for more details.
Creativity Camps (Summer, Sukkot, Hannukah, Passover)
The ARC has hosted it's celebrated Creativity Camps for 12 seasons in partnership with Wonder School in Central Tel Aviv. They are the largest English Language camps in the city. The programs invite children age 2-9 to come explore, create and grow their imaginations with an inspiring group of teachers and wide range of multi-media activities. Campers dive into engaging hands-on art-making experiences in our Art Atelier, Architecture Studio, across our classroom stages, and in our large play yard through a wide range of visual, theater, music and dance arts every week.
We also host series of visits from guest ARC Teaching Artists (yoga, eco-construction, dance), as well as outdoor fun and some cool larger-scale creative projects. So we have in store a lot of fun Materials, cool Ideas, and some inspiring Meaning Making. And in between the hands-on explorations, of course there is lots of outdoor runaround time at Wonder's fabulous on-site playground with swings, slide, sand box, fort, jungle-gym, and mud-kitchen for all sorts of wild fun!
Please submit a request for the current info/registration form for the camps HERE~
Creative Discovery Summer and Holiday Programs
The ARC's special summer programming invites older children age 7-11 to come explore, create and grow their imaginations with an inspiring group of teachers and a wide range of hands-on activities that we do "out in the field". We visit various public and private botanical gardens, animal sanctuaries, sports climbing/boating sites and even a special water day for some outdoor splashing-fun and some very cool hands-on creative projects. Children dive into mapping, scavenger hunts, urban interventions, street art and eco-constructions at park and nature sites through visual and theater arts and imaginative creative play every day.
In the last couple years some of the sites we visited included: the Nature Museum, Eretz Israel Museum, a mini golf course, Ramle Underground pools, boating in the HaYarkon lake by the balloon, the Botanical Gardens, TLV municipal dog pound, Bowling Ramat Gan, The Artist Stables and Ananda in Pardes Hannah, Country Dekel pools, and Meymaidon Water Park. Next year the fast train to Jerusalem zoo!
Please submit a request for the current info/registration form for the camps HERE~
For Parents and Teachers
Teacher Trainings and Parent/Teacher Groups
Eliza initiated and led three years of "Talkshops" for parents and teachers before founding The ARC. These hands-on talks with parents, caregivers and educators focused on youth development through the arts, creative curriculum development, and arts integration approaches. She is currently offering a series of talks and trainings in "Creative Consciousing" to groups of teachers at various local schools and international conferences. Slots still available for the upcoming 2023-24 school year, so please inquire about booking talks and trainings via the contact page.
Creative Consulting/Coaching
A new project in the works is private coaching for families interested in working with creative materials and ideas to advance their children's engagement with language, mathematics and interpersonal relating skills. The ARC projects have long integrated a focus on children's social emotional growth and our work is set up to hold the space for supporting children as they learn how they best learn and as they practice exploring and expressing themselves.
Creative Weekends
Another new initiative inspired by special requests from parents who wanted to join our field trip programs! These weekend programs invite parents and children to join for a curated afternoon exploring some of the many fun cultural sites, funky artsy corners and lovely nature spots in and around Tel Aviv. We'll pack up some materials for hands-on projects along the way and guide families through some ARC ways of creative explorations. Please inquire for next season's schedule!