HOME-SCHOOLED

In a bright studio Friday afternoon, home-schooled students squished, pinched and molded their own masterpieces.

The children were taking Ceramics for Homeschoolers, a weekly class offered by the ArtsCenter in Carrboro as a result of continued demand for activities for home-schooled students.

“We are definitely trying to connect more with the home school community,” said Phaedra Kelly, director of the center’s ArtSchool.

“We like to use studios to their maximum potential, but definitely the home-schoolers prefer to have it earlier where it can be focused on just home-schooled kids,” she said.

The class, held from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Fridays, is taught by local ceramics artist Jason Abide and began a new six-week session Friday. Registration for the current session is now closed.

Abide said he has been instructing the class for about a year and has taught summer pottery classes for three years.

He said students learn to use the pottery wheel, make sculptures and do hand-building with activities like pinch pots.

“We had two boys and two girls, and the boys made spaceships and the girls made zebras,” Abide said of Friday’s class.

The center also offers after-school classes available to children in traditional schools, he said.

Lynne Millies, a member of the Chapel Hill Homeschoolers support network, said classes like this can be very beneficial for home-schooled students.

Parents who home-school their children use the support network to share information about classes and set up play-dates.

The support group offers Friday enrichment classes taught by parents in the group.

“There’s classes on science, physics, art and poetry,” Millies said.

She said having a teacher in a classroom environment is good for the students.

“I think (the classes) give them some real experience in being in a classroom environment,” Millies said. “They also get to have that outside help from artists to come in and give them some experience.”

Holli Kearns, whose 9-year-old daughter is taking the class, said local home-schooling families can participate in many activities in the community.

“We have a really vibrant home-school community here in Chapel Hill,” Kearns said. “If anything, we have too many activities.

“But it’s really good to have things at the ArtsCenter because it’s so central.”

Millies said Chapel Hill residents are fortunate because the town has more to offer home-schoolers than some other areas.

“I have home-schooled in Michigan … by far North Carolina has a lot more to offer,” she said. “There’s science classes, there’s nature classes, music, fencing.

“It’s so great to be able to home-school here because of what they do offer.”

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