Corpsing for Fun & Profit

 For Ages 6 - 666 

BEFORE

AFTER

In this one and a half to two hour workshop we're going to turn a cheap, plastic, big-box store skeleton into a much nicer, way scarier haunt feature in a process called "corpsing".

Using easy to get materials and a small array of household tools, you'll make and take home your very own corpse and have no legal repercussions to worry about.

We'll learn how to age and weather bones, simulate and apply dried skin. If time allows we can talk about how to make piles of guts and intestines, and go over a few ways to make lasting fake blood that won't lead to DNA tests or difficult questions.

When Saturday, October 4th, 12:30pm - 2pm Saturday, October 11th - 12:30pm - 2pm

Duration 

This is a one-afternoon workshop, lasting an hour and a half to two hours.

Location

Classes will take place at Our Little Red Schoolhouse Ghoulhouse on Boston Avenue in downtown Silver Spring, MD.  It is just blocks away from Montgomery College Takoma Campus.  Our workspace is in a fully enclosed backyard with a further enclosed goat pen and apiary. 

Materials  

All materials including a skelleton, dried skin, and blood will be provided. Please wear clothing you don't mind staining. Gloves will be provided but some of the stains and paints will stain permanently.

Cost

$75

A $30 non-refundable deposit is due at the time of registration and can be sent via PayPal or Venmo. The balance must be paid in full before the class, unless you have made other arrangements with me. (If you are experiencing financial hardship, I am happy to work with you on a payment plan or reduced fee.)

Accommodations

There are restrooms available.  Participants should bring water bottles to stay hydrated. 

Health & Safety: 

Hand sanitizer will be provided.  Hand washing with soap and water will be encouraged after interacting with our goats. 

Registration is now open. Space is limited.

Click Here To Register

About Your Teacher

Gavin has been an accomplished prop builder and haunter for both professional and private haunts for well over a decade. He is a mixed-media artist, master carpenter, and has been a side-show performer. He has not only performed fire eating and bed of nails, he built the torches and bed himself.

He loves learning new skills as much as he loves teaching skills to others. He brings a zeal and positivity to each lesson that is infectious and a humor that can only be described as singular. He firmly believes that Halloween is the best holiday of the year and wants to spread the love of the macabre to all.

LEVELING UP: Executive Functioning Skills for Teens

👂(click here for text to speech audio )

Executive functioning involves the cognitive skills that help us accomplish our daily tasks, work through life’s challenges, and reach our goals. And we’re not just talking about academic and professional goals. Executive functioning skills are the key to finding success in everything that matters to us whether it be personal relationships, gaming, or having a great night out with friends.

These skills include: 

Planning                            Organization

Time Management            Task Initiation

Working Memory                Meta Cognition    

Self Control                      Attention

Flexibility                        Perseverance

It seems reasonable to assume that we are born with these skills since they are crucial to our success in every stage of development.  But, alas, they cannot be developed intuitively. Without explicit instruction and guidance, the demands placed on students can cause feelings of overwhelm, anxiety, and self-doubt.

While we want to see our teens successfully stay organized, plan ahead, keep track of their papers, manage their time, be flexible, persevere, and remember all the important details, sometimes it feels like we’ve tried our best to impart these skills to no avail. But what if it’s not a failure on the part of teens or their parents? What if for some teens, these skills need to be introduced by an outside source? What if teens could meet with peers to explore executive functioning strategies that they can practice throughout the week?

In this 12 week virtual course, students will be encouraged to self-assess their skills, select strategies that resonate with them, and identify simple, practical ways to incorporate these new practices into their daily lives. We’ll create a safe space to discuss our challenges, reframe our negative self-talk, embrace our mistakes as learning opportunities, and celebrate our progress each week.

Duration 

This class will meet virtually once a week for 55 minutes for a total of 12 weeks. 

Students may also participate in weekly, optional, independent activities posted in Google Classroom.

Requirements

Participants must have access to a computer or smart device with a microphone, speaker, and camera.

Students must be able to access Zoom and Google Apps including Google Classroom, Google Slides, and Google Docs.  

About Your Teacher

👂Click here for text to speech audio

Throughout my elementary and high school years, my parents heard the same mantras from my teachers:

“Alice is smart, but she doesn’t apply herself,” 

“Alice is smart, but she’d rather socialize than do her work.”

I clawed through high school, and early college years where my grades in English, Music, and Social Studies (which I could ace without effort) balanced out my constant C’s, D’s, and F’s in Math and Science where I couldn’t get by as easily without opening a book or paying attention. 

I was exhausted from masking my struggles with executive functioning skills.  I was frustrated with my teachers and myself. I knew I was smarter than my academic performance suggested.  In my late 40’s I was diagnosed with ADHD.  Working with an ADHD therapist introduced me to so many life-changing executive functioning tricks and strategies that I was able to make the Dean's List when I returned to college. I often think about how much more engaged in the learning process I could have been when I was young if someone had introduced me to these skills earlier.  My teaching style, loaded with humor and whimsy, is rooted in empathy for my students. My driving question is almost always, "how can I make this more fun?" I’m excited to explore these topics with teens who are ready to level up their executive functioning skills, gain more confidence, and develop greater independence.  

Schedule

Eastern Standard Time

Sunday Option	Monday Option	Wednesday Option
Breakthrough Brigade Ages 14 - 18 7pm - 7:55pm *Aug 3 - Oct 19	Epic Executors Ages 14 - 18 7pm - 8:20pm *Aug 4 - Oct 20	Middle School Mission Masters Ages 11 - 14 6pm - 6:55pm Jul 2 - Sep 17
*Classes WILL meet over Labor Day Weekend.

Cost: $144 before 7/27/25  

            $160 after 7/27/25

A $35 deposit is due at time of registration. The remaining balance is due before the first session.

(If you are experiencing financial hardship, I am happy to work with you on a payment plan or reduced fee.)

WE'RE KEEPING IT COZY!

To foster a sense of community, class sizes will be kept small. For this reason, SPACE IS LIMITED.

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED

Current classes are at capacity. If you'd like to be notified when this class is offered again, please use the sign-up form on the right.

Botany In Our Modern Era

 Open to Students Ages 14 - 17

The word botany often conjures up tired images of tree leaves and photosynthesis, but plant biology also involves forensics, biohazards, toxicology, and genetic cloning.

In this two semester course, we’ll use the foundations of botany to explore everything from marine life to botanical warfare to plant life on Mars.

Our learning adventure will include propagating plant life while developing our own hypotheses and experiments.

We'll work together to:

• Propagate various plants to observe their life-cycles
• Use tissue cultures to clone plants
• Develop our own composts and soils

• Cultivate our own terrariums and gardens
• Apply forensic botany to solve crimes

When

Tuesdays & Thursdays 2:45pm - 4:30pm

From September 2, 2025 through May 14, 2026

*2 inclement weather days per semester are included. Classes will not meet on November 27, December 23 - January 1, and April 2 & 7th.

Duration 

This class will meet in person twice a week for 105 minutes for a total of 30 weeks, broken into two 15-week semesters.

Students may also participate in weekly, optional, independent activities in Google Classroom.

Location

Classes will take place at Ms. Alice’s House on Boston Avenue in downtown Silver Spring, MD.  Her home is a block away from Silver Spring Intermediate Park and just blocks away from the Montgomery College Takoma Campus.  Ms. Alice’s House has a fully enclosed backyard with a further enclosed goat pen, duck pen, and apiary.  Classes will take place both inside and outside.

Materials & Activities

Learning materials will be provided.  We'll use hands-on exploration including labs, games, texts, and media resources.

Each student will maintain a botany binder.

    

Cost

Early Bird Special:  $300 per semester  

After June 1st: $375 per semester

(If you are experiencing financial hardship, I am happy to work with you on a payment plan or reduced fee.)

Accommodations

There are restrooms available and a snack will be provided each week.  Students are encouraged to bring water bottles to stay hydrated.

Health & Safety: 

Hand sanitizer will be provided.  Hand washing with soap and water will be encouraged after interacting with our *ducks or their eggs or our goats.  **Masks are optional.

Emergency Medical Forms as well as food allergies will be kept on hand. 

Registration Is Now CLOSED!

This class is now at capacity with a full waiting list. Check out other options under Current Offerings.

*Out of an abundance of caution, our ducks have been moved to a safer location in Northern Montgomery County until birdflu is under control. Families will be notified before our ducks are reintroduced to our property.

* The optional facemask policy may change if students with compromised immune systems register.  

Literary Analaysis Through YA: Diverse American Voices

 REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED

WHAT

Build your literary analysis skills through texts that were written with teenagers as the intended audience, and will therefore be more likely to amuse, delight, surprise, horrify, and demand the turning of its pages.

You will come away with a solid understanding of point of view, tense, figurative language, poetic elements, story structure, character arcs, evidence-based claims, and, above all, the relationship between form and function in literature. The YA (young adult) texts will be intentionally diverse, not only cultural/ racial/ economic/ gender/ religious diversity within the works themselves but also works written in a diverse array of forms, including poetry, creative nonfiction, drama, graphic novel, and short fiction.

WHY

By learning to analyze and discuss deeply using texts that are written to be readable to you, you will be ready to engage intelligently with any text that comes your way in the future. Our discussions will deepen your understanding of the texts, your peers, and the wider world.

HOW 

Expect to read about a book a month, and complete written assignments in class and outside of class. This is an arts-integrated course, so your writing will include creative pieces as well as reflections and a capstone analytic essay, scaffolded with teacher feedback on multiple drafts.

POSSIBLE WORKS

Final books TBA but possibilities are Piecing Me Together, The Poet X, The 57 Bus, American Born Chinese, Monster, Everything, Everything, and Man Made Monsters. All books will be available from local libraries.

WHEN

Friday afternoons, 1:30 - 3PM

from September 6th, 2024 to May 23, 2025

( Classes will not meet on September 20, 
November 29, December 27, January 3, March 28, and April 4.)

COST

The course fee is $275/per semester or $500/full school year  

LOCATION

Classes will take place at Ms. Alice’s House on Boston Avenue in downtown Silver Spring, MD.  Her home is houses away from Silver Spring Intermediate Park and just blocks away from the Montgomery College Takoma Campus.  Ms. Alice’s House has a fully enclosed backyard with a further enclosed goat pen, duck pen, and apiary.  This class will meet both inside and outside depending on the weather and students' preferences. 

ABOUT EMILY

CLICK HERE to learn more about Emily Ellerbe.

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED!

About Emily

 As a child in the 80s, Emily Ellerbe decided that when she grew up, she wanted to sit around and talk about books all day. Somehow, she made that happen: by working in libraries and bookstores, working with and for authors, teaching literature and writing, homeschooling her children, and through her own writing.

She has studied fiction and poetry at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, the Kenyon Review Workshops, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.

Her primary pedagogical aim is to share her deep and abiding love of literature, which is, at its heart, a love of humanity and of fearless truth-seeking.

CLICK HERE to view Emily's Current Class Offerings