MasterSchool Schedule Overview and Featured Activities
Each day at MasterSchool has six parts: Community Gathering, Morning Classes, Lunch, Workshops, Afternoon Free Time Activities, and Think & Swim.
The famous big iron bell rings throughout the day to signify when it's time to change activities, re-hydrate, and to bring everyone back together!
Community Gathering
From when we arrive around 8:30am - 9:00am
We start the day by gathering in the barn to welcome each other, put up our stuff, and settle in. Each day we have community conversations on various topics including communication, listening well, speaking kindly, appreciating others, solving problems with friends, interdependence, cooperation, etc. We love to include tidbits of this always interesting and wise exchange of views in our parent email! Before we leave for our morning classes, we have a big drink of water.
Morning Class and Morning Break
From 9am-10:00am and 10:30am-11:30am
Class break 10am- 10:30am for a morning snack and free play
Morning classes begin after our community gathering. Morning classes offer a variety of fun activities intended to challenge and grow the participant’s intellect and creativity by engaging their higher order thinking skills and collaborating with their gifted peers. All classes are held outdoors and are limited to a maximum of 15 MasterStudents per teacher. Youngsters rotate through each of the morning classes, spending one week in each class so that by the end of the session, they will have participated in all classes. Course offerings change every summer!
Lunch and Novel Story Time
11:30am - 12:30pm
All classes reunite for lunch together in the barn! Please bring your own nutritious lunch, and two snacks- one for the morning, one for the afternoon- and a big water bottle to use throughout the day. (See the Happy Camper’s Checklist made by MasterStudents a few years ago, which offers suggestions for healthy lunches.)
After lunch, we read a chapter book. Children relax, then reapply sunscreen and rehydrate in preparation for afternoon fun!
Afternoon Workshops
12:30pm - 1:30pm
Workshops begin right after lunch. Youngsters choose one of the workshops, meeting daily for the full 5 week MasterSchool session.
Offerings include swim lessons, ranch hands, games, and drama. Swim lessons help our beginner and intermediate swimmers build their swim skills and feel more confident in the pool. Drama workshop is student-directed. We provide costumes and props; youngsters create and produce a play. Ranch Hands care for the MasterSchool animals and perform other ranch tasks. The Games workshop is a balance of board, card, and physical games—from Mancala to Capture the Flag, from card tricks, to chess, to soccer.
Afternoon Free Time
1:30pm- 3pm
MasterSchool kids love this time of day because they are in charge of their own destiny. Will you spend your time in the pool, meet friends in the maze for a game of werewolf, build a clubhouse, hike to the pond with your favorite counselor, challenge another student to a game of Mancala, make up a story in the tree house, bounce on the trampoline, play world cup soccer in the field, climb a tree, go to the petting zoo, or something else?
A double ring of the bell reminds students to drink water at intervals during free play! All youngsters must carry a water bottle throughout the day!
Think and Swim, then Songs and Stories
3:00pm - 4:00pm
While the older youngsters work on guided creative thinking and high level thinking skills, the younger ones have the pool to themselves. At 3:30, the two groups switch activities!
4:00pm - 4:20pm
We finish the day up by coming back together to gather up all our belongings, sing a few songs, tell a few MasterSchool stories, find socks, and look for misplaced water bottles. Then we load the vans, and head back to town!
Sometimes, we take field trips!
When we studied and wrote our own comics, we took a field trip to Austin Books and Comics! Another year, we visited Maybridge Home, where we played Bingo and basketball, and sang with the residents! In previous summers we've visited the Austin greenbelt to clean up trash, then swim! We've been to local farms, museums, the frisbee golf course, and even a junk yard- you never know where a MasterSchool field trip might take you!
MasterSchool also enjoys visiting the East Metroplex Park that is right next door from time to time, or taking the Ranch Hands workshop to the local feed store to restock farm supplies.