Imagine a learning center where young people have the power to choose how they learn. Where a child’s creativity, compassion and collaboration with others is a priority. That’s already happening at the Natural Creativity Center in Germantown—And chances are, if your child is homeschooled, you may have heard of it.
The creativity center is a nonprofit learning center for homeschooled children to explore who they want to be and then direct their own learning.
“They can’t wait to get there, and they don’t want to come home,” parent Sara Langdon says about her two children attending the creativity center.
Langdon’s children have attended the center for three years. They left public school for the creativity center when her children seemed to stop learning. At the center her two children learn at their own pace and are offered resources.
There are different rooms that children can spend time in; ; a room for crafts, a room for silence, a room for art and etc. There are also off campus programs. For example, Langdons children are in programs where they explore the streets of Philadelphia or the Wissahickon Valley Park. Landgdon says the center serves as a resource for young people to learn how they want to.
“If they can dream it, they can create it,” Langdon says. “So they choose what they learn about. I don’t choose it for them, no one chooses. The Creativity Center really supports this idea that we are all learning is a lifelong experiment.”
Creativity center parent Erin Bailey says, “They are there to supplement and enhance any kind of homeschooling that you are doing with your family and to provide opportunities to your child for learning and creativity.”
And there are big plans for the creativity center.
The creativity center was housed at First United Methodist Church of Germantown and is now making a home elsewhere. When the pandemic forced people to rethink everyday life, it forced the creativity center to grow. Now the Registered Historic Building, the Loudoun Mansion,may be the new home for the center as they move forward after five years with FUMCOG.
“The pandemic certainly caught us at a time where we were transitioning from our home, which was a small space within the larger building,” co-director Krystal Dillard says, “to us branching out into Loudoun mansion, which was, which was and is still our goal.”
Dillard says the group is in the process of moving locations to hopefully expand the program. Learn more about the Natural Creativity Center by visiting their website.
