About
This class is for 10, 11, and 12 year olds. We can stretch this! If you are a 9 year old that fits in with 10 year olds, join us. If you are a 13 year old that fits in with 12 year olds, join us. We look forward to having you with us.
All kids are welcome - trans and cis kids, non-gendered kids, lgbtq+ kids, straight kids - all welcome.
We’ll:
*sit on blankets, take a look at a bunch of flowers, dissect them, look at flower parts with magnifying loupes, learn botanical flower part names, figure out how plants express gender and sexuality, check out how they reproduce themselves.
*paint flowers and flower parts.
*start making connections between flower bodies and our human bodies. We’ve got a bunch of cool, similar things going on!
*have fun learning and using vocabulary that may or may not be familiar to us, like reproductive and sexual body parts flowers and humans share.
*play a bunch of games so we can laugh while we memorize anatomical words that may or may not be familiar. If they’re not yet, they’ll become fun and easy to say!
*take a look at some very cool books that focus on our whole bodies, including our hearts and brains and hands and reproductive/sexual body parts.
*talk about books that describe gender, falling in love, and plants. books we already love, and books we’ll meet.
*do some gentle movement, exploring what feels comfy in the bodies we have.
*talk about boundaries, play games that help us get easy about setting boundaries. We’ll play games with words like yes! no! not yet! give me a minute!, and a bunch of others we’ll come up with together.
*figure out what to do when our boundaries are crossed. We’ll imagine people in our lives who are safe to talk to, and we’ll practice how to safely tell someone about uncomfortable things that might happen, or may already have happened, to us.
*talk about cycling, not on bikes, but in our bodies. Cycling conversations are cool for all bodies, whether or not yours will ever cycle.
*figure out what periods are, what happens two weeks before our periods, and take a look at a bunch of stuff we can wear if/when we do cycle.
*make cycling kits, to give to a friend, to put in our bathrooms, to take to our school bathrooms. We’ll make this fun, for all of us.
*talk about puberty blockers, and what happens to our bodies if we take them.
*figure out good definitions for trans, cis, and non-binary humans (plants also are trans, cis, and non-binary!).
*figure out how to tell our parents/caregivers what we’ve learned in class, knowing we may get a chance to teach our parents/caregivers stuff they don’t yet know.
*make a certain kind of magic that happens at WiseBodies workshops, when things we think are hard to talk about become super easy to talk about.
*eat lots of yummy snacks.
Friday we’ll keep learning, and also have a last-day celebration!
Dates + Time
We are offering this class twice this Summer in Kingston, NY. First Session is Monday July 20th - Friday July 24th from 10am - noon. Second session is Monday Aug 10th - Fri Aug 14th from 10am - noon. Held at Score Dance Studio, which is not anaccessible space.
Your family can do one session, or both. We recommend doing both, since the workshops build upon one-another, the class is pretty great, and kids don’t get anything like this in school!
Registration & Cost
If you'd like your child to attend class, the first step is filling out the form below, and the second step is having a conversation with me over the phone.
I'm accepting sliding scale donations for this class - we'll talk about this when we speak. Scholarships are available - you choose what’s best for you. You also can choose $0, if that lets your kid/teen get to class with us.
Teachers
This class is co-taught by Isa and Elke - see below for their bios.
Teacher: Isa Coffey
I’ve taught sex ed for decades, in many forms and in many venues. Recently, I’ve found myself curious about what we can learn about our sexual selves when we get very quiet; when we listen to, discover, and share the intimate stories of our bodies; when we have the chance to learn within trusted community; when we have the chance to remember and honor our past; when we develop pathways, including in the imaginal realm, for growing up and out from those deep, foundational places; when we give ourselves time to go slowly; when we are held with kindness and steadiness for the journey.
Photo by Katherine Ferrier
Teacher: Elke
Elka is an undergraduate 20-year-old trans man who enjoys time in the wilderness, making art, and can tend fire like a pro to keep hands warm for crafting together in the cold months. Elka has been a camp-counselor, and a life long inclusive scout - as a teen serving as a youth representative in the national board and now facilitating scouting locally for youth and adults. Elka skates on a roller derby team and appreciates the community of interesting people around it.
