I'd give it to a little place in Minneapolis called Leonardo's Basement. Gosh is it cool!
Leonardo's Basement
Leonardo's offers classes for kids and teens. Actually, adults too.
I love that they make their classes so open-ended. There may be a project or goal but they won't tell you step by step how to get to completion. There is no right or wrong way to do anything at Leonardo's Basement. Activities are kid directed while being adult supervised. In my opinion that's an equation for a good education!
And they allow your children to play with things you might not allow at home. My girls were pumped to get to use real glue guns. They also could use as much glitter as they wanted on their creations. The basement also has sewing machines, ovens, a huge computer lab, and two resident guinea pigs.
Their little slogan from this summer was Helping Kids Fail, Since 1998. Let me tell you about the stares your kids will get wearing these shirts at Target. Who wants kids to fail? I do! And so do the people who run Leonardo's Basement. I want my girls to learn how to find solutions to problems that appear to have no solution. And I applaud when their first try doesn't work. I applaud even more when they attack the problem again from a different angle. Failure is part of life and I want them to have the experience of things not working out and to learn perseverance in the face of obstacles.
I think Leonardo's Basement is a special place and it's worth the drive for their unique classes.
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