At Beacon Craft Workshop, we emphasize exploration, choice, and developing skills.

When children explore materials together and design and implement projects, they experience a special joy, determination, creativity, and empowerment.

Beacon Craft Workshop achieves this by:

  • Supporting each student
  • Stocking the studio with real tools and an array of high-quality materials
  • Keeping classes small

 

About Ilana, founder and teacher

Ilana received her Masters of Arts in Teaching at Brown University and taught third grade at an inquiry-based public school in New York City called PS146: the Brooklyn New School. In 2011, she co-founded the Brooklyn Craft Workshop, which transformed into Beacon Craft Workshop when she moved upstream.

Over the years, Ilana has taught a variety of classes that incorporate the sciences, history, and art into materials exploration experiences, with an emphasis on social-emotional growth. She also works as a potter and took classes at Haystack Mountain and Penland Schools of Craft. She knows first-hand how incredibly fun it is to explore materials and create alongside other passionate makers.

Ilana loves nurturing a spirit of collaboration among students. Working together, students ask questions, solve problems, and find even more joy in the process of making things.

You will also find Ilana at the BHA Preschool, a Jewish, garden-based program for young ones at the local synagogue. She lives with her husband Bryan and daughters Samara and Sage.

 

About the Studio

We view the classroom space as another “teacher.” Whether indoors or outdoors, our studio spaces are designed with the child in mind. The shelves and walls display beautiful objects to observe as well as use in projects. The aesthetic and orderly environment invites students to work with care, just as it provides the space to test ideas and get creative.

Students learn how to use the tools, materials, and space, so that they feel the shared studio is their own.

 

Recent News

Philipstown.info: August 30, 2015
Helping children ‘maintain that feeling of wonder and possibility’

Hudson Valley Parent: Enrichment Guide