Natural Creativity Center
Germantown learning community.
đź’ś Homeschool Resource Center
🩵 Summer Camp
đź’ś Rentals & B-Day Parties
🩵 Lit Fair organizers
💜 Inclusive · Sliding scale
Natural Creativity (NC) is an educational initiative committed to a model that has demonstrated success in enabling young people to develop a foundation for life-long learning that promotes self-direction, constructive purpose and personal fulfillment, within a commitment to social equity. It is non-profit organization designed to implement, evaluate and expand access to creative learning for meaningful social engagement today and career readiness in the future. The Natural Creativity Center (NCC) is a place where young people, aged 4-18, come, as part of their homeschooling plan, 1-5 days per week; the facilitators, materials, and experiences available at NCC represent key resources for young people to direct their development. NCC offers programming Monday through Friday, from 9-3 (with early morning and extended day options available), that combines self-directed learning experiences within a community of peers with games and activities that facilitate conceptual development, creative intelligence, and social responsibility. Programs build on the innate human drive to learn through hands-on, experiential games and activities that value process over products, the spirit of playfulness and creativity, and that facilitate the development of conflict resolution skills, such as non-violent communication, empathy, and creative problem-solving. Young people, aged 4-18, can attend NCC 1-5 days per week, prior to beginning school or instead of it, while families are invited to receive various services provided by NCC, including portfolio evaluation, problem solving sessions, and information sessions regarding access to community services to support family goals and needs. NCC also provides vision and hearing screenings as vision and hearing problems are often not diagnosed, and can negatively impact one’s capacity to learn. For young people aged 14-18, NCC will serve as a “home base” and coordinating entity for work in the community, including youth participatory action research, internships, and self-directed entrepreneurial ventures. Working with individual teens and their families, NCC will facilitate the co-construction of a course of study that is driven by personal interests, short and long term goals, and sense of belonging within a given community. For example, a young person with an interest in filmmaking and desire to attend college might develop a course of study that includes research on different filmmakers, techniques, scriptwriting, and work with a group of teens around issues of poverty in the community, culminating in a longitudinal research project on the causes and consequences of poverty in the young person’s neighborhood. For this research project, the teen might convert local interviews into a documentary film. Along the way, NCC facilitators will work with the young person to maintain a portfolio and prepare for college admission, including supporting academic progress and preparation for required tests.
09/29/2026
Extra! 📣Extra! 🗞️Learning happens in many ways at NC!
Messy science. Shane noticed a group of young people curious about what makes things fizz, so he planned a Mentos and Diet Coke experiment. They worked in teams and asked their own questions. Do different flavors matter? Is it better to drop one Mentos at a time or a bunch at once? Then they measured how high each eruption went. (Very high. Very sticky.)
Breaking news. Nobody assigned this one. Avon decided NC needed a newspaper. Avon interviewed people about our new library, commissioned a fellow NCer to draw the comic, made copies, and posted them around the building. Top stories: the library has a lot of books, and an axolotl has gone missing. Detectives are still looking. If found, please call ——. 🦎
Sometimes an adult notices a spark and builds something around it. Sometimes a young person runs with an idea all on their own. Both are learning.
09/27/2026
We’re trying something new: a relaxed evening of sewing, mending, and good company. Henry, who leads sewing and fabric arts at Natural Creativity, is opening the studio on second Thursdays. You’ll have sewing machines, a well-stocked supply of fabric and notions, and someone on hand when you get stuck.
All ages, novice to expert. If you’ve never threaded a machine, we’ll show you. If you’re mid-project and just want somewhere to work with other people around, that works too. The making and the company matter in roughly equal measure.
Bring a project if you have one, or just yourself. Young people welcome with a parent or caregiver who stays.
Free to register. Suggested $10 per person, $30 family cap, and no one is turned away for lack of funds. We’re testing this out, so come tell us what you’d want more of.
đź“Ť 3820 The Oak Road, East Falls. Free parking on site.
đź”— Register at the link in bio: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/stitch-and-bitch-at-natural-creativity-tickets-2001389958241?aff=ebdsshios
09/24/2026
Same morning. Same building. So many different choices.
Around one table, young people designed a sign-up system so everyone gets a fair turn on our new 3D printer. Around another, a listening group talked through how we share cleanup jobs at the end of the day, because taking care of our space is something we figure out together.
On the purple rug, usually home to active games with our younger folks, the narwhals and axolotls turned it into a place to settle in and connect. Same space, new purpose, because the people using it decided what it needed to be.
Clay. Bracelets. A good book in a big beanbag. Swipe to see one morning at The Oak.➡️
09/22/2026
Registration for 2026–27 is closed. Our year is underway, and we hold that start steady for the young people already here.
If you’ve been curious about Natural Creativity, enrollment for 2027–28 opens in February. Get on our interest list now and you’ll hear from us first — scroll to the bottom of naturalcreativity.org (link in bio).
Better than a form, though: come find us. We’ll be out all fall, and every one of these is a chance to meet our staff, make creative things with us, and ask the questions a website can’t answer. There’s always something open-ended to make at our table.
Sat Sept 26 — Germantown Arts Festival Germantown Arts District, 11 AM–6 PM, Germantown Ave between Coulter St and Armat St
Sat Oct 3 — The Big Backyard Kindergarten Fair The Big Backyard, 2–4 PM, 240 E. Gowen Ave
Sat Oct 10 — Welcome Event, 11 AM–2 PM, Memorial Church of the Good Shepherd, 3820 The Oak Rd (camp attendees and prospective families welcome)
Sun Oct 18 — Awbury Harvest Fest Awbury Arboretum, 11 AM–4 PM, The Farm at Awbury, 6336 Ardleigh St
Sat Oct 24 — 3rd Annual Germantown Literacy Fair, 10 AM–2 PM, Joseph E. Coleman Northwest Regional Library Joseph E. Coleman NW Regional Library
Come make something with us.
09/20/2026
Week one at The Oak is in the books.
Four years at FUMCOG. Two years outside, in the parks, because that’s what those years asked of us. Four years on Pulaski Avenue. And now a new set of rooms to learn in community.
Here’s what week one actually looked like.
It looked like a young person pressing a shape into clay for the first time with us, and another one lining up nine small flowers in a row, checking each one. It looked like a group crouched around a bug box, and three young people running all the way across the lawn. It looked like a lot of us standing in a circle, figuring out where to put our bodies in a room we’ve never stood in before.
There was excitement — the kind that shows up as running, loud voices, wanting to touch everything. There was nervousness. Some young people hung back at the edges. A few of us adults did too. There was grief in there somewhere, for rooms that held a lot of years. And underneath all of it, the steady work of orientation:
Who are we?
What is group time?
What’s in our space?
Where do I sit?
Who sits with me?
We’re taking this place in at different speeds. Some of us claimed a corner on day one. Some are still walking the perimeter. Both of those are the right pace.
Ten years has taught us one thing clearly: the space is not the community. We’ve rebuilt around ourselves four times now. The community is what moves.
Year 11 is underway. 🩵💜🩵💜
09/18/2026
📚 The 3rd Annual Germantown Literacy Fair is back — Saturday, October 24, 10am–2pm at the Joseph E. Coleman Northwest Regional Library, 68 W Chelten Ave.
Free, all ages, everyone welcome. Book giveaway, workshops, read alouds, poets, video games, and community resources — inside and outside the library.
Register free at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/3rd-annual-germantown-literacy-fair-tickets-2001257866150?aff=ebdsshios or scan the QR on the flyer. Registration costs nothing; it just tells us how many people to expect so we’re ready for you.
📣 Want to be part of it? You have one more week. We’re still taking community tables, read alouds, and workshops (indoor or outdoor) through Wednesday, September 24 — sign up at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSevDjKm69qxzFdCip3nzp55c23ax7Oi72HtIY8AeRMurBBUEQ/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=113572631541405017308 or email [email protected].
09/16/2026
Before day one, there was this. đź’ź
Every year we start the season by giving our cohorts time to just be together — no schedule, no agenda, just connection.
The Narwhals took off for their annual camping trip. The Axolotls spent a day at our newest neighborhood park. And the Ocelots kicked things off with a water ice social. Big thank you to Tranzilli's Waterice for the water ice donation!
So when September 14th came around, our young people weren’t walking in as strangers. They were walking in with some connections.
09/14/2026
Mondays — Forage to Fork with Mia Mia Ormes | Sacred Kitchen™️, Brooke Brooke Johnson and Celeste Nicole. Wild plants, seasonal cooking, plant medicine as people’s medicine. Sensory-Sensitive Mondays. (That’s today.)
Tuesdays — Clay with Martha Martha Knox. Hand building all year: coils, slabs, pinch pots and more.
Wednesdays — Sewing & Fabric Arts with Henry.
Thursdays — Music with Baylor & Piruz Treehouse Music Studios. Rhythm, song, sound.
Fridays — NC Academy for teens 13+. Art of Biology and English Language & Composition.
This fall, visiting artists rotate through: LARPing with Epic Adventurez Epic Adventurez, Science and Magic with Emma The Wild Ride, and Yes!…And Storytelling Yes! And... Collaborative Arts.
The part you don’t see on the schedule: our facilitators are present and engaged — not stepping back, but watching closely. Where a young person lingers, what question keeps resurfacing, which spark is worth following past the end of the hour. We check in with our partners regularly to compare notes, and those conversations are where the next offering usually comes from. Emergent learning doesn’t just happen. Someone has to notice it and make room for it.
Young people choose. Every single day. Starting today.
Excited to see what we build this year 🫶🏿
This space came together because so many people gave their time to it. The library in particular is Hazel’s doing. With support from her family and other Narwhals, she picked out every piece of furniture, sorted and labeled all the blocks, and chose everything down to the last cozy light and throw.
It’s already a beloved room. We’ve been holding events and meetings in there all through our preparation for the year, and people keep gravitating to it.
Building this space taught us something we keep coming back to: young people need places to run and play and be active, materials to explore, quiet corners to decompress, and yes, places to read.
In our community reading happens because a friend recommended something good, because someone followed their own interest onto a shelf, because the space invites it. Nobody is made to. That’s the whole answer.
Thank you, Hazel. Thank you to every one who showed up for this.
09/10/2026
🤖🧡 NO SCHOOL? NO PROBLEM.
We’re thrilled to announce our 2026–27 partnership with Brooklyn Robot Foundry Philadelphia — a Black owned, MBE-certified robotics studio bringing hands-on STEAM to NW Philly.
First up: Foundry Fundays. On school days off all year long, BRF hosts full-day robotics camps right here at The Oak. Young people build robots — wiring, motors, decorating, the whole thing. Screen-free and gloriously hands-on.
Open to ALL Philly families — you don’t have to be an NC family to register.
đź“… Wed, Nov 11 (Veterans Day)
📅 Mon–Wed, Dec 28–30 (Winter Break)
đź“… Mon, Jan 18 (MLK Day)
📅 Mon, Feb 15 (Presidents’ Day)
📅 Mon–Fri, Mar 22–26 (Spring Break)
📍 The Oak · 3820 The Oak Road
✉️ [email protected]
đź“ž 215-326-9325
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5534 Pulaski Avenue
Philadelphia, PA
19144
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