SHL Arts
An after-school arts program for homeschooled middle schoolers in grades 4-8 who want to create, perform, and develop their own artistic voices with friends. A day built around student-generated ensemble work across visual and performing arts.
Create, perform, and find your people.
SHL Arts After-School
- Schedule: Tuesdays 3:30 – 5:30
- Open To: Currently enrolled SHL and NC (Natural Creativity Center) youth, as well as middle schoolers (grades 4-8) in the wider homeschool community.
- Group Composition: Care is taken to ensure a positive, respectful, and creatively productive environment and community.
- Structure: Daily schedules are developed to offer both structure and space for student-driven goals. Each semester builds toward a culminating performance and art exhibition.
- Teaching Artists: A mix of consistent instructors, professional artists, and rotating residencies throughout the year.
- To register, email schoolhouselanephilly@gmail.com
A Program Built For and By Young Artists
SHL Arts is grounded in the belief that middle schoolers thrive when they have space to create, take risks, and express themselves—together and on their own terms. These years are a time of rapid social, emotional, and intellectual growth, fueled by curiosity and imagination. Middle schoolers have stories to tell, identities to explore, and talents to share—what better vehicle for that than the arts?
Students work independently and collaboratively, developing original ensemble work while exploring artistic ideas within a like-minded community. The structure allows students who prefer visual or performing arts to focus in their area of interest, while still allowing for natural overlap across disciplines.
A student deep in a theater project might find themselves contributing to set design; a visual artist might sketch costumes for a production taking shape around them.
While specific skills develop and tangible work is produced, this is not a class with a preconceived, adult-generated outcome. It is a creative community, with all the accountability and inspiration that comes from making meaningful work alongside people who share a vision.
Arts Area Possibilities
Performing Arts
- Band and ensemble music
- Musical theater
- Acting technique/Monologue study
- Singing and choral work
- Songwriting
- Dance and choreography
- Physical theater (mime, stage combat)
- Improvisation
- Directing
Visual, Studio, and Literary Arts
- Independent studio art
- 3D Work/Sculpture
- Drawing and Painting
- Sketchbooking and Zine-Making
- Set and costume design
- Puppetry
- Mixed media collage
- Playwriting and Poetry writing
Not every offering runs every semester. The program is intentionally shaped around the students’ interests and goals each semester.
An Artistic Afternoon
Our artistic time together will begin with warm-ups—improv and vocal exercises, creative movement, sketch prompts, free writes, and, of course, discussions for focus and planning. These activities build the artistic vision and social trust that gives the rest of the day shape and meaning.
Students then move into focused individual or small-group work: music rehearsal, scene development, choreography, and studio art projects. Collaborative work brings disciplines together across the day. Teaching artists help establish the schedule and rhythms, shifting between leading instruction, coaching, and simply observing supportively.
We wrap-up with peer sharing, reflection, goal revision, and production refinement in preparation for the semester’s performance or exhibition.
The structure (and the openness) balances creative freedom with skill-building. Young people take ownership of their projects and are guided and challenged by teaching artists throughout.
Communication & Fit
- SHL Arts shares the same commitment to knowing each student that runs through everything at School House Lane. Staff observe student engagement carefully, and relationships are built intentionally to build safe spaces and to foster meaningful art!
- Families receive regular updates on program activity, upcoming performances, and individual needs.
- SHL Arts is designed for middle school students who enjoy artistic expression, working both independently and in groups, and developing original work. It is a strong fit for students excited to explore ideas, take creative risks, and contribute to a collaborative artistic community.
Tuition & Commitment
- Enrolled per semester, $36/day
- First semester: $432 (12 wks)
- Second semester: $648 (18 wks)
- Hours: Tuesdays 3:30-5:30
A deposit of $200 is required at enrollment. The balance is paid in full at the start of the semester.
Additional performance/materials costs may incur depending on the productions, but efforts will be made to minimize that cost.
To register, email schoolhouselanephilly@gmail.com
Teaching Artists
Some artists work with students consistently throughout the year, building sustained relationships and deepening their work together. Others join for focused residencies, bringing a concentrated burst of new perspective and skill.
Students benefit from both: the continuity of teachers who know them well, and the energy of practitioners who bring fresh expertise into the room.
Melissa Church (she/her) brings decades of experience creating and directing youth performing arts programs that center student voice, collaboration, and creative ownership. She has cultivated a deep network of professional teaching artists and believes that young people create their most meaningful work when they are invited to shape the artistic process and to be fully themselves.
Melissa founded and directed Student Stage Camps, a Philadelphia-based performing arts summer program dedicated to developing original productions with young artists for over a decade. She also co-founded and directed Staging Journeys, a youth theater and family travel organization that combined performance, cultural exploration, and community building.
Rather than beginning with a predetermined script, Melissa develops productions inspired by the interests, ideas, and talents of the young people she works with. Her projects have included original one-act plays, thematic jukebox musicals, pantos, multimedia productions, Commedia dell’arte, and Theater of the Absurd. Across genres, her focus remains the same: helping students discover the power of artistic expression through imagination, risk-taking, and relationships.
Melissa views theater as an inherently interdisciplinary art form that draws on visual art, movement, music, writing, design, character development, and performance. Creating theater requires teamwork, trust, and a strong sense of ensemble, offering young people meaningful opportunities to build social connection alongside artistic skills.
She is also a passionate advocate for incorporating live music into youth theater at every skill level, whether through accompaniment for singers, scene-setting atmosphere, or collaborative musical storytelling. Melissa was raised by artists, grew up on the stage, and raised three performing artists of her own. The arts remain a deeply personal and meaningful part of her life, shaping the way she teaches and relates to her students.
Arts Educators
Aaron Birk
Aaron’s (he/him) work appears in numerous magazines, murals and publications. Aaron’s graphic novel, The Pollinator’s Corridor, was published in 2012 precipitating a national tour, and his own Radiolab episode. Over the decades he has developed skills in illustration, clothing design, kite-craft, shoe-making, sculpture, puppetry and woodworking.
Aaron is currently a Teaching Candidate for “The Axis Syllabus, Universal Movement Principles,” an archive of research on the anatomy of the human body and how it relates to movement and dance. Embodiment is core to Aaron’s teaching philosophy, and he strives to integrate breathing, stretching, self-connection and mindfulness into all his lessons.
Aaron’s current project, “Aquaria Studio – Fine Arts Education For Children & Adults,” opened in 2025 and offers an opportunity for artists of all ages to find their voice and refine their craft. Possibilities include: Illustration, Murals, Sculpture, Woodworking, Puppetry, Bookmaking, KiteCraft, and Sewing. As a teacher, Aaron creates spaces within which his students flourish; His pedagogy embraces an adaptable, responsive curricula, that emphasizes apprenticeship, embodiment, and hand held tools.
This will be Aaron’s second year facilitating artistic exploration and expression with Philadelphia homeschoolers at School House Lane.
Taylor J. Mitchell
Taylor (she/her) is a multi-hyphenate theatre artist, educator, and arts advocate dedicated to empowering marginalized communities through storytelling, creative expression, and arts education. A proud graduate of Alabama State University, Taylor earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Performance, graduating Summa Cum Laude. Following graduation, she relocated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she has built a dynamic career as an actress, director, choreographer, and teaching artist.
Over the past seven years, Taylor has worked with more than 1,000 young artists throughout the Greater Philadelphia region, serving students ages 3–18 through workshops, residencies, productions, and arts education programs. Her teaching philosophy centers on cultivating confidence, creativity, collaboration, and self-expression, while creating inclusive spaces where young people can discover and celebrate their unique voices.
Taylor is a Barrymore Award ed choreographer and is also the founder and Executive Director of Dream Big, Dream BLACK, a youth theatre organization committed to amplifying Black and brown voices while providing accessible, theatre education for the next generation of artists.
Taylor remains passionate about using the arts as a tool for empowerment, connection, and transformation, and is grateful every day to do work that inspires both herself and the communities she serves.