Homeschool Camp at Clapping Hands Farm in Pittsboro runs from 9:00 am-3:30 pm on THURSDAYS throughout the Fall-Winter-Spring. Clapping Hands is an arts and nature camp and retreat with a special love for community. Our homeschool camp workshops include visual arts, crafts, music, theater and dance—and also engineering, building, nature exploration, game creation, and more! This beloved program had a joyful restart during the Fall-Winter-Spring of 2023-2024 after a long pandemic pause. Our homeschool camp participants are an extraordinary group of creative, kind, collaborative campers and we are looking forward to another year!
Below is an overview of our Homeschool Camp program, along with dates for our 2026-2027 sessions. We are actively working on pinning down workshops and details and hope to have registration open very soon!
overview
During the Fall-Winter-Spring of 2026-2027 will have FOUR 6-week sessions of Homeschool Camp.
- Session #1: Sept 10-Oct 15 with Oct 22 reserved as a weather make-up day
- Session #2: Oct. 29-Dec. 10 with Dec. 17 reserved as a weather make-up day and NO CAMP Nov 26
- Session #3: Jan 21-Feb. 25 with March 4 and 11 reserved as weather make-up days
- Session #4: March 18-April 22 with April 29 reserved as a weather make-up day
Each session will be 6 weeks long with an additional Thursday reserved as a WEATHER MAKE-UP DAY. The Fall and Spring sessions, (sessions #1 and #4) will follow a similar schedule to the past few years: camp will run from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and will include Games, Morning Circle, Morning Workshops in Focus Groups, Lunch, Anything Goes and All Camp Activities in the afternoon, Buddy Group check in, and a Closing Circle.
Our Fall and Spring sessions will serve ages 8-16. Each session will have at least two Morning Workshop FOCUS GROUPS; campers CHOOSE one Focus Group to join for the entire 6 week session. Each afternoon we have Anything Goes choice activities which are different each day, are based on campers requests, and will include opportunities to explore BOTH Focus Group topics. In other words if you are interested in BOTH Focus Groups you can sign up for one of them for the morning workshops and still be able to “taste” the other during Anything Goes! We accept campers older than 16 who are interested in our Focus Group topics. We are also pleased to announce that we recently invested in archery equipment and training for our staff so we will be offering archery as a choice class many afternoons.
Sessions #2 and #3 will be WINTER INTENSIVES for ages 13-18. These sessions will provide a deep dive into specific topics that group members have a shared passion about. Previous experience is not required, but zeal and zest is! The format for the day will include a 2 hour morning workshop plus the opportunity for continued work in the afternoon. There will also be games and other activities in the mix, but campers should sign up because they are enthusiastic about the topic and eager to spend the day immersed in it!
Some sessions will offer a choice of Winter Intensives- one indoor that will focus on a topic in either art, music or writing, and one outdoor intensive focusing on nature exploration, outdoor skills, or practical skills such as carpentry.
Parents, Adults and older teens are also needed as Counselors or Volunteers. Our parent volunteers at Homeschool camp do so much to make our program fantastic!
Camp at Clapping Hands Farm takes place OUTDOORS for the most part. We generally run camp in all weather conditions unless there is hazardous driving conditions or it is cold AND wet. In other words if it’s raining and 70 degrees, we will have camp. If it’s 30 degrees and not raining we will have camp. But if it’s 40 degrees and raining we will skip camp and use our weather make-up day. During the winter session we will have a heated studio available that can accommodate one group.
to parents about choosing focus groups
In our experience camp runs best and participants learn the most when campers land in focus groups because they WANT to be there. ALL of our focus groups are based in learning and fun— equally true of something called Table Games and something called Engineering Challenges. We recommend sharing our workshop descriptions directly with your campers and taking some time to discuss ALL the options and then letting your child freely choose. When parents choose for their child, either because they assume they know what their camper will pick OR because they want their child to have that experience, we find it often doesn’t work well. We encourage trying new things, and if a camper finds they aren’t happy in a group it’s usually ok to switch. In the end we want campers to be HAPPY where they are.
In previous sessions we found some campers didn’t really WANT to focus on ONE thing for two hours every morning for six weeks. OR didn’t really LOVE any of the focus groups. This year, we are including a “HODGE PODGE EXTRAVAGANZA” group in the spring and fall sessions. This session is perfect for campers who don’t want to focus on ONE thing but would rather do a big assortment of things. We do ask that people who sign up for this group come ready to try lots of things!
session #1: Sept 10-Oct 15 with Oct 22 reserved as a weather make-up day
Time: 9:00 am-3:30 pm. Ages 8-16
FOCUS GROUPS:
STORY THEATER with ACTING, STORYTELLING, MUSIC, PROPS & COSTUMES with TELI and EMILY
Our STORY THEATER campers will hear a story from STORYTELLER TELI SHABU and then work together to bring this story to life! There will be opportunities to ACT, create MUSIC (DRUMMING for sure, and other instruments), and create COSTUMES and PROPS. Our Story will be performed for our FAMILY AND FRIENDS on the last day of camp and we may have another performance in the larger community (possibly at a school or library).
Campers in this Focus Group will be able to choose how they participate. You can specialize in ACTING, STORYTELLING, PLAYING MUSIC, or BUILDING PROPS and COSTUMES. Most campers will be able to do at least TWO of these things. Please let us know which aspects of the STORY THEATER PROJECT you are most excited about on our registration form.
TELI SHABU has been a favorite lead artist at Clapping Hands Farm for many, many years! We are thrilled to have him back for this session of Homeschool Art Camp! Originally from Liberia, Teli is a STORYTELLER, DRUMMER, KORA player, INSTRUMENT BUILDER and ADINKRA printer. Teli is part of a performing ensemble, The Magic of African Rhythm, and an active teaching artist in the schools and community.
Teli will be providing the STORY for our play and will be the musical director for the performance ensemble
EMILY SANFILIPPO is an actor/singer born and raised in North Carolina. She loves theater games, improv, comedy, drama, and action and has played a broad range of characters in her years of experience in community theater. Her most recent performance was with Asheboro’s RSVP community theater in the musical Cinderella, summer of 2026.
Emily will be involved in directing the cast of actors as well as supervising the costume and prop production.
HODGE PODGE EXTRAVAGANZA with TRACE and LOUISE
The HODGE PODGE EXTRAVAGANZA group will be playing games, exploring nature and making art together. Each morning will include 2-4 activities including both active movement and more focused activities. As the session unfolds we will tailor our offerings and our flow to what the group is responding to! This group is perfect for people who are open to trying out a lot of different things and would like to experience a mix of activities in the morning workshop sessions.
Louise Omoto Kessel is a storyteller, artist, mom to two grown-up homeschoolers ages 21 and 25, and the founder and camp director of Clapping Hands Farm! Louise says “I love new things and I love so many different kinds of activities, so I’m very excited to help lead this new Hodge Podge Extravaganza group!
Trace Howard is a printmaker, games enthusiast, poet, and someone who’s first response to an offer to try something new is usually YES! Trace was one of our Disability Inclusion interns during the summer of 2026, and we are delighted to be pulling him into our year round programs!
Register for HS Art & Science Camp HERE
session #2: Oct 29-Dec 10 with Dec 17 reserved as a weather make-up day And NO CAMP on Nov. 26
Time: 9:00 am-3:30 pm. Ages 13-18
PRINTMAKING
Printmaking is a cool way to make art that you can both keep and give away! Our printmaking adventures will include block printing and screen printing where you can translate your ideas into print mediums, and then make 2 or 5 or a dozen or 100 of something! Hand carved erasers create rubber stamps that are great for making cards or flip books or patterns on fabric.
Monoprint projects will make one of a kind prints that are spontaneous, colorful and improvisational. We will try a variety of monoprinting medium utilizing print foam, found objects, gelli plates, monotypes and scraps of paper!
During choice time in the afternoons we may delve into some adjacent art forms like rubbings or stencils and adjacent adventures such as letter boxing.
We are set up to print on paper and fabric and once we have some skills established campers will be encouraged to express themselves by creating cards, mail art, stickers, books, flip books, posters, framed art work, bandanas, clothing, and patches.
Louise Omoto Kessel is a storyteller, artist, mom to two grown-up homeschoolers ages 21 and 25, and the founder and camp director of Clapping Hands Farm! Louise says printmaking is one of my favorite things. As a young adult I got addicted to making hand carved rubber stamps and I still am adding to my collection of 100’s of them. I learned wood block printing while volunteering with Bread and Puppet in VT and enjoyed carving masonite for printing on t-shirts and posters. I also learned screen printing in college and dusted off those skills recently so we could print our camp t-shirts!
Trace Howard is a printmaker, games enthusiast, poet, and someone who’s first response to an offer to try something new is usually YES! Trace was one of our Disability Inclusion interns during the summer of 2026, and we are delighted to be pulling him into our year round programs! His personal printmaking artistry includes screen printing, monotype and linocuts and he is excited to share those techniques with our campers!
Register for HS Art & Science Camp HERE
session #3: Jan 21-Feb. 25 with March 4 and 11 reserved as weather make-up days
Time: 9:00 am-3:30 pm. Ages 13-18
FOCUS GROUPS
CREATIVE WRITING
This Creative Writing Workshop will be a refreshing stroll into exploring your voice as a writer. Each workshop session will include a short free-write and fun warm up, and then a prompt to write on in depth. The focus will be on prose with a lean towards fiction, but if you’re drawn to poetry, songs, screenplays or non-fiction— Khallori is no stranger to any of this and writes in all of those forms herself.
Gobs of writing experience is not a prerequisite, but a genuine interest in exploring writing is!
We hope this workshop will be hilarious, meaningful, poignant, and inspiring. We hope that you will laugh, struggle, get support, and write something that makes you sit back and go, “Oh yeah. This is me.”
We are getting to know ourselves !!!!!!
Khallori Cosmey was writing songs and stories as early as age 7. She grew up writing and coming to camp at Clapping Hands Farm. Her many summers of creative writing, musical madness, and beat builders band camps here at clapping hands were “ineluctably relevant” to her becoming a writer. (Hey you could follow in her footsteps.)
Khallori has a Bachelor’s Degree in Media Studies with a minor in English from UNC Greensboro, as well as a Master’s degree in Being Cool and Unusual With Words from the School of Hard Knocks. Music is also fun for her but let’s not get into all of that right now. Or actually, lets: Find Khallori on Spotify!
Currently she is writing an epic novel, love songs and stories about leaving.
SHELTER AND FIRE
From learning about the creation and maintenance of fire, to crafting shelters which provide protection from the elements, this session we will explore skills that outline our vulnerability and strength. In addition, we will focus on how to be low impact or “stealth” as we work on those skills. Developing our fire and shelter skills brings us up close with both nature and ourselves and we hope builds appreciation for both!
RUFUS KING brings a balance of fun and knowledge to his workshops. His outdoor skills have been honed by many years of teaching and adventuring, he is trained as a wilderness first responder, AND he loves a good game! Rufus has led camps, workshops and backpacking expeditions with Piedmont Wildlife Refuge and has been a life long volunteer with the Haw River Learning Celebration. He was also a camper and a counselor at Clapping Hands in his younger years. We are pleased to be bringing Rufus back for his second year on staff with Homeschool Art & Nature Camp.
Register for HS Art & Science Camp HERE
session #4: March 18-April 22 with April 29 reserved as a weather make-up day
Time: 9:00 am-3:30 pm. Ages 8-16
FOCUS GROUPS:
FIBER ARTS
If you love to make things with your hands or use things you’ve made yourself, this group might be for you! We can teach SO MANY fiber arts projects at camp! Hand sewing, mini-quilts, weaving, crochet, embroidery, finger knitting, felting, loom knitting and regular knitting, corking, kumihimo braiding, sashiko embroidery, up-cycled clothing, friendship bracelets, pom poms, macrame, artful mending, needle felting, and wet felting could all be on the menu!
Fiber Arts are life skills that open the door to making unique, beautiful, fun and useful things! Many people also find these practices relaxing and regulating. Fiber arts projects are often wonderfully portable and helpful in channeling energy and honing focus (like the best fidget ever!)
HODGEPODGE NATURE EXTRAVAGANZA
The HODGEPODGE NATURE EXTRAVAGANZA group will be a medley of amazing outdoor experiences! Activities could include archery, exploration of streams or an ephemeral pond, canoeing, trail and forest games, wild crafting, searching for mini beasts, building with bamboo, and so much more. If you like to explore and play in nature, and are open to trying new things, this is the group for you!
Mary Medvar is an environmental educator by training; an enthusiastic pond explorer (always has nets and boots in the back of her car!); a crafter and campfire cooker; and a homeschool mom to three wonderful boys.
CREATURES AND CAVERNS! (aka C&C)-
If you like stories about adventure, creating interesting characters, and using your imagination, our Creatures and Caverns focus group might be the one for you!
Campers in this focus group can expect to play C&C in small groups each morning. With 2 hours each morning, 6 weeks of camp, and a consistent group of players, this will be a satisfying journey for experienced players AND people new to this type of game alike.
Creatures and Caverns (C&C) is a Clapping Hands Farm role-playing game where you create a character, become that character, and then (with all the other invented characters) go on an adventure thick with challenges and surprises. A leader guides the adventure, a roll of the dice sometimes determines outcomes, and everyone makes choices and contributes to the journey. In Creatures and Caverns, you’ll enter into a story with friends and use your character’s abilities, tools, and wits as you encounter both danger and opportunities!
NOTE about D&D and C&C: If you love D&D, you will probably love C&C as well. We decided to invent a Clapping Hands Farm role-playing game because “D&D fifth edition” has a 200-page rule book, and we wanted a version that had a quicker path to get into the game and a simpler set of rules throughout. C&C allows us to spend most of our time PLAYING, CREATING, and STORYTELLING together rather than having to remember a bazillion crunchy rules!
Alex Nelson is a musician by trade and a beloved leader in our Clapping Hands camp community. Here at camp he teaches music, leads music jams, leads circles, gets to know people, presides over circles AND leads archery and games of all kinds! Alex is writing the “rule book” for Creatures and Caverns, our Clapping Hands spin off of dungeons and dragons. He’ll come ready to be a cavern guide for our C&C adventures this spring! And he will be training others to guide C&C escapades over the winter!
Register for HS Art & Science Camp HERE
