Education & Classes in Brentwood Estates

While parents and teachers navigate the dense underbrush of educational materials at The Learning Circle, their kids clamber through the one-of-a-kind tree house that dominates the aisles. Math, science, and language-arts materials for grades K–eight mask a dose of learning in a layer of fun, making education as easy to swallow as a buttered-up fruit snack. While teachers find all the resources they need among the colorful rows, parents also benefit from a smorgasbord of home-school workbooks and summer learning programs that help to stifle the learning loss that often results from months away from the classroom.

Using a glass-cutting band saw, Sam Simms meticulously slices through rippling scarlets and deep cerulean panes of glass before fusing them together with molten copper. The stained-glass artist creates functional and wearable works of art in her studio, which teems with vibrant and eclectic pieces such as jewelry and hanging mosaics. Sam stocks more than 1,000 pieces of glass in her facility—as well as supplies for large and small undertakings—and offers custom commission work, stained-glass restorations, and mosaic-repair services.

Sam loves stained glass so much that she instructs others on how to create it in workshops introducing various methods. During lead-method classes, Sam teaches students the traditional way to make stained-glass pieces such as the ones commonly found on windows in churches and 1984 Plymouth Voyagers. The copper-foil-method classes teach students to wrap adhesive copper tape around precut pieces of glass and fuse them together to craft 3-D works of art.

At The Wine & Easel, Old World aesthetics in the form of brick-accented walls and warm lights lend inspiration to students of all artistic abilities as they perch in front of canvases. Elevated above the easels, an instructor doles out guidance as scenes⎯from impressionistic landscapes to abstract still lifes⎯unfold under flicking brushstrokes. With the company of fellow artists and BYOB sips, students render their own interpretation of each class's theme, from a peacock's plume to a desert cactus, using studio-provided materials and self-provided longing for existential validation.

Standing Stone Farm's Paula Butler, whose cheese making was recently featured on PBS, demonstrates Old-World methods of cheese crafting during small classes held at her boutique dairy-goat farm. During cheese-making workshops, dairy manipulators will learn techniques to create greek feta, marinated feta, classic french chevre, and an easy 45-minute mozzarella, all using farm-fresh goat milk and provided cow's milk. Parched participants in the basic course can sip on complimentary coffee or bring their own alcoholic beverages from home. Upbeat, casual classes take place once or twice a month in the dairy farm's large kitchen with 12–15 students per session. Out on the fields, herds of nubian goats roam free, munching on alfalfa and watching farm-share members pick up their weekly gallon of raw goat milk.