Education & Classes in Middleburg

Gymboree offers a bevy of baby-engaging classes in which parents and wee ones work together to build the tot's creativity and encourage development through play. Weekly classes are available for little ones ranging from the freshly born sapling to the four-years-young wise wanderer. This deal includes rhythm-building music classes, imagination-expanding art classes, mobility-enhancing sports classes, and Gymboree's most popular class, Play & Learn. The month-long membership allows you to take one class per week, with make-ups available during enrollment if you miss a class. This deal also includes unlimited attendance at Gymboree's open gym sessions (contact location for schedule).

Years ago, Rebecca Barborak went to a BYOB painting class and found that it combined her loves for art and red wine. She decided to start her own art school, and now brushes hush softly against canvas as students of all skill levels bring forth flowers, animals, and landscapes in painting classes in both BYOB and child-friendly varieties. Beneath the paintings that festoon the walls and cover the dozens of mysterious safes, private parties can reveal the secrets of mixing lip balm or lotion.

Lisa R. Kraut, Hidden Lark Farm's head trainer, first saddled up at age six, and has been riding and training horses ever since. She and a crew of seasoned instructors share their expertise at the 25-acre farm, which encompasses rolling meadows and an outdoor ring of sand and clay. In a private or group setting, they adapt lessons for all ability levels, molding them around English equestrian techniques as well as pupils' ambitions, such as showing or teaching a horse how to take off his own saddle. Teachers further nurture rapport between rider and steed during trail rides and at horsemanship camps.

Wanting to fly to the beat of a different drummer, a couple of flight instructors decided in 2009 to start their own training center and teach the skills their unique way. They laid the groundwork for their new business with cutting-edge safety features such as aircrafts boasting airbags and innovative weather and traffic advisories. Additionally, the duo acknowledges that cost often keeps those with sky-bound ambitions grounded, so they work with individuals to find an affordable training plan. Besides their pilot programs, the owners make their Cessnas and bundles of helium-filled balloons available for rent.

Tobin Wagstaff has traveled quite an interesting path: he founded a nonprofit music school, and, in a turn of events profiled on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, hobnobbed with rock royalty Kiss. All the while, Studio Percussion has been teaching pupils to tickle the ivories, strum the guitar, drum up a storm, and sing their favorite tunes, whether they’re jazz ballads or traditional Klingon folk songs. The instructors—all of whom remain active in the industry—help to whisk their pupils into the limelight during performances at UF sporting events, city music festivals, homecoming parades, and even family jam nights, during which participants take turns reciting their ancestral lineage to music.

University Air Center dispatches its gravity-defying fleet on charter, rental, and training flights from its airborne offices located at Gainesville Regional Airport. A shiny, new Eclipse EA-500 cools its jets in the hangar bay, waiting to take its business-class passengers to their destinations at more than 400 mph, speeds once only achieved by cheetahs fired out of cannons. Trainees climb into the center's Redbird FMX simulator for ground-based training, or ride in a Cessna 172 for an actual flying experience. The aviators also tackle plane maintenance and avionics repairs as customers watch the twin big screens in the lounge or look up pilots' preferred knock-knock jokes on the complimentary computers.