Eager young learners picked up all sorts of knowledge at the 2016 Knox College for Kids—rehearsing "Star Wars"-style lightsaber battles on stage, designing model rockets, and operating a "wizarding marketplace" where they applied their math skills.

Those are highlights from just a few of the dozens of "C4K" classes offered in June to 172 students from the Galesburg-area community who will enter grades 3 through 9 this fall. Classes covered a variety of subjects, including art, music, science, language, literature, and history.

In the Use the Force class, instructor Lily Blouin guided youngsters on the basics of how to engage in make-believe combat on a theatrical stage. Students created lightsabers and magic wands as their weapons of combat.

Blouin, who has a background in theatre and is a stage combat instructor, said she hopes students gained "a better understanding of how we use our bodies to tell stories." She also wanted her students to appreciate the importance of working together to tell a story.

This was her second year of teaching at College for Kids.

"I love the intensiveness of it. We really get to focus on one thing," said Blouin. "I think the program is really fun."

(Photo at top of page: A lightsaber battle in the Use the Force class. Photos below: Scenes from classes in art, music, and other subjects at College for Kids.)

In a Beyond the Books course focused on the Harry Potter series, students spent one class session creating a "wizarding marketplace" where they sold quills, frog-shaped chocolates, butter beer, and other items.

Instructor Beth Buck said she aims to encourage young readers "to think in different ways" about well-loved books. The wizarding marketplace, for example, provided a way to discuss "wizarding math" because the young vendors had to keep track of inventory, revenues, and expenses by using galleons and other units of currency from the Potter books.

Christinel Cain, a teacher in the Galesburg school district, said she teaches the Three, Two, One, Blastoff class so she can share her love of rocketry with kids.

"I hope they learn scientific concepts about persisting, not giving up, (along with) principles of flight and a little about model rocketry," Cain said.

College for Kids co-directors Nathaniel Williams and Eric Dickens, both assistant professors of educational studies at Knox. said one of the program's key goals is to provide children with some idea of the reality of college.

"It's their campus right now, and that's a great thing," Dickens said.

Dickens and Williams also want C4K students to understand that going to college is an attainable goal.

Ten current Knox College students, most of them majoring in educational studies, were selected as C4K fellows. In that role, they served as teacher aides in classes and helped with the logistics of making sure children safely reached their destinations.

Many of the fellows will be student teaching in the fall. By observing C4K instructors, Dickens said, the fellows gained an additional opportunity to see "good models of passionate, dedicated teaching."