Engage Your Brain with a Staunton Skillcation

Are you that person who gets bored on the beach and can’t relax at the spa? Do you like your vacations to have purpose and engage your hands and your mind? If all this sounds like you, try a skillcation in Staunton. You’ll be able to do all the vacation-y things like getting away from the daily grind, sightseeing, and dining, but you’ll also bring back something more meaningful than novelty shot glasses and selfies with the landscape. Leave the souvenirs on the shelf: here’s how to actively learn and decrease burnout with a Staunton skillcation. 

Master the Arts

Taking the stage helps you grow in confidence, creative problem solving, public speaking, and considering the world from the perspective of others. Maybe don’t head off to Hollywood just yet, but get a taste of the limelight at Silver Line Theatre Exchange. The theater offers classes for adults in improv, acting for film, swordplay, tapdancing, and musical theatre dance. Kids can do improv, musical theater dancing, and drama and dance classes for the youngest performers.

Whether you go to Art Hive to learn new skills or you just go there to enjoy the company of others in the artistic community while you work, you’ll enhance your skillset and find your people. Upcoming classes include a resin workshop, a pop art pet pop-up, battle jacket design and creation, screen printing, and upcycled tin jewelry.

Don’t worry if you don’t know a paintbrush from a palette. Relax over your favorite beverage and let the experts guide you to gallery-worthy art with a paint and sip session. Upcoming classes include Picking Daisies at Ciders from Mars and Twinkling Lights at Stable Craft Brewing.

Staunton Clayground teaches students of all ages and abilities with a variety of pottery classes and workshops in their Frederick Street studio. Students can get their hands dirty by trying wheel-throwing or handbuilding with an experienced instructor. They can also sign up to develop a particular skill or register for a themed workshop (like bunny napkin rings for spring).If you’re local and a Makerspace member, Staunton Makerspace is also offering an 8-week pottery class for beginners that will cover wheel throwing, hand building, handle making and glazing. 

Class Is in Session

We guarantee you’ll grow some IQ points when you attend one of Blackfriars Playhouse’s Saturday morning Lights on at the Blackfriars, which are conversations with the artists and scholars behind the show. Make sure you get a backstage tour and watch a performance, too!

Becoming an accomplished musician takes many years, but if you’re looking to add something short-term and musical to your skillcation agenda, consider a workshop at Queen City Studios. Check the calendar for upcoming opportunities like this songwriting workshop with Joe Newberry. The structured environment and constructive feedback will help you tackle writer’s block, pin down a style, and transform your ideas into hits.

History lovers can find quality programming at the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum on a variety of topics including upcoming lectures on the historic legacy of the Garden Club of Virginia, the 1916 presidential election, and the fashion history surrounding Jessie Wilson’s 1913 White House Wedding. Looking for more ways to “past” time and learn while you’re here? Enjoy both spring weather and history with a Historic Staunton Foundation Walking Tour, and Echoes of the Past Tour of the Blackburn Inn, or a stroll around the Frontier Culture Museum, which will hold its annual Fiber Festival on April 4.

Learn While you “Glass” Time

Check the schedule at L & L Custom Picture Framing and Stained Glass for upcoming stained glass workshops and classes. No experience necessary. Recent classes helped students create colorful seasonal works like snowflakes, hearts, succulents, and Celtic knots.

Glassblowing is cool because it merges danger (molten glass! 1000-degree furnaces) with artistic expression. You can have all that, plus a cool work of art when you sign up for a Blow Your Own Ornament Session at Sunspots Studio. Don’t worry: an expert will guide you. Just think: hundreds of years from now, your  descendants will realize that your exhaled breath is still filling that beautiful holiday ornament. “Great, great, great, great Grandpa could shape air,” they’ll marvel. We hope you didn’t have onions for lunch!

Does tasting wine count as skill building? Of course it does! Armed with the knowledge you glean from an evening at Accordia, you’ll be able to say you’ve sharpened and trained your senses, learned to appreciate different cultures and regions, and learned to make confident and budget-friendly wine choices and food pairings. Plus, all that tasty wine can help you make friends and network!

Learn the Moves

Did you watch that movie Free Solo with that crazy guy who climbed without ropes and somehow managed not to stay in one piece? Did you think that maybe climbing would be fun if it weren’t so dangerous? Vivid Earth Adventures can help you tap into that adrenaline, but will also keep you safe! Whether it’s climbing or rappelling, spelunking or canoeing, or exploring the wilderness on the trails or in the trees, Vivid Earth can guide you and provide the tools so that you can literally learn the ropes and grow your wilderness skills no matter where you start.

If you want to wow a crowd or dance socially with some hip-shaking salsa action, sign up for classes at Shenandoah Latin Dance. You can also choose body movement, dance fundamentals, and a learn to dance class.

You don’t need to be a member to play the 18-hole, par 71 Gypsy Hill Golf Club course. Not only is the course well-maintained and beautiful, the rates are some of the best in the Valley, and you can also sign up for instructional clinics or private golf lessons with the golf pro.

Hands-on-Knowledge

Harmony Harvest farm grows over 400 types of flowers. They sell fresh blooms, pick-your-own flowers, bouquet subscriptions, and visitors can sign up for Intro to Flower Farming Tours and special workshops. 

Staunton Parks and Recs releases activity schedules three times a year with a host of exciting adventures, teams, activities, and classes. In town this weekend? There’s time to sign up for Irish Road Bowling. Into soapmaking? There’s a class coming up for that, which you’ll appreciate after you take a different class for master gardeners who want to compost with vermiculture, aka worm farming.

Family-owned Loose Thread Studio opened last fall, selling quality fabric and sewing supplies and promoting “craftsmanship and the joy of making something with your own two hands.” They’re now offering one-on-one personalized sewing lessons covering topics from the basics to advanced pattern making. Project Runway, here you come!

If you’re craving fresh air and a little adventure, a day on the water with Middle River Outfitters is a great place to start. Their guided fly-fishing trips offer a chance to slow down, learn something new, and maybe even land your first trout.

If you’re itching to travel with purpose, an inspiring and entertaining skillcation in Staunton can leave you feeling fulfilled, challenged to think deeply, and excited to show off your new knowledge. You might even start a new side gig!