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“We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.” Proverbs 16:9
Wow this week has been a whirlwind - so much has taken place, I’m sure it must have been a month long, but it’s been just 7 days. I am reminded this week that God himself is the one who establishes our plans and purpose in life. Over the fall, there were many times I wondered if I was making any progress - many activities felt incomplete but were out of my scope of influence.
Here’s a quick list of things that materialized this week:
- We were selected out of over 75 applicants as a Vela Grant Recipient.
- We began preparing for an upcoming conference.
- We obtained a new educational resource for our students.
- We consulted with two families who are considering homeschool for the first time!
- We crafted origami cats and foxes and tried out a few other designs as well.
VELA Grant
Vela is an organization dedicated to supporting innovative learning centers that are redefining education. Their grants emphasize support for learning environments that have creatively thought about sustainability.
Arbor Academy first filed for the Vela grant back in March of 2024, but we were not selected as recipients during that grant season. After getting started this September, we were able to refine our purpose and strategic approach to sustainability - all glory to God for leading and guiding us!
We applied again in December, and we have been selected to receive a microgrant of $10,000!
The micro grant will help Arbor Academy students have access to new technology to continue things they love such as Kahoot and prodigy, and to try out some new skills as well! Currently, our students are sharing devices, but we will now be able to provide additional devices for our students.
We will be purchasing Vex Robotics, an awesome tool for making math and logic hands-on for students. We are thrilled that the robotics tools will enable Arbor Academy to offer affordable, low-commitment drop-in classes this spring! This is a perfect way to allow families to find out if our program is a good fit for their children.
Know someone who might be interested in trying a Robotics class?
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The grant will also enable Arbor Academy to purchase sound therapy machines from Equipping Minds Cognitive Development Program for use on campus. I recently completed my Level I certification with Equipping Minds, and we have begun implementing primitive reflex exercises into our daily routine here at school. We are so excited to see how this program is going to improve learning outcomes for our students!
Finally, this grant will help us as we launch our Flex Hub Program - a service to help homeschool parents manage their homeschool journey - from lesson planning and tracking attendance to storing important documents. This launch will take place at an upcoming conference on February 8, 2025. Stay tuned for more details on the Flex Hub over the upcoming weeks and keep reading to learn about the conference - you might want to come!
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Advancing The Next Gen Conference
Are you or someone you know looking for educational options for your child?
February 8th is a must attend event! This annual conference is aimed at providing practical tips to support Christian parents in educating their children. The wealth of information available at this conference is empowering to parents who might need help deciding on the right path for their child(ren).
Arbor Academy will have a booth at the conference, so be sure to stop by and learn all about our Flex programs! We will also be presenting a breakout session entitled, “Beyond Burnout; Thriving as a Working Homeschool Parent.” Hope to see many of you at the conference - you can register here: Attend the Conference
EPIC! Reading Tool
Last fall, Arbor Academy reached out to Epic!, a reading tool that provides access to over 40,000 books to students for free. I tried multiple times to set up our account with them with no success.
This week we heard back from their support team and received access to our account! We are now looking forward to introducing more books to our students - not that there's a lack of books here at school though!
The real benefit of EPIC! is the tools designed to aid students in learning new words and building comprehension. EPIC! books include self-grading quizzes at the end of many books, highlighted text while reading, and read-to-me options for young readers.
We'll let you know how our students enjoy the tool in an upcoming post.
Is Homeschooling Right For Me?
This week we consulted with two families that were trying to decide whether homeschooling could be right for their families. We sat with both families and discussed the details related to legal requirements, curriculum options, budgeting, navigating the social environment, and IEPs.
It is really common for parents to have questions regarding how to homeschool - that’s why I invited both of these families to the Advancing the Next Gen Conference after chatting with them!
I hope to continue meeting with families who are evaluating homeschooling. I don’t take lightly the privilege of sitting across from a mom who is trying to decide if she can juggle the demands of multiple children or working and homeschooling.
I pray continually that God guides and directs me as he provides opportunities for me to meet with these parents, and I pray over these parents because ultimately it is only the Lord who can equip us to do the things He calls us to do! Please pray for this area of our work to be anointed by the Holy Spirit!
How We Learned Differently This Week
This week we stumbled across an origami project as a result of some new books I placed in our library.
The books were filled with pictures and facts of various animals. One of our students is not a big fan of reading. She is just beginning to find some books that are worth her time, and these encyclopedias have been very exciting to her. A few weeks ago, she and I sat for 30 minutes ooh-ing and aww-ing over the insects in one book.
On Tuesday morning, I suggested she might want to look at the books again while she waited for school to officially begin. She sat looking at the books for an hour on her own! Then she came to me and asked if we could make a paper Owl. I absolutely agreed to reward her reading efforts with a paper owl craft, so we set out to find a template because I am not the craftiest person on my own - I need instructions!
Well, one thing led to another, and we never did make the owl - instead we decided on an origami cat. The origami turned out to be quite challenging, but it was a wonderful way to practice using our pincer grip. It was also a great way to practice asking for help when an instruction was confusing.
We made the cat using construction paper but decided to order some origami paper to try making a fox later in the week. Truthfully the fox was just as challenging even with the origami paper, but we had a blast making it anyways!
We tried making a parrot with preprinted paper. That proved the most challenging of all of them, and we finally put the paper back in the box for another day!
If you’re in need of origami paper, here’s the ones I ordered from Amazon this week - purchasing from these links will allow you to give back to our school too:
Well now you understand why this week has felt like a month! Enjoy these final pictures from some of our recent adventures.
I hope you're finding space in your own lives to learn, live, and love differently!
