Hello Project: Learn families,
We are excited to share more detailed information for the upcoming 23/24 program year. We hope you will find this information helpful as you begin preparing for the school year ahead. We look forward to walking alongside your homeschool family!
PROGRAMING AND CURRICULUM AT-A-GLANCE
Our weekly in-class instruction includes hands-on activities, games, and projects are centered around foundational, core learning: Math, Language Arts, History, Social Studies, and Science. Historical time period themes make connections between Social Studies, Language Arts, Project-Based Learning, (PBL) and STEAM. Here is an overview of what to expect throughout the year:
Weekly Newsletter: Our Instructors provide an informative, class-specific newsletter that includes a suggested 4-day schedule. This highlights our program day subjects/activities along with suggested math, language arts, history, science lessons, and resources for home days.
Monthly Calendar with scheduled family, student, and community activities including but not limited to parent workshops/connection, field trips, nature study, service projects, and family experiences.
Project-Based Learning: Weekly in-class activities, all-campus events throughout the year.
Art and fitness education woven throughout our in-person days to give students a full learning experience.
Math: We are utilizing Singapore and Saxon for math for grades TK-8th. (Grade distinctions are found below).
ELA, Science, and Social Studies: Our Instructors will utilize BookShark as their primary spine and resource for core subjects across grade levels.
DETAILED CURRICULUM INFORMATION (TK-8th)*
On our program days, we provide opportunities for students to work together to take their learning to the next level through projects, games, labs, and the sharing of great literature. While you are always in charge of your homeschool curriculum, we want to share our in-class program pacing, so that you can decide if you’d like to follow along with our program at home. When we work together, it helps to provide some consistency within our program community at your homeschool.
Singapore & Saxon: Grade-level concepts and standards, which follow the course schedule and weekly lessons, will be taught in class. We will continue to incorporate hands-on fluency games to help reinforce grade-level concepts as they are introduced in class. Weekly lessons by title and page will be outlined in the grade-level newsletter so that you can follow along with the (optional) schedule and pacing at home. Homeschool kits can be purchased by families and utilized on home-days.
Literature Books: We will continue to incorporate Literature Circles in class. Titles of readers will be available in our weekly class newsletter so that you can purchase books for optional at-home reading. A reading pacing guide will be available in the weekly newsletter.
ELA & History: Following the BookShark schedule, weekly in-class activities, games, and projects, will be centered around a historical time period theme, in alignment with our ELA readers, helping students make connections between Social Studies and Language Arts.
Science: Following the BookShark schedule, students will engage in hands-on experiments and projects. Any additional science resources or material will be sent home with the student.
Project-Based Learning: Weekly in-class activities will incorporate opportunities for students to engage in true Project-Based Learning experiences and will be tailored to class material. All program-wide activities and projects will also be a part of our year together.
*High school classes will have different curricula for their high school students. Please contact the directors for more information.
OPTIONAL MATERIALS FOR PURCHASE
If you wish to purchase any of the following optional curriculum materials, we recommend you do so prior to the beginning of the school year so that you are ready to jump right in!
Math:
We will utilize Singapore or Saxon for our class scope and sequence throughout the year. (Grade level distinctions available below). You can purchase a student textbook and workbook, unless you’d prefer to have the entire grade-level package (which includes the instructor's guide, tests, and/or answer keys). There are many vendors who sell Saxon and Singapore online but here are links that you may find helpful.
TK: Singapore Tk Kit
3rd: Saxon Math 3 Homeschool Kit
4th: Saxon Math 5/4 Homeschool Kit
5th: Saxon Math 6/5 Homeschool Kit
Language Arts:
With the return to BookShark as our primary resource for Language Arts, our reader selections will align with our history studies. BookShark is a fast-paced, literature-based program. As such, we will structure our pacing to fit our program needs and will not be able to read through the entirety of the literature plan. This material will be adapted to fit our program's pacing. We strongly encourage families to purchase the instructors suggested readers throughout the year and complete the suggested chapter reading each week at home to get the full context of the material. (This information will be shared in the weekly newsletter). In class, we will continue to use the Literature Circle method to study various literature areas of study and writing, such as character development, plot, narrative, and more, while only reading or reviewing sections of the text.
Optional, Additional Resources:
We recommend these optional resources for home use (available on the BookShark resource page). Pacing for these resources* will be added to the weekly newsletters for our Project: Learn families:
Spelling (ie: Spelling you See TK - 7th)
Handwriting (ie: Handwriting without Tears K - 5th)
Phonics (ie: Explode the Code TK - 3rd)
Vocabulary (ie: Wordly-Wise 3rd - 8th)
Grammar (ie: The Grammar Ace; offered as one year of curriculum to be used between 4th and 7th Grades)
Additional Read-Aloud Books - These books can be purchased separately or borrowed from your charter school's Lending Library or a local library. These readers tend to correlate with the grade-level history time period but can be interchanged based on interest and student reading level. We suggest them for family read-aloud times that would benefit the ages and stages of your children's levels.
*The Read-alouds are highly recommended but will not be paced on the weekly newsletters, as the reading levels fluctuate by grade level and should be evaluated based on family need.
Social Studies:
Following BookSharks History, ELA is integrated through the curriculum. We will be exploring some new history unit studies, incorporating historical fiction into our Social Studies and Language Arts activities, and following a chronological sequence of history lessons with themes that you can explore and expand upon all year long at home. We will continue to bring in STEAM challenges and PBL activities to align with our History themes, along with History events throughout the year.
Science:
We want your kids to enjoy being messy and learning all about science with their hands! The BookShark Science has been revised and revamped to align with NGSS and allow for more projects and experiments. Any worksheets or additional material will be sent home for your home use. As always, we rely on you, the parents, to cover sensitive science subjects at home, but otherwise we will be following grade-level standards.
SCHOOL SUPPLIES FOR PROGRAM DAYS
Instructors will communicate specific student supply needs for their specific approach to the curriculum at the Back To Project: Learn Orientation Night. Any special supply requests for projects or class parties will be included in the weekly newsletter during the program year.
Below is a short list of personal school supplies students will need each day at our program. Please be sure to periodically check your students' backpacks to restock supplies as they wear out or are used up, and be sure to label all items with the students' names.
ALL STUDENTS:
Lunch Bag
Refillable Water Bottle
Backpack
Tk - 2nd Grade Students:
Pencil case with graphite and colored pencils, small sharpener with a reservoir for shavings, eraser, set of crayons, and a glue stick
Pocket Folder
3rd - 8th Grade Students:
Pencil box with a pen, graphite and colored pencils, small sharpener with a reservoir for shavings, eraser, a highlighter, washable markers, dry erase marker, and a glue stick
3-Ring Binder, 1.5”, with Dividers
Lined Paper
Pocket Folder
9th - 12th Grade Students:
Pencil box with a pen, graphite, and colored pencils, small sharpener with a reservoir for shavings, eraser, dry erase marker, washable markers, and a highlighter
3-Ring Binder, 1.5”, with dividers
Pocket Folder
Lined paper
Composition Notebook
Daily Planner
Laptop Computer, if possible (both student and parent must sign the technology waiver)
REGISTRATION & TUITION INFORMATION
Our program meets two days a week, September through May, with two weeks in December, for a total of 34 weeks. Our tuition rate breaks down to $300 per month, per student, with our December tuition rate at $150 per student, due to the long holiday break. The annual cost for Project: Learn is $2,550, in addition to the $50 registration fee due at the time of registration.
Private Paying Families:
You may pay your child’s monthly tuition privately online through our website. Please make your first payment no later than August 15th so that we can process your payment promptly. There are multi-children discounts available for private paying families. (Please contact the directors for this information).
Charter School Families:
You may cover the cost of tuition utilizing your child’s charter school student funds, so long as we are an approved vendor for your school. As a reminder, certificates are submitted monthly. Please be sure to submit your certificates starting August 1 to ensure everything is cleared and processed before classes begin.
Please be mindful to budget your charter school student funds for the year.
UPCOMING DATES AND YEAR-AT-A-GLANCE CALENDAR
We will be hosting our annual “Back-to-Project: Learn” Family Orientation on Tuesday, August 29, at 6:00 pm at Grace Baptist Church. Be sure to mark this important event on your calendar. Family Orientation is a night where students have the opportunity to meet their instructors and familiarize themselves with our program location while parents receive important information from the directors regarding the program year. More details will come in our August update/newsletter!
First Day of Project: Learn 2023/24:
Don’t forget to circle this BIG day on your calendar too! Our first day of Project: Learn 2023/24 is Tuesday, September 5, 2023, 10:00 am - 3:00 pm at Grace Baptist Church. You can also reference our Project: Learn 2023/24 Year-at-a-glance calendar for more helpful information about the year ahead!
If you have any questions or concerns at any time, please reach out to us. As always, we look forward to supporting you on your homeschool journey!
~The Project: Learn Team~
Tom & Kate Nykamp, Courtney Wright
Founders, Program Directors