Full Time & Independent Study Programs
Creative School Solutions for Inquiring Minds
Innovations Academy is made of up four primary curriculum areas: Effective Communication Skills, Mastery of Basic Skills, Project Based Service Learning, and Community Partnerships.
Effective Communication
Positive Discipline, created by Jane Nielsen, is about creating respectful relationships in homes and schools.
The 8toGreat program encourages students to become self-reflective members of our community. This program shows students how to take “Highways” (instead of the low road) to living life fully every day. Some curriculum areas include Gratitude, Full Responsibility, Risks, and Hope.
Our Keys to Success program asks students to inquire into what makes a successful student and community member. This program encourages students to participate in behaviors that make for a successful learning environment, such as making eye contact, full listening, leaving our environment better than how we found it, and saying please and thank you.
Compassionate Communication enables students to speak their feelings and needs while making requests. Students learn why empathy is so important for themselves and for others. This program is a powerful way to make students feel heard as well as empowering them to discover their own voice.
The Responsive Classroom is an approach to teaching that emphasizes social, emotional, and academic growth in a strong and safe school community. Taught by teachers at the Northeast Foundation, it is based on the premise that children learn best when they have both academic and social-emotional skills.
Mastery of Basic Skills
Innovations Academy uses a constructivist learning approach where students collaborate to learn subject matter. Constructivism views each learner as a unique individual with unique needs and backgrounds. The learner is also seen as complex and multidimensional. We encourage, utilise and reward this uniqueness as an integral part of the learning process. Students will have individual and small group time with their teacher as well as centers that encourage students to work at their own levels. We emphasize the importance of the learner being actively involved in the learning process by utilizing a variety of curriculum and providing many choices for learning. Furthermore, our Language Arts and Mathematics curriculum is integrated into our afternoons of Project Based Learning so that students are applying their learning in a real world way that engages them.
Read more about Constructivist Learning Theory.
Project Based Service Learning
Be a difference maker. Students work in their classrooms as well as collaborating with others to create projects that make an impact. Students think both locally and globally while designing their projects. Our upper graders put on a Wax Museum fair to showcase the historians and scientists they learned about to our lower grade classrooms. Everyone benefited from the learning. Globally, our students contribute to others through fundraising for charities and bringing their skills to the community. Our 1st graders, while learning about nutrition and the mathematics of cooking are baking cakes to bring to Children's Hospital. Our students leave school with pride knowing that each day they are contributing members of society.
Community Partnerships
Explore and play during Community Partnerships! Innovations Academy has brought more engaging and exciting programs to our community through collaborating with local educational businesses. Often this fun and hands on learning is left to after school programs. We’ve brought these programs here because we value the arts, sciences, physical education, and many other areas that excite all of us.
Full time and Independent Study Options
Full Time:
80% of our student population participates in our traditional-schedule full time program. Full time students attend Monday through Friday all day. We have a half day Wednesday. With Project Based Learning, Community Partnerships, Multi-Age Mentoring, and Communication Building they are busy and engaged.
3 Day Option
We also offer a 3 day program for K - 8 students on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for families who would like to continue to homeschool but would also like to have their child(ren) participate in a typical school classroom. Students integrate into a regular classroom three days a week and are responsible for their own learning off-site the other two days. Many 3 day students find this to be a nice blend of school with homeschooling.
2 Day Option
IA also offers a special 2 day program on Tuesdays and Thursday for home learners in K - 2nd and 2nd - 8th grade who want to participate in project-based learning with a supportive home learning community. Our 2-Day students have their own multi-age classroom on site with a unique schedule specifically designed to meet their needs.
Our K - 2 teacher, Jill Keltner, writes: Come join us this September at Innovations Academy for a new Home Learners Class for Kindergarten through 2nd grade students. Homeschooled children will join their peers to create a community of learners. They will choose optional centers to create art, sculpt clay, play math games, tell stories and build structures, approaching different skills such as language arts, math, art, logic, fine motor skills, etc., in a fun and educational way. We will also come together as a group to listen to books, experiment with science, do yoga, work on projects, sing, dance, and play. We will share what we are learning at home and investigate the world together. Student and parent input will guide the direction the class will take.For more info on the K - 2 program, click here.
Some of the features of the Home Learning Community:
1. Consult monthly with a credentialed teacher to make a customized, holistic learning plan
2. Engage in group-learning activities in math, science, art, the outdoors, and more
3. Take monthly field trips
4. Build listening and communication skills
5. Share home projects with the group and receive constructive feedback
6. Provide input and suggestions about group activities
7. Participate for free in IA's community partnership programs (puppetry, art, movement, capoeira...)
Before and After School Program
Innovations Academy offers before and after school program opportunities for all families. Please contact Tina for more information.
