Greetings in Christ! I hope you are enjoying your summer vacation with your families. I wanted to inform you of some developments with the co-op for this coming year. We hope you will be pleased with the plans we have made.
First off, we have a facility!
Valley Bible Church in Stephens City has graciously offered to host our co-op this year. The rental price is a huge increase compared to last year. The pastor at Valley Bible Church has offered to rent the facility for $100 a day. This would be a yearly fee of $1,800. Surprisingly, the fee is very low compared to other quotes we received. Last year, we were extremely blessed with the low fee for VA Hills. We hope to balance this higher fee by cutting back costs in other areas.
Curriculum Changes
We talked to multiple families, asking for feedback and opinions about what they would like to see at co-op. We have listened, and these changes are the result:
-We will NOT be using The Rolling Acres: Schola Rosa On-line Suite
After much discussion, thought, and prayer; we have decided not to use the Schola Rosa online suite for our co-op this year. We have not made this decision lightly, but it seems that most families would not be using it at home and did not want to spend the money on it. After learning about the higher rental facility fee, it also seemed like the most suitable way to cut costs.
-Bigger focus on Religion, specifically the Tridentine Mass
We will continue to use the Liturgical calendar from 1962. Religion will focus on the Liturgical Year, the Mass, and the Sacraments.
-English will not be taught as a separate subject.
We found that most families followed a different program at home and also that the levels were so varied, making it more difficult to teach. There will still be writing assignments for the older children in history and religion.
-All other subjects will be based off of Classically Catholic Memory, with an emphasis on hands-on activities and projects.
We want to keep the co-op fairly reasonable in cost. We plan to do that by putting together our own lesson plans, eliminating a required book list (except for CCM and the Little Latin Readers). This year we will focus on the following subjects:
*Religion
*History (CCM)
*Science (CCM and projects)
*Art (projects based on history and Religion)
*Music (Gregorian Chant to go along with the time period)
*Latin (CCM and the Little Latin Readers from CHC)
We will be adding tabs to the blog for each subject with lesson ideas for you to use at home. Or you can still choose to purchase the Schola Rosa on-line suite for your own personal use at home.
New Grouping of Grades and Teachers
We are dividing the classes up differently this year. We will have Nursery, Preschool, Kindergarten, 1st-2nd grade, 3rd-4th grade, 5th-6th grade, and 7th-9th grade. We feel this will help evenly disperse the classes a little better.
Teachers will sign up to teach a specific subject, rather than a grade level. We will need teachers for Nursery, Preschool, Music, Latin, Religion, Art, Science, and History. There will be 2-3 teachers for preschool and 2 teachers for the rest of the subjects. Some positions have been filled already. We currently need a teacher for history and science. You can check out the blog for a full list of jobs.
We are limiting the co-op to 20 families. If you are interested in registering, you can email us at sanctafamiliahomeschool@gmail.com.
Board of Directors
We have changed the Curriculum Committee to a Board of Directors. The members of the board this year are Christina Durgin, Monique Gilkison, Megan McCarthy, Jamie Spiering, and Jodi Shaffer.
A New Name!
Finally, we have decided to change the name of the co-op. We feel we need to do this, so that we are not confused with the Schola Rosa online suite.
Our new name is Sancta Familia Homeschool Cooperative. Our Patroness is Mary, Queen of the Apostles.
We are looking forward to the upcoming year.
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