Vision and Program Description
Our vision is to be a true hybrid program: We merge the best of homeschool with the best of private school. Students kindergarten through eight grade spend two days on campus with teachers covering most core academic subjects. Students spend the other three days at home with their parents completing the work recommended (or as parent chooses).
Honoring God: Our program, teachers, and approach to our children comes from a Christian worldview. We honor the Bible as the inspired Word of God. As we work with children, we desire to show them they have a unique calling and purpose and encourage them to know the God who created them. In our academics, whether it is history or music or math, we seek to point our students to a God who is the ultimate creator and has a grandly orchestrated story for humanity.
Honoring Families: We recognize that family is the most crucial component of a child's development, and we have designed our program so that families and teachers can work hand-in-hand in order to best meet the developmental needs of our students. The hybrid approach encourages families in their ability to teach their children with assigned work for home days and ideas for how to approach their child's learning style. We hope that many families who would find homeschooling overwhelming will find support and gain confidence under the guidance of a teacher within a community of like-minded families.
Honoring Childhood: Children are naturally curious and born learners. We believe their academic development is best served through valuing the stage of development they are in rather than making inappropriate academic demands. At Providence Hybrid Academy, this means allowing time for unstructured free play and a play-based kindergarten. This also means we are committed to exposing children to a "feast" of academic disciplines, including art, music, drama, poetry, and nature study. We allow students' observations to guide our lessons and encourage students to think creatively and critically about the world around them. Likewise, we recognize the positive mental, emotional, and physical benefits of time in nature and allow students time to play and study outdoors.
“The question is not, — how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education — but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?”
How do we do this?
We have multiple outdoor recesses a day and a rest time for our youngest students.
We learn history and science through living books, nature study, and interactive projects.
We study art and music of accomplished creators in order to nourish students’ souls and encourage them in their own artistic creations.
We teach reading, writing, and mathematics through appropriate and engaging methods.
We allow students to demonstrate their understanding and knowledge through their own observations, insights, and connections rather than through other teacher-prescribed or artificial methods.
We feed children's imaginations through excellent books, art, music, and free play.
We develop language and vocabulary through poetry, songs, and stories.
We encourage relationship with God through Bible stories and examples of morality and heroes.
