Welcome to 4 Oaks Academy!

  Welcome to our school, 4 Oaks Academy! 

This is our first year to home school and we are SO excited! 

 

  Over the summer, we found 4 school desks for $15, and Dale built us the above frame for our map from a broken fence on Papa’s land.  We are so glad to have a little piece of Papa in our school room.

  Dale also built us a really great shelving unit with 15 cubbies.  (All while redoing our kitchen….what a guy!)

  We have been watching for bargains on bean bag chairs, posters and book baskets, hands on manipulatives and educational games.  We are ready to roll!

  We absolutely love the Christian school our family has attended for the past 6 years. Our family has been a part of this school for 30 years now, but it came to the point where I was going to have to return to work to pay for tuition.

  We have always planned for me to be home until everyone was at school full-time, and even then, we talked about me volunteering at the school, and doing my photography more full-time.  It was important to us that I could be flexible with our schedule, and available to drop and run should someone get sick. 

  The thought of missing home time, and putting the little 2 Ferguson’s in daycare actually made me bawl.  We know God speaks through peace in our hearts, and He has been whispering to us for the past 3 years, that someday we would be homeschooling. We just didn’t know it would be this year!

  That means I will be teaching a Pre-K, Kindergartener, 2nd grader and 6th grader. 

Ho boy.  Thinking about teaching 7 subjects times 4 kids had my head spinning. I began to spend hundreds of hours at night, researching and reading everything I could get my hands on. Visiting home school rooms, talking with every homeschool mom that would answer an email or phone call.

  Through all this, and much prayer, we found a wonderful curriculum that allows me to teach “One Room Schoolhouse style” with one main lesson, and individualized assignments after.  That means 5 of the 7 subjects will be taught together, freeing up a lot more of our time!
I will plan to blog more about this later, when I know better what all this entails.

  First thing you have to do when you decide to home school is register your school with the state.  That means we needed a NAME!

   I prayed and prayed for the name of our school.  I had all kinds of ideas, but none of them were “the one”.  As the weeks went on, I began to seek the Scriptures for something about growing in Christ.  Then I came across several verses about trees….

Psalms 1:3 “{They} will be like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season. And its leaf does not wither. And in whatever {they do}, {they}will prosper.”

Isaiah 61:3b “They will be called Oaks of Righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of His splendor.”

  My heart cried out, tears filled my eyes, and I KNEW. I knew the name of our school would be 4 Oaks Academy. 

  Our goal and desire is not to raise scholars, or athletes, or a student in every club and activity offered, but DISCIPLES for Christ.   Placing HIM at the center of our hearts and home, schooling within it’s walls, all meeting this goal and purpose.

Hugs, T

 

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