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What We Believe

What We're Learning About This Month

Sponsoring a Month of Learning

The needs of educationally at-risk children require innovative instructional methods that traditionally have not been thought of as appropriate for this group.  Remediation (education offered below age or grade level) is the method commonly applied to the educational needs of at-risk children, but has been found to diminish effective learning.  Remediation does not necessarily enable children to apply learning or to transfer learning to new content. 

Students at Heart House have been found to have high levels of academic potential, and when challenged with difficult concepts and the expectation that they could achieve solutions, have produced work of remarkable quality.  This suggests that instructional methods normally reserved for students of high academic ability, such as thinking skills, and challenging questioning techniques, SHOULD be used with at-risk students. 

Our thematic teaching is an instructional program design which recognizes that there is potential in every child.  The Heart House program delivers qualitatively differentiated experiences which focus on self-directed learning, using critical, creative, and productive thinking strategies in a variety of interdisciplinary activities.  Our measurement shows that Heart House children CAN and DO achieve HIGH results not normally seen in their regular school-day environment.

This month’s theme is “Get Fit” and is all about how physical, emotional, and social health are important to our daily lives. Children will be learning about all the elements of health and how everything from eating a rainbow of foods to exercising creatively to relieving stress can provide kids with some important choices and tools to be healthier and happier. This month the children will also have a chance to complete fitness challenges at Heart House and with their friends and families outside of Heart House in an effort to engage the entire family in living healthier lifestyles!

Last month our theme was “It’s a Process!” This theme focused on the step-by-step processes involved in creating things and learning skills. Heart House kids learned how other people and animals do things, how things are made, and how to do things themselves! Some activities included how to paint like famous artists, how to make musical instruments, and how to survive different situations. (Below are pictures from “How to Paint like Picasso” and survival guides for severe weather.) Also, several volunteers taught kids how to do things like sing songs from other countries, defend themselves from strangers, make jewelry, and create fast airplanes.