Acts 4:10-12

"Let it be known to all of you...that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, who God raised from the dead. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

Monday, October 1, 2012

Busy Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 Registration

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I posted.  Teaching 3 classes at the cooperative and teaching 3 students at home leaves me with little time to journal or to send out updates.

Fall 2012 - Thank you everyone for your hard work - students, parents, teachers.  You've made a wonderful start on our 2012-2013 school year.  I can't tell you how much I appreciate your efforts both as your student's teacher and as a parent myself.  Cornerstone is giving us a great platform with which to educate our children.  I hope it feels that way for you as well.

Spring 2013 - It's hard to imagine, but yes, we begin Spring 2013 registration in about one month.  If you are a parent and will not have any changes in your classes, I will just send out your Cost Breakdown in late November so you don't need to do anything.

We are just finishing our mid term grades for upper level classes, but we want to let you know what's coming.

Have a wonderful October!!
Mitzi

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Registration remains open for the following classes...

Hi everyone,

Since we just finalized Wesley Givens as our guitar teacher for this Fall and we're getting a lot of interest in Art, registration for the following opportunities will remain open until August 2nd unless noted below.


Kindergarten (open until July 30th)
K4/K5 - My Father's World - 9:20 - 11:05 am
Fine Arts
ART - Art (all grades) 3:15 - 4:45
EMT16 - Elem. Music Theory (1st - 6th grade) 11:10 - 12:00 (currently 5 students)
FILM712 - Filmmaking (7th-12th grade) (Tuesday class) 1:25 - 3:10
GUI - Guitar Lessons (all grades) Thursdays 1:25 - 3:00

Electives
SP612- Speech (6th-12th grade) 2:20 - 3:10


Sunday, July 15, 2012

Registration closes today!

Hi everyone,

Registration for Cornerstone closes today.  If you still want to be a part of our cooperative, I must have communication by Thursday before we can even consider adding your students.  If you are already on a waiting list, we will contact you if openings occur.  If not, I pray that all of you have a wonderful home schooling year.  I'm praying that you and your family will have peace and joy and clear direction from our Lord Jesus Christ.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Help! I'm Homeschooling!

HOMESCHOOLING SEMINARS OF INTEREST 
From June 11th-13th and again June 18th-20th at Lamb of God church, a few moms and I will be sharing on the following topics from 9:15 - 11:15 am each day. Snacks and drinks provided. Please RSVP by June 5th. If you need childcare, please let us know.

Monday, June 11th and June 18th
Why Am I Here? Scriptural Basis for Home Schooling and Keeping Your Focus on Christ
Legal Issues of Home Education - Are We Legal? What Do I Do?
Where Do You Begin? Curricular Choices - Textbook, Classical, Unit Study, Charlotte Mason
Advantages and Disadvantages? What's Best for You and Yours?
Where Do I Find Curricula?
How Do They Learn from Me? Learning Styles - You and Your Children

Tuesday, June 12th and June 19th
How Do I Do It All? Managing a Home, School, Family and Church
How Do I Manage a Single Day? Keeping a Daily Planner
What and How Do We Eat? Meal Planning - even Coupons?
Keeping House - Keeping It Clean? How Clean?

Wednesday, June 13th and June 20th
Multi-Level Teaching? Toddlers & Preschoolers - Help!
Testing: Individual or Standardized? When Do I Need It? Why?
Learning Objectives: State Requirements, Scope and Sequence?
Record Keeping: What's Necessary?

These seminars will be held during Heather Henriques' science camps. See her information below:

SUMMER SCIENCE CAMPS

This summer, Heather Henriques is offering science camps for local students in the Birmingham area. Camps include both hands-on science activities for grades K4 through 6th, and a unique camp for 5th through 8th grade girls exploring forensics. Information about her offerings - as well as her daughter's ballet camps - can be found on her family business website: www.springgardenarts.com. Or if you'd like more information, you can reach her at henriques.heather@gmail.com or 789-9209.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Fall 2012 - Spring 2013 Class Schedule

For some reason, our schedule for the coming year is not showing up here at our blog.  If you want to see our schedule, please email me and I will send out the current schedule.  Some of the courses are already full.  If you want to be on a waiting list, please register and I will add your name to a waiting list for each class.  Thank you!!

My email is pianomom@mindspring.com.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Open Registration!

Hi everyone,

Classes are filling quickly!!

The following classes are no longer available:

Institute for Excellence in Writing with American Literature (5th-8th grades)  10:15 - 12:00
God's Design for Life Science (4th-6th grades) (a)  8:25 - 9:10

Continuing to pray for your families to hear the Lord regarding your 2012-2013 school year.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Registration for new families begins April 15th

What a beautiful spring day!  Hope you're enjoying it and your children.

Spring registration for new families to Cornerstone begins April 15th.  Our classes are filling!  I'm really excited about next year and what God has in store for all of us.  

Here's the registration site:
http://fs12.formsite.com/mitzijh/form280170761/index.html

Praying you hear the Lord clearly for your family.
Mitzi

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Registration Fee Change

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to let you know about our new registration fee policy.  After checking on our current and expected expenses for the coming year, we felt we could lower our registration fee for families needing only one class for 2012-2013.

Here's our new registration fee structure (which I hope will help families who only want to participate a little in the cooperative this coming year):

Registration fee:  $40/student/class/year with a maximum of $75/student/year (except K4/K5 which will remain at $75/student due to the My Father's World student books we are purchasing)

If a student takes one course, registration will be $40.   If a student takes two or more courses, registration will be $75.   Family maximums will continue to be $150/family for early registration and $175/family for late registration.

Questions?  Want to see what we use these fees for?  Email me and I'll send you the information.

Hope this helps and encourages you as you strive to serve your families.
Blessings in Christ,

Mitzi

Monday, April 9, 2012

Notes from Informational Meeting, Part IV (Final)

Class Observation of Current Classes
If you would like to schedule a class observation, please email me and I’ll contact the teachers to see if it can be arranged between now and the end of our semester on May 3rd.
Class Cancellation
If a class has less than 6 students register, then the class may be cancelled as of July 15th.  If a teacher decides to hold the class regardless, her tuition cost may have to rise for her time commitment. 
As home educating families, we all understand that not all of our wants can be met by the cooperative and some subjects may have to be taught exclusively at home, if a class doesn’t hold.  
Parent/Teacher Conference
A new aspect of our cooperative will be parent/teacher conferences at least twice yearly. Most families like talking with their teachers and most of our teachers communicate via email regarding homework assignments, but we feel it would also be beneficial to families to have “face” time with their teachers at least once per semester.  If you desire a conference at any time during the year, please contact our teacher.  We will initiate a meeting if we don’t hear from you.  
Each parent is required to be a volunteer teacher assistant during the study hall or lunch twice per semester for approximately 2 hours each time.  This provides our cooperative with additional parental supervision while leaders are teaching and handling other responsibilities.
12 Year Course of Study - How Will We Finish?  
Classes for students graduating by 2017 and before - see chart (Email me if you want to see our current chart). Our chart of classes for K-12th grades gives a list of courses we want to offer annually.  Our plan is to have roughly a four year rotation on particular subjects, i.e. history and science similar to a classical education.
Our goal is to allow you to teach multiple students in multiple grades more easily by tying your science and history courses together.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Notes from Informational Meeting, Part III

Parental Flexibility
You can always add enrichment activities to your calendar to expand a student’s learning.  Sometimes you might give you an extra assignment that a teacher did not schedule.  
For instance, in my Physical Science class, a student prepared a research paper and thought that I didn’t want her mother’s review regarding her rough draft and final paper.  That is absolutely not the case, as home schoolers and as a writer, it’s extremely valuable for students to have their papers graded and regraded by their parents and their teachers.
In another class time, after one of my students answered over half of the questions from a test on India, I asked her to return her blank test and gave her an “A.”  She didn’t need to take the test if she already knew the material.  Home schooling provides flexibility.  We want our assignments and tests to have meaning for our students and you as parents.  
We want them to grasp how to learn, how to write, and how to speak.  We want them to be able to succeed in any college setting so we strive to give them that atmosphere.
You will help your student focus on not falling behind in their course load.
Final grades will rest with the parent, but teachers will give grades based on their assessment.  For middle school and high school, grades 7-12, we assign grades based on several factors, at home tests, class participation, in class quizzes, complete homework and lab assignments, projects completed, essays, research papers, etc.
Student Involvement
We recommend you do not have your student in more than 6 hours of class time, which is usually 4-6 classes, particularly for students younger than 7th grade.  More classes than this and you may have rebellion on your hands due to exhaustion and overworked kids.  Our classes are meant to be a challenge for students, but not an overwhelming one.
For high school students, we assign work to be completed before classes begin in August, course work during fall breaks, and work to be completed after our last class in May.  If you have a high school student, you may already know that to receive a full high school credit, students must work a minimum of 150 hours in a subject.  With our arrangements, your student will have enough work to receive a full credit, but we do depend on you to make sure your student completes their work in a timely fashion.  

Friday, April 6, 2012

Informational Meeting Notes, Part II

Here's the second installment of our meeting notes:

Requirements - Cover School
We are not a cover school.  If you have children over 7 years old, please contact one of the coverings locally if you have not done so already.  My family is part of Evangel Christian School, but our cooperative is open to other coverings in the area.   
Other cover schools include:  Hope Christian School, Riverside, Shelby Crossings, Shades Mountain Independent, etc.

Class Offerings - See our schedule and class description list. If you want a copy, please request it by email.  We currently meet on Thursdays and have one class on Tuesdays.  
Class Participation, Homework Requirements
Daily, you as parents, will be involved in helping your children complete assignments given in class.  Early elementary classes are meant to be enrichment, but if you desire to follow our entire homework load, you will definitely give your child a well rounded education.
Most middle and high school classes will require between 45 minutes - 1 hour of study time by students on all other weekdays.  Parental involvement will usually involve reviewing completed materials, administering tests, determining what assignments need completion based on grade level, and determining final grades based on teacher assessment.  
Elementary students will usually require 2-4 hours of instruction daily.  Middle school students will study for approximately 5-6 hours daily with parental involvement for about half that time.  High school students who become more independent will study for approximately 6-8 hours daily with about 2-3 hours of parental supervision, oversight and discussion.  With more children obviously you will not be able to devote as much time, but God uses the resources we have for their benefit and teaches them many things through our weaknesses that could not be learned otherwise.
Length of Year/Class Times
Our school year runs for 30 weeks - 15 weeks in Fall and 15 weeks in Spring with two break weeks for make ups each semester.  Class length will be 50, 60, or 100 minutes depending on subject matter.  
Since our cooperative meets 30 weeks, as teachers, we give additional work to high school students outside of class to allow families to earn full high school credit hours.  Our program is to support home schooling families, not replace their responsibility, i.e. completing an Apologia High School science course thoroughly guarantees a full high school credit. 

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Notes from Informational Meeting, Part I

Hi everyone,

I'm sending these after lunch today because we spent time on science projects this morning.  Yes, we are all still home educating our kids!  Keep up the good work.

Due to the length of my informational meeting notes, I am going break it up into smaller segments over the next few days.

Here is Part I of the notes from our informational meeting:
Introduction
Can any of us be all things to all people? Can we even meet all the needs of every member of our family all the time?  
Home schooling gives us the chance to balance our lives.  We cannot do it all - all the time.  The laundry will pile up.  The dishes will go unclean.  The floors will not be mopped.  We will forget appointments or just make too many.  As home educators, we will only have a certain number of hours in the day to meet our families’ educational, spiritual, emotional, physical and mental needs.  Neither can our cooperative meet all the educational needs of your family.
Cornerstone is a cooperative which comes alongside home schooling families to help them manage their children’s education for God’s glory.  Most of our teachers have home educated their children a minimum of 3 years.  Many have home school graduates and college attendees.  They have been through educational challenges, financial challenges, success and failure, and want to help you to achieve your goals.  Our goal is to serve families by making your home schooling journey a little easier to handle.  
We want to give you a little taste of Cornerstone and what we have to offer in the coming year.  We want you to see if our cooperative is an option to assist you in your home schooling journey over the next year. 
Our cooperative originally grew out of a need for science and Spanish by a couple of other moms and myself.  I wanted to give my children the opportunity to be involved in learning with other students and to provide them with more challenges that I felt I couldn't or didn’t have time to offer in our home.  I also enjoy the group setting because I’m a people person, but feel home schooling is one of the best options out there for families to stay connected, to offer children an excellent education, to provide families with flexibility, to encourage struggling students, and to instill values dear to our hearts.
Currently our cooperative serves 30 families with over 50 students.  We asked, “What is one thing you feel Cornerstone provides for you that you couldn’t provide for your family?”  Kelly Warren stated, “The teachers are partnering with me.  They are merciful and really want my kids to succeed.”  Laura Ralph shared, “Cornerstone fills in the gaps for me.”
Vision: Christ is the Cornerstone - Acts 4:11
"Let it be known to all of you...that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, who God raised from the dead. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
The primary purpose of the Cornerstone Cooperative is to equip our children to impact their world for Christ.  We want to provide excellent courses for home schooled students to bring honor to God and our families. We want to give parents freedom in their course choices. 


Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Registration is open to returning families today!!

Hi everyone,

Registration begins today for returning families!  New families, you can join on April 15th, but you can begin making plans now.  We have all of our class offerings and descriptions online for you to view.  Use this link to view and begin your registration process:

Quick Link

For those unable to attend our informational meeting, I will be posting my meeting notes tomorrow morning on my other blog as well as emailing them to all families expressing interest in Cornerstone.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Informational Meeting and Registration tomorrow!

Hi everyone,

Our registration begins for returning families tomorrow at 12 noon.  New families may begin registering on April 15th.

New and returning families are welcome to our Informational Meeting at 7:00 - 8:30 pm tomorrow night at Lamb of God.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Registration begins soon!

Hi everyone,

Our cooperative has blessed many families this year, particularly mine.  Only 6 more weeks of classes. Thank you everyone!!

Now, we are looking forward to our 2012-2013 school year.  Beginning April 3rd, registration for returning families will open.  New families may begin registration on April 15th.

If you are a new family and would like to consider our cooperative, plan to attend an informational meeting at Lamb of God Church, 5140 County Road 17, Helena, AL on April 3rd from 7:00 - 8:30 pm. We will provide additional information, gather some from you, introduce our teachers and explore our future together in this home schooling journey.

More information will be posted on our blog shortly.

Cornerstone Cooperative Teacher Biographies - Fall 2013

Teacher biographies will now be available at our website, http://homeschool-life.com/al/cornerstonecoop/