What would you like to learn today?

What We Believe

What We're Studying Right Now

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.

Are there giant alligators living in our sewers?  Is it true that no two snowflakes look alike?   Do you have to wait an hour after eating before jumping in the pool?  

Heart House kids will be exploring fact versus fiction in an exciting theme this month called “Myth Busters”.  Children will be the investigators, answering questions like the ones above and many others in an attempt to “bust” some popular myths and discover the truth about the world around us.

Keep up with weekly posts on our investigations, field trips, and more at the What We're Studying posts on the Heart House blog.

The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by Kathryn Lasky and Kevin Hawkes Introducing a person and a period largely unknown to children, this picture-book biography depicts the life of Eratosthenes, an ancient Greek who eventually became the head of the famous library in Alexandria. His most notable achievement was a remarkably ingenious method for measuring the earth's girth. After determining the angles of shadows in two cities and the distance between them, he used geometry to calculate the circumference of the earth.  Illustrating the text with warmth and humor, Hawkes' acrylic paintings capture the period details of the setting and clarify the geometric concepts used in the measurement.  Hawkes' attention to detail and his occasional visual humor will reward any child who studies the illustrations.		Thomas and Percy and the Dragon (Step into Reading) by W. Rev Awdry and Richard Courtney Percy is sleeping when he hears a rumble. He opens his eyes and sees a giant yellow dragon! But dragons aren't real, are they? Maybe it was a dream! The next day he shares his fears with James and Thomas and learns the truth about what it was that he saw.   In 1944, a country vicar, the Reverend W Awdry, wrote the stories he had been telling his two young sons about a group of engines with very recognizable personalities. In 1945, the first book featuring Thomas and the other Really Useful Engines was published, and in the 60 years since, the tales of these friendly engines have become beloved classics around the world.
See also: What is the Heart House staff reading? blog posting.

And here's what we studied last month: