Blog
Thank you for giving to the Navajo Trip!
On March 30th, our team of 24 loaded up the cars and headed down to the Navajo reservation for our third annual trip to Immanuel Mission (ImmanuelMission.org). Your generous gift made this possible so we wanted to say thank you and share some stories from our time. We were able to distribute 45 Easter food […]
Parent Book Clubs
We’re kicking off Parent Book Clubs in February! We will be hosting them at school on Wednesday mornings from 8:30-10:00am, every other week. Each book will be broken down into 5 sections to read and to gather at school to discuss. We are offering two different titles. Book Clubs are optional and you are […]
What Does High School Look Like at Journey Academy?
Do you want to know what high school looks like at Journey Academy? Watch the video below! It will be helpful for those with older learners but also for those with younger heroes to show you what is in store for them. Today we had a Graduation Badge Workshop with all of our high […]
What’s in a Name?
It was wonderful to see the studios full of smiles and life again as we all came back together from Christmas break! As I walked the halls, I snapped a few pictures and saw Sparks gearing up to go outside and play in the snow just as the high schoolers were all coming upstairs to […]
Journey Pitch Deck & News for the Future
Want to hear some very exciting news? Are you curious about Journey Academy’s future plans? Then check out this year-end pitch deck that we created for some investors that believe in the vision and future plans of Journey. Building a school was always Phase One and now that that is accomplished, we are ready to […]
An ‘Orderly’ Studio is not the Goal!
Wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall in your learner’s studio? Things at Journey have been humming along lately, and we seem to be settling into a healthy rhythm. As I’ve been observing this, I’ve found myself reflecting on an important principle that I think is worth exploring at this point […]
Requirements During Break?
What do minimum requirements look like when there is a break in the school schedule? As you know, the four upper studios (Disco, Adventure, Navigators, and LP) all have weekly minimum requirements in math and Lexia. Each Monday morning, heroes gather in their accountability squads to show proof of work and to hold one another […]
Whole Child Development
I saw a chart on the Acton forum recently that I wanted to share with you all. Sometimes we tend to bifurcate our kids growth – meaning we divide their personhood into parts such as academic progress vs whole child development. While we really love seeing academic progress at Journey (and we see a lot […]
What Do I Do?
What do I do when my learner faces a problem or conflict at school and comes home upset? It only takes a couple of weeks in community for some type of conflict to occur. Most likely you have heard a complaint from your hero of some type of injustice or offense at school. Maybe it was a hero buck fine they […]
A Learner-Driven School
PART TWOWhy a Learner-Driven School is a Long Term Investment in Your Child… If you haven’t read my first article titled ‘How Not Answering Questions Builds a Learner-Driven Environment’, you might want to do that first. In that piece, I established the characteristics of a learner-driven school and the results produced in this unique educational […]
Why Guides Don’t Answer Questions
PART ONE How Not Answering Questions Builds A Learner-Driven Community… Charts are hanging on the door of each multi-age studio. The annual, ‘Guides Don’t Answer Questions’ game has begun and learners are encouraged to write down on the wall chart each time a guide slips up and mistankly answers a question. Guides are doing their […]
Teaching Math Socratically
Here are a few tips on how to help when your child gets stuck or hits a road block in math. Here are a few thoughts on how to help your learner with math while using a Socratic method: Teaching Math Socratically The goal of Socratic guiding is to help someone else learn to think […]
The Start of a New Adventure
Hello – we are the Voorhees and Davidson families and just like many of you, we have high hopes and dreams for the education and discipleship of our kids. As we have been doing life together and searching for the best way to educate our children, we stumbled across Acton Academy, a school launched by […]
There’s No Such Thing As A Dragon
In order to give y’all a taste of what the Journey Academy Heroes are working on (Adventure and Launch Pad), I thought I would issue you a challenge. This could also be a great conversation to have as a family, especially with your Discovery and Sparks heroes. Each week our learners complete a portion of […]
Number’s Lab
What is Numbers Lab and why do we do it every week at Journey Academy? The vast majority of math curricula make students spend all of their time doing calculations over and over again and tempt them to believe math is irrelevant and disconnected from everyday life. Numbers lab is an interactive math experience that […]
Christmas Concert
Last night we celebrated the hard work of all our learners at a Christmas Holiday Concert! I was pretty much beaming with pride all night! So much grit, hard work, and courage went into their performances. At Journey Academy we don’t value perfectly polished, adult-run productions nearly as much as we value providing opportunities for […]
Survivor Quest
The Survivor Quest is off to a great start! This session all three upper studios are doing a 6 week deep dive into survival skills. Topics covered will include food, water, shelter, fire, psychological survival, search and rescue, orienteering, avalanche shelters, first aid, and spiritual survival. They will be taking four surprise excursions in the […]
Meet our Heroes
At Journey Academy we are always seeking to inspire our learners towards heroic behavior so we refer to all our students as ‘Heroes’. We started the 2019 school year with 12 heroes and ended the year with 21 heroes. Now we are looking at an enrollment of 40 or so for the 2020 school year. […]
Civilizations Discussions
In January our middle and high school Heroes began daily civilizations discussions. Our focus was on modern world history so we discussed events starting with World War 1 and moving all the way through the 20th century. Each hero was given an event in history and a few moral dilemma questions surrounding that event. They […]
Telling Your Hero’s Journey Story
Our school is built largely around the metaphor of the Hero’s Journey, which is a framework to evaluate any great story. Here are the steps on that journey: We are always encouraging our Hero’s to learn to interview others to learn about their Hero’s Journey and to learn to tell of their own. Watch Jackson […]
Courage to Grow
This start of this school year brought growth from a tribe of 12 heroes to a tribe of 19! Onboarding 7 new students has not been without its challenges but we welcome them as we know that failure is progress for those who desire to grow. We have struggled to meet the needs of our […]
Reflections from the First Semester
Wow, fifteen weeks under our belts! And what a crazy ride it has been for each one of us. Looking back over this first semester I am overcome with gratitude for so many things. God was with our little tribe every step of the way – every victorious step and every painful step as […]
The Founding Heroes
Just look at these smiling faces, twelve amazing kids about to embark on a Hero’s Journey, These heroes are Journey Academy’s first ever students. This picture was taken at our kick off BBQ, before any of us knew what we were getting into! Shining eyes full of wonder and hope, they are the inspiration for […]
