Alternative Education:
Sure Foundations Learning Center offers a Microschool for K-5th grade. This is a small, home-based, tutorial environment where elementary-age children are provided with personalized instruction by a certified, experienced teacher. “TUTORIAL” describes the unique learning environment where students will experience a collision of the very best of traditional classroom schooling combined with the bountiful benefits of homeshcooling.
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From frustrated to flourishing!
After School TUTORING
Foundational struggles can destroy the wonder of learning. Let’s bring that wonder back!
At Sure Foundations the tools to help your child build a strong foundation are ready to be implemented in a fun and engaging way.
Math Tutoring
- Number sense
- Fact fluency
- Homework help
ELA Tutoring
- Phonics/Word decoding
- Spelling
- Reading fluency
- Writing
Hello.
As an elementary teacher for over 25 years, I have had an insatiable desire to give students the tools necessary to accelerate their learning and grow a love for discovery. Learning is WONDERFUL and should not be bogged down by uncertainties.
I am dedicated to finding the tools that work best based on brain research and years of experience. I have discovered that play and repetition are vital to learning at the elementary level. With this in mind I am able to tailor instruction to your child's unique needs using multi-sensory tools that will help learning to move from the concrete to the representational to the abstract levels. Much of this is rushed in the classroom to meet the needs of all students. I would love to work with your child to slow down where s/he needs to spend time and provide the personal attention necessary to help them learn at their own pace in a comfortable and safe space.
Joyce Koster
Foundations
he will not depart from it
thoughts on the gift of childhood
June 19, 2024
I was challenged today to take a good hard look at our Mission Statement here at Sure Foundations. This is so good for me! I wish I could just make it Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Each word of this proverb is rich in depth of meaning which I’d like to discover with you today.
TRAIN: Teach the children. They are hungry for it! The verb is clear. Train.
UP: Ah, there are many ways to train a child. God’s Way is UP. He is up, Heaven our home is UP.
A CHILD: Yep, not “the group” or even “all of” but God’s focus here is A child. That is our hope at Sure Foundations, to focus on each individual child.
IN: We need to teach them IN to something, We are all born IN sin and Christ offers that perfect Way to Salvation. Believe IN the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Acts 16:31.
THE WAY: Not just any way. The Hebrew form used for this phrase means a child’s particular bent.
S/HE: Ah, here it get’s personal! Each little one is designed perfectly to be living in this time. Exploring each individual’s giftings is essential!
SHOULD: This is an invitation to share the glorious path to Life. We cannot force them. Children must choose and our job is to show the path to be as marvelous as it truly is!
GO: This is not a sedentary command. This verb is clear. Let’s move!
Whew! That is a lot of work. But it is so worth every ounce of effort because the promise comes next: AND WHEN HE IS OLD HE WILL NOT DEPART FROM IT. The foundation has been laid. A Sure Foundation for the future of this child. The promise is equally as complex, but that’s for another blog.
Foundations
Apples to apples? no, airplanes to rockets!
May 7, 2024
Education is my passion. I went the standard route; Climb into the classroom, use the textbooks, love the children. It worked OK for a while. But through the years there was always change. We drifted away, away, away from what was already working. Curriculum always had to be “new and improved!” We were swapping apples for new shiny apples and losing the richness of the original. (Isn’t that happening in a lot of what is going on in our world?)
Now that I am out of the classroom I realize that where education is going does not compare apples to apples, but airplanes to rockets. Schools are full of people who are doing their jobs in a broken system that keeps trying to “new and improve” its way to success. They are airplanes that will get you to point B, but could there be more?
I am discovering that YES! There are better ways and we are not comparing airplanes to airplanes, but airplanes to rockets! Homeschool and Microschool students have the opportunity to soar and thrive with individual attention. Your school down the street has a 20-35 student to one teacher ratio who have their hands tied to a Common Core Curriculum that spins its wheels in the mud of mediocrity. Airplanes take off from the runway, go across the sky and land back on the earth. Rockets, however, stand still while the burners get good and hot then EXPLODE into the atmosphere to heights they could never have dreamed of! Start slow to go fast. Delight in the richness of fundamental learning to get that curiosity burning hot, hot, HOT! That is where we are going! Who’s coming with me?!
thoughts on the gift of childhood
Foundations
thoughts on the gift of childhood
May 1, 2024
I pray Scripture. A LOT. My selfish-y self gets in the way all the time, so I decided that His Word was the way to go. For years my students and I sang and learned Scripture from Steve Green’s “Hide Em’ in Your Heart” music. We started singing them from cassette tapes! Ha! This Luke 2:52 verse struck my heart and for a long time I have prayed this verse for my children and my students. Think about it. It’s Masterfully worded! Jesus grew in this way and my heart yearns for each child to grow in this way as well. So let’s dig in. We are born soul, body and spirit.
Jesus grew in WISDOM. The soul is the very nature of our personality. The joy of learning is everything! And the Enemy of our souls seeks to steal, kill and destroy that joy. May it not be! May they grow in WISDOM.
Jesus grew in STATURE. That’s the body. May it be filled with whole foods and lots of fresh air and large motor play! May they grow in STATURE.
Jesus grew in FAVOR with God and Men. The Ten Commandments are broken into 4 rules about God and 5 rules about men with obedience to parents in the middle to guide children through them all. How perfect that we should pray for our children to grow in the favor of God first and men after. May they grow in FAVOR.
Pray, oh pray, dear friends for protection and blessings on our children! They have been born for such a time as this and the Enemy has made it clear. He HATES the children.
May they grow as Jesus did in the Abundance of the Father.
Foundations
thoughts on the gift of childhood
MATHEMATICALLY DATA-LICIOUS!
MARCH 8, 2024
St. Patrick’s Day always seems to sneak up on me! Isn’t it just like a day known for Leprechauns to be sneaky? I found fun ways to spice up the day with some simple activities that helped shake up the monotony that comes this time of year and LUCKY DATA is one of those fun projects that is well worth the extra effort. Gathering data is such a foundational tool. Estimation is a dying skill. LUCKY DATA challenges estimation before the counting. This activity can be done with a cup of Lucky Charms cereal or any other marshmallow type cereal. There is a blank form where children can color the types of marshmallows that will be counted from any box of cereal. There are also forms with pictures or words of the marshmallows that are found in a regular box or individual serving cup of Lucky Charms. Not bound to mid-March doldrums, LUCKY DATA can be done any time of the year! Enjoy Lutfi’s Fanciful Flannelgraph and add a bowl of sweet data goodness to the day.
Foundations
thoughts on the gift of childhood
the gift of game
February 19, 2024
There is nothing like a good old fashioned game you play together to strengthen skills in a way that drill and practice just can not. First of all, games are motivational! It is fun to win. Competition encourages our best brain work to achieve. Games actually benefit students by helping shape attentiveness and training the brain how to learn. That’s where FLIP & BUMP comes in! It is a quick, easy game to play to enforce multiplication fact fluency. It can be printed in color or black and white, English OR Spanish! All that is needed is a deck of cards with Kings and Jacks removed. Each player needs 10 playing pieces of the same color. Directions are available to print on the back of each game. A video explaining the game is available when you click the picture. This game is for everyone. Download and let’s play!
Foundations
thoughts on the gift of childhood
JANUARY 9, 2024
If you have never heard of the Building Math Minds website go there right now! Or, maybe after you read this post. This “recovering traditionalist” blew my mind and transformed the way I teach and even think about math. I took the training and learned to set my students up for success in the way they face each math challenge. As I transitioned out of teaching my textbook with fidelity to teaching the way numbers work I created this DAILY MATH WARM-UP tool to start our math sessions each day. It has fun and engaging daily problems to do together as a class. At first the challenges were tricky, but as we made mistakes together and realized we were completely safe to do so ALL hands went up to participate. It reaches learners at all levels. And the best part? Students learn from each other! That’s where real, life-long learning begins. Get one for your classroom or homeschool today!
Foundations
thoughts on the gift of childhood
december 1, 2023
Let’s face it, the Elf on a Shelf is just plain fun! But we have to confess it does not point us or our children towards the true meaning of this wonderful season. That’s where Wandering Wisemen come in! This interactive activity was created for you to use the Nativity set you already have at home. The Wisemen are set around the house with a little bit of mischief to set the participants wondering what the Bible reading passage that day might have to do with the birth of Jesus. There are printable ornaments and journal pages to use as you please. It is compatible with home or classroom. My hope is that adults and children alike will be challenged each day to ponder anew the indescribable Gift we focus on this time of year.
Foundations
thoughts on the gift of childhood
November 8 2023
I did it! I finally posted my first and favorite teaching tool created out of my own frustrations while in the classroom. As I was tweaking it to share with all of you I realized what a helpful tool it could also be for my dear homeschool and micro-schooling friends out there!
These NOW WHAT choice boards were created specifically to teach students independence and creativity as well as reinforce ELA, math and number sense. They truly are a print and go product prepared for you to have peace of mind that your students will be working on enriching activities and not just busy work. Try a FREE month to see how these activities can change the whole tone of your classroom as it did mine. Enjoy!
Foundations
thoughts on the gift of childhood
peggy, if you’re out there...
November 1, 2023
One day, about age 5 or 6 I was playing with my new neighbor, Peggy. I was freshly home from Sunday School and thinking about what the teacher had taught us about Jesus being with us all the time and how He never leaves us even when we play!
I shared this newfound joy with my sweet friend and she, in childlike manner, accepted this news with absolute confidence. So we invited Him, the King of the Universe to come with us to build a fort on the front porch. “Come on, Jesus! Let’s get some blankets!” Oh, the faith of a child!
As my heart reminisces I can’t help but wonder...
Peggy, if you’re out there, I pray you are still walking with our King in the same certainty as that fort-building day. Your confidence laid a foundation for me all these years later to trust as you did. For such is the Kingdom of Heaven!
Let’s Connect
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