Busy as bees!
Happy first day of June, dear ones!
In anticipation of the great feast, I also wish you a Blessed Pentecost! Heavenly King’s feast day is this coming Monday when we celebrate the day of the Holy Spirit, so please continue to keep us in your prayers. By those prayers, HKOA is thriving and well.
Since our last full update (in October?! How can time have flown so quickly!) we have been quiet here but only because we have been as busy as bees, with all sorts of planning and activities, which I’ll tell you all about today. I hope I remember everything!
We have been meeting every other Tuesday at St George Orthodox Church for our homeschooling co-op. We currently have five regularly attending families (from four different parishes!), with a few more families that come and go as it suits their schedule. The children who participate range from four years old to thirteen, although we do have some sweet babes and toddlers who bless us with their presence as well. Here’s a typical day at our co-op for you, so that you have a better idea of what we do:
10:00 am – Meet at St George Orthodox Church at 121 Harvard Avenue.
10:15 am – Gather in the church for prayer and a short scripture reading.
10:30 am – Move to the classrooms for a faith lesson. This year we used the Growing with God series developed by the GOA, adapted for use with multiple ages.
11:00 am – Craft time! We try to choose a craft that fits with our lesson or with a nearby feast day. This past Tuesday we spoke about the use of mandorlas in iconography, so we crafted our own mandorlas with construction paper, markers and gem stickers and the children did such a beautiful job!
11:30 am – Our parent volunteer Ms Natalia leads the children in some fun physical activity to get their hearts pumping. The sounds of laughter lift my own heart and spirit each time!
12:00 pm – All of the families bring a bagged lunch and we share a fellowship meal together, followed by a clean-up session.
1:00 pm – Home time!
The HKOA families have also been meeting up outside of our regular co-op for field trips to museums, theatres, and the Mint, to name a few. In June, we have the following field trips planned, and anyone interested is welcome to join:
- Tuesday, June 6th at 10am: Oak Hammock Marsh
- Tuesday, June 13th at 10am: Winnipeg Zoo
- Friday, June 30th at 10am: Morningsound Farm (this requires pre-registration at admin@heavenlykingacademy.ca)
I want to encourage anyone who is curious about the HKOA co-op, or homeschooling in general, to come and see. It is a truly wonderful group of families and children, and I always leave feeling encouraged and refreshed. Please mark your calendars, because we are having a special HKOA meet-up at St George Orthodox Church on Saturday, June 24th from 1-3pm for all of our current and prospective members. Even if your children are very little and you are curious about the co-op as an option for the future, I encourage you to come down and meet with us and ask as many questions as you like! Even if you don’t have any intention of joining the co-op, but have young children who you would love to connect with other young Orthodox children, please join us! We’ll have some fun activities planned. Last but not least, even if you don’t have children, or your children have aged out of the co-op, but you fully support the vision of HKOA, we want to meet you! Please, come see us on the 24th.
Speaking of our vision, we had a productive Annual Member’s meeting at the beginning of March, where we spoke about our short and long term goals for Heavenly King. I could go on and on about this vision, but I’ll give our “elevator speech” here.
- Our immediate plans are to continue with the homeschooling co-op which has been a gift to the pan-Orthodox community in Winnipeg. The bi-weekly meetings will pause over the summer, but will start up again in September.
- We are actively working on an exciting speaker’s series for the adult members of HKOA, and the broader pan-Orthodox community. We have some pretty big names in mind, so stay tuned!
- Our five year plan is to raise enough funds to be financially able to operate a “cottage school” model alongside our homeschooling co-op. A cottage school typically has in-class instruction two or three days a week, with the remainder of the schooling happening inside the home. This is a beautiful hybrid model of education that truly offers the best of both family-led and community-based schooling. We will continue to gauge what the pan-Orthodox community needs from HKOA and will respond accordingly, offering more classes and more instructional days if necessary, up to and including a full-time day school. May the Lord bless!
And…drum roll please… we officially received our charitable status!!! Glory to God! This will allow us to issue tax receipts for donations, which we know makes it a lot easier for many to contribute. We do have a “donate” button on our website, heavenlykingacademy.ca, and we are working on getting linked to Canada Helps, which will allow those interested to sign up for monthly as well as one-time donations.
Golly, if you’ve made it this far into the newsletter, you deserve a prize! Thank you! This is what I get for not updating you more regularly. My plan is to issue these newsletters on a seasonal basis, and to continue posting pictures on our Instagram and FB pages. For those not on social media who would like more frequent updates, please send me your address and I can add you to the emails I send to the HKOA families. This will give you a better idea of what’s happening in our lessons and will give you the heads up about upcoming field trips, etc.
That’s all for now! Thanks as always for your continued love and support.
With love in Christ,
Elissa and the HKOA Team
