The Whole Individual
Honor Code
We believe students want to be trusted and therefore, our focus is forming a community of trust. Our community of trust is founded on individual responsibility, respect, accountability, honesty and integrity, the pillars of the Academy's honor code. As such, Ideaventions Academy, has an Honor Code that all students entering the academy must sign. Students of Ideaventions Academy pledge to not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do.
Physical Education
The goal for physical education is to provide an outlet for physical movement, an opportunity to learn and practice sportsmanship and game play, and for students to learn what method of physical activity is best for him or herself. Physical education is required every year.
Nature Studies
Experiencing nature and its wonders is best done by being in nature. Students will have an opportunity to go on nature walks five days during the week before the start of their academic day, weather permitting, so that they can take a few moments during their busy week to appreciate our natural surroundings, connect with the world around them, observe the seasons, explore the flora and fauna of our local area and get the wiggles out. Nature Studies is required every year.
Keyboarding
Learning to keyboard is a critical skill for children. The earlier they learn this skill, the more quickly they can effectively interact with technology and compose on computers. We want them to be fluent in keyboarding to allow them to focus on the content of their work and not the process of typing. All incoming students will take a keyboarding assessment and will receive keyboarding instruction as needed to become proficient. We use Typing.com for our keyboarding curriculum.
Foreign Languages
We believe students should have the option to learn a foreign language. Our students voted and selected French and Spanish. The curriculum used is play-based, immersion learning, developed by Language Stars and modified to fit with Ideaventions Academy's teaching philosophy around quizzes and homework.
Current Events
Sometimes we are so insulated in our every day lives that we forget to lift our heads and notice what is happening around us. Current Events will use periodicals to review and discuss national and world events, then relate those events to our classes and work. Current Events is part of the Humanities and Science curricula.
Community Service
We are all members of a community. Each semester (or year), students will choose the project or work that they want to undertake to help those less fortunate than they are. They will be able to work individually or in groups. Community Service is required for all three years. In 2015-2016, we partnered with the Northern Virginia Family Service Head Start to engineer STEM learning toys that preschoolers can use in their classrooms.
Social and Emotional Development
Time for social interactions with peers is an important part of their social and emotional development. Interactions between students and faculty will be based on mutual trust and respect. Our day is designed with times (lunch, recess, and breaks) where students will be able to enjoy eating outdoors, socializing with friends or playing outdoors. We also learn how to be social members of a community and about ourselves and our emotions. We have partnered the Center for Emotional Health to help all of our students learn about our emotions, as well as the physiological effects of stress and anxiety and methods for managing stress and anxiety in our lives. We use the curriculum, Social Thinking, to learn how to work with our peers in group situations. Lastly, we recognize that our children are growing up in the 21st century and we learn how to be safe online - Common Sense Media.
Experiential Learning
We live in an area rich in history, the arts, culture, food and technology. Students will take one field trip each month. The trips will connect to our classes and will enrich a topic being studied. Once per year, students will take a longer one-week trip, during the school year that is within driving distance. At the end of the school year, our students will have the option of taking a longer one to two week trip that enhances a class or topic studied during the year. The longer trip may be overseas to study medieval castles or to a national park to study geologic formations and ecology.
Activity Period
We believe students want to be trusted and therefore, our focus is forming a community of trust. Our community of trust is founded on individual responsibility, respect, accountability, honesty and integrity, the pillars of the Academy's honor code. As such, Ideaventions Academy, has an Honor Code that all students entering the academy must sign. Students of Ideaventions Academy pledge to not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do.
Physical Education
The goal for physical education is to provide an outlet for physical movement, an opportunity to learn and practice sportsmanship and game play, and for students to learn what method of physical activity is best for him or herself. Physical education is required every year.
Nature Studies
Experiencing nature and its wonders is best done by being in nature. Students will have an opportunity to go on nature walks five days during the week before the start of their academic day, weather permitting, so that they can take a few moments during their busy week to appreciate our natural surroundings, connect with the world around them, observe the seasons, explore the flora and fauna of our local area and get the wiggles out. Nature Studies is required every year.
Keyboarding
Learning to keyboard is a critical skill for children. The earlier they learn this skill, the more quickly they can effectively interact with technology and compose on computers. We want them to be fluent in keyboarding to allow them to focus on the content of their work and not the process of typing. All incoming students will take a keyboarding assessment and will receive keyboarding instruction as needed to become proficient. We use Typing.com for our keyboarding curriculum.
Foreign Languages
We believe students should have the option to learn a foreign language. Our students voted and selected French and Spanish. The curriculum used is play-based, immersion learning, developed by Language Stars and modified to fit with Ideaventions Academy's teaching philosophy around quizzes and homework.
Current Events
Sometimes we are so insulated in our every day lives that we forget to lift our heads and notice what is happening around us. Current Events will use periodicals to review and discuss national and world events, then relate those events to our classes and work. Current Events is part of the Humanities and Science curricula.
Community Service
We are all members of a community. Each semester (or year), students will choose the project or work that they want to undertake to help those less fortunate than they are. They will be able to work individually or in groups. Community Service is required for all three years. In 2015-2016, we partnered with the Northern Virginia Family Service Head Start to engineer STEM learning toys that preschoolers can use in their classrooms.
Social and Emotional Development
Time for social interactions with peers is an important part of their social and emotional development. Interactions between students and faculty will be based on mutual trust and respect. Our day is designed with times (lunch, recess, and breaks) where students will be able to enjoy eating outdoors, socializing with friends or playing outdoors. We also learn how to be social members of a community and about ourselves and our emotions. We have partnered the Center for Emotional Health to help all of our students learn about our emotions, as well as the physiological effects of stress and anxiety and methods for managing stress and anxiety in our lives. We use the curriculum, Social Thinking, to learn how to work with our peers in group situations. Lastly, we recognize that our children are growing up in the 21st century and we learn how to be safe online - Common Sense Media.
Experiential Learning
We live in an area rich in history, the arts, culture, food and technology. Students will take one field trip each month. The trips will connect to our classes and will enrich a topic being studied. Once per year, students will take a longer one-week trip, during the school year that is within driving distance. At the end of the school year, our students will have the option of taking a longer one to two week trip that enhances a class or topic studied during the year. The longer trip may be overseas to study medieval castles or to a national park to study geologic formations and ecology.
Activity Period
- Clubs: Ideaventions Academy will support a diverse set of student-led, teacher-sponsored activity-period clubs. The specific clubs are determined by the students, and include Minecraft, Sports, Cooking, Card and Board Game, LEGO FIRST, Inventors, Naturalist, Art, and SciMaMu (Science, Math, Music).
- Office Hours: We want all of our students to be successful and love coming to school. Being lost in a subject, not understanding a particular topic, missing one class because of illness can lead to a downward spiral in a subject if not caught early. Every teacher has scheduled office hours from 4:05 pm - 5:15 pm on a given of the week. This provides students set times to get extra help in a subject, more time on a project, or mentoring.
