To see Celebration Education's webpage and read about their vision and dreams for what their school could look like, click the logo below:
Heather Martinson, a homeschooling mom, started Celebration Education as a single class in Yucaipa, California in 2006. Now Celebration Education's classes are taking place in multiple satellite locations in California, two theme parks in L.A., and through online groups.
We provide adventure which inspires creativity and leads to possibility.
Celebration Education was begun in order to provide group learning experiences for homeschoolers as well as an alternative learning environment for mainstream education families looking for something different. It is a theme-based program run on a weekly schedule: Mondays are intended to be a teacher-led day with activities and lessons; the rest of the week revolves around individual projects, field trips, online courses, cooking, and sharing. Lessons and activities are written and planned by Heather Martinson and then implemented by various teachers and volunteers at various locations. Parents can also buy and use the program from home. Families may opt to attend anywhere from one to five days a week with a monthly commitment. There are also trips and special events which may be signed up for on an individual cost basis.
That is Celebration Education in theory. In actuality the program looks somewhat different. I visited the Silverado School location, led by Windi Ecklund (who graciously allowed me to stay overnight at her family's house). Here, Celebration is run out of Silverado Children's Center - a space jointly used by CE, a preschool, and an after-school program. Lessons and activities are run on Mondays, but, since the children are mostly homeschoolers who attend sporadically, schedules and events evolve loosely, based on attendance. I visited on a cooking day and on a lesson day. Different children were present at each - for some it was a one-time visit; others were regulars. Windi found the changing attendance somewhat challenging. The children seemed to be most engaged when they were given activities with creative freedom (writing and performing a play) or hands-on (cooking), and were less interested with the teacher-led activities to 'pique their interest' in the theme. Many students participate in the creative Minecraft history lessons from home - one of the Celebration satellite groups is also based on the Minecraft theme and meets at Knotts' Berry Farm for group activities.
Minecraft...gaming and education
Celebration Education offers courses using the popular Minecraft online survival and building game, with weekly moderator-led activities and collaborative educational challenges. Students may also log onto the private server on their own time to work on independent projects, play survival, work on a creative world, or just hang out.
Two of CE's popular Minecraft courses are... - Crafting a Country: American History on Minecraft:
- S.T.E.A.M. World:
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One mother gives all the FAQs on Minecraft, how it works, what it's like to play...
Randy Fujimoto set out to create a workshop to teach high school and middle school students about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.
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A typical Celebration Education Program Week at Silverardo Children's Center would run like this:
Monday:
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The following is an article by Heather Martinson, founder of Celebration Education, on learning and schooling...a basic primer of the ideas held by those who prefer untraditional schooling, or who envision a new way of designing education in our schools: