A School Like No Other

Info Session Tonight!

Looking for Families in Montgomery County, MD!

We have some prospective parents in Montgomery County.  We are wondering if there are any other parents in the Northern Maryland area (Rockville, Bethesda, Gaithersburg, Germantown, etc.) who would be interested in a Christian school like The Living Water School and Homeschool Center. We are looking at busing student to and from the school. There would be one pick up and drop off point in Rockville. Interested families please contact us.

Just WOW.

Info Session MONDAY!!

Check Out the Homeschool Center!

50% OFF Yearly Tuition SALE!

A Small Price to Pay for FREEDOM

The Living Water School & Homeschool Center theme verse is 2 Cor. 3:17 "For the Lord is a Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom." This is not just about the free way we allow our kids to learn, but it's about the entire vision of the school and the Homeschool Center. The school gives the students freedom to learn however God has created them to learn. The Homeschool Center gives the parent freedom to design their child's educational path. The whole vision is to provide FREEDOM from an institution, some unknown teacher, the political agenda and to give freedom to the parent and child to design their educational path. Tuition is now 50% off until Wednesday! 

Our Next Info Sessions!!

We are having a special info session for the homeschool community tonight at 7 pm!  Please RSVP to let us know if you are coming!  Our next general info session is on Wednesday at 7 pm!  Tuition is still 50% off until Wednesday!

50% OFF Tuition Sale!!

The sale ends Wednesday, July 15 and is for a limited number.  Once we reach a certain number, then we will end the sale (even if it's before July 15).  So don't delay!

The First Sudbury Students: Abe and Fred

Abraham Lincoln went to school when he was 6, 7, 11, 13, and 15 years old.  In fact all of the time he went to school in his life did not add up to one year. Yet he became the president of the United States, wrote the Emancipation Proclomation, ended slavery, and made a major impact on America.  Frederick Douglass NEVER went to school and yet wrote his own autobiography, was an active abolitionist, founded and ran his own newspaper (The North Star), and served as a statesman.  How is that?  Because they both had a desire to achieve their purpose and to enlist whatever skills they needed to get there.

It is said that Abraham Lincoln was so poor that he could not afford paper when he was a child, so he would sit by the fire place at night and practice his lessons using his finger to write through the dirt on a shovel.  Frederick Douglass used to piece together the broken pieces of wood scattered around the shipyard (where he worked) in order to form letters.  Both of these men give a striking example of how Sudbury works.  Sudbury believes that as a bird flies, a person will think and learn.  It is natural.  We were created to think.  Sudbury also believes that because learning is such a natural instinct that it does not have to be forced.  A person...a child will observe the world around them, and desire to learn what they need in order to reach their goals.

I use these two men as an example, because they were poor...and one was a slave who could lose his life for teaching himself to read.  They wanted something...they wanted to go somewhere, so they did
whatever they needed to do in order to achieve.  It had nothing to do with their socioeconomic status, their family background or their race.  Abraham Lincoln's mom died when he was young and he was very poor.  Frederick Douglass really had NO family at all and was a slave.  Both of them put into practice what Sudbury believes and did what their instinct told them to do.  They learned and gleaned the information they needed to reach their goals.

Children of today can be trusted to achieve the same thing and within a Sudbury school...this nurturing, free space, a child should be able to thrive even more than Abraham Lincoln or Frederick Douglass.  Children of today do not have the hard times that these men had to face and yet even if they did, these men show us that it can be done.

When a person first hears about the Sudbury method, there is this phase of disbelief.  "What?  No classes?  No grades?  No structure? Well how will they learn and how willl we know they learned?" But the greatest assessment of learning is application.  When you see a child take knowledge and then use it to reach their goals, I would say that is evidence that learning has taken place.  No, there may not be the graded homework or the test with an A+, but their lives will be their portfolio of greatness. Just look at Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.  These two self-educated men accomplished so much, even without a teacher, even with all of the obstacles. I wonder if it's because they were driven from within themselves to reach their goals?

Next Info Session!

Seed

Seed

By Anika T. Prather, Founder

All that is good starts with a seed.

A mango so sweet

Seed planted deep

In the ground

Sprouting upward into a tree

There the mango is found.

All that is good starts with a seed

A baby so sweet

Seed planted deep

In the womb

Sprouting inward into a being

Until one day in the world it blooms

All that is good starts with a seed

A vision so sweet

Seed planted deep

In the soul

Sprouting downward the roots creep

Until they anchor and take hold

All that is good starts with a seed

A school so sweet

Seed planted deep

In the mind

Sprouting outward into the dream

Made real by God most high

All that is good starts with a seed

A child so sweet

Seed of knowledge planted deep

In their brain

Sprouting  all around for all to see

Watered and nurtured by this school and God’s rain

Why A Homeschool Center

Some may ask why we would include The Homeschool Center in our program?  Well, in this journey of starting the school, we have found that the biggest dilemma with parents is their desire to bring them out of public school, but being unable to afford private school AND their full time job keeping them from homeschooling.

The underlying premise of the Sudbury Model is for students to learn to be responsible and to make their own decisions.  If a parent is not able to send their child to our school or any other private school, then the parent should have another option.  Within that option, the student is going to have to be responsible for planning their day to accomplish the tasks the parent has assigned for them.  They will also have the opportunity to participate in our school meetings and to enjoy a lot of the freedom our school offers.  The Homeschool Center is our way of meeting the needs of parents and also giving the student the opportunity to experience a Sudbury way of life.

Parents who enroll their children in The Homeschool Center can follow any educational philosophy (traditional or unschooling) but they must be sure to help their child understand that they also will have to take responsibility for their learning. We are there to keep them safe.  We are there to support them completing their assignments, but we will also encourage them to plan their day so that they can reach their goals and to take responsibility if they are not able to.  Parents must understand that our goal is to develop highly curious, responsible, and independent individuals.  Even though they are following the parent's educational plan, within our campus we will still seek to have these attributes develop in each student, whether they are in the school or The Homeschool Center.

Thoughts on Preschool

Our desire to start a preschool program came from our own experience with our own young children.  They range in ages 1 to 5.  Our two youngest children are learning so much from their older brother.  We don't have to force it.  In fact they know more at the ages of 1 and 3 then their brother did.  He was the only child for a minute and his learning was done without the influence of other siblings.  My daughter has learned to sit and eat at the table at just 1 year old and my oldest son could not do that until he was 2. She's already showing early signs of becoming potty trained.  I don't think she is gifted, she just has 2 older siblings that she is rapidly learning from. My two youngest children will sit still and browse through a book even though they cannot read yet.  All this I believe is because they watch their older brother do it.  I could go on and on with this.  Our desire for creating the Play Room was to give other parents a chance to experience their child learning in the natural way.  It puzzled me that once parents came to the  info session about the Play Room, they quickly lost interest.  I found that they wanted to make sure they learned their letters, colors and numbers.  They wanted tradition.  They were afraid to trust the freedom.  I explained this to a friend who shares many of my views on education and her thoughts were so enlightening.  She said, "Well wait until they get into the school system.  They haven't been burned yet."  That's so deep.  I refuse to let my kids "get burned".  I will be starting their learning process in this way early.  So if you come to The Living Water School, you will see a 1 year old and a 3 year old tagging along with mommy, because I want to encourage their rapidly growing curiosity.  Oh by the way, my 1 year old already knows the color red.  Why?  Because the table where they eat their snacks is red and we call it the red table.  If I say, "Day, go to the red table." She does not go to the kitchen table or the brown kiddie table.  She sits at the red table, although the other tables are nearby.  I never once taught her the color red.