Online Learning Resources

Committed to providing quality educational choices, HCOS subscribes to a number of online learning resources. Below is a short description of the many educational resources available to our students this year.

United Streaming

Heritage Christian Online School is offering students a subscription to United Streaming at no cost.  This online video library contains more than 5,000 full length educational videos.  It has Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Magic Schoolbus, Bill Nye, and much, much more.  You can search through the library easily to find what you’re looking for.  This is a great supplement to every student’s education.  There are videos covering a huge variety of topics in arts and music, science, language arts, health, and social studies from grades K through 12.   Check out www.unitedstreaming.com for more information.  If you would like a subscription please email your teacher for sign-up information.

Encyclopedia Britannica

http://newsletter.onlineschool.ca/archive/images/eb.gifWe have now subscribed all of our students and families with the Encyclopedia Britannica- Online. Please contact your support teacher for your login and password.

Enchanted Learning

All HCOS students and families have access to Enchanted Learning, a safe, family friendly educational site with over 20,000 pages of resources! Please contact your support teacher for your login and password.

netTrekker

A safe educational search engine is now available from HCOS through netTrekker. This trusted search engine provides peace of mind to families as their child searches the net for online resources. The search engine is organized by readability and grade level and is even aligned to the provincial outcomes. Contact your support teacher for a username and password.

Town-to-Town Canada

HCOS’ subscription with “Town-to-Town Canada” provides middle and high school students with information on Canadian civic and public affairs. It link students to web sites “relating to government, law, education, social economics, current events, public policy, and living and culture.”  Please contact your support teacher for a username and password.

WHAT IN THE WORLD?

WHAT IN THE WORLD? is a Canadian current events resource covering events and issues with geography. It is designed for students in the intermediate grades and is available in English and French. Contact your support teacher to request monthly links and passwords which will connect you to each new issue. 

TeachingBooks

Explore award winning youth books and their authors. HCOS provides you with access to thousands of resources and multimedia programs through its online subscription with TeachingBooks. Short movies, audio book readings, and book discussion guides are some of the rich learning resources available through this subscription. Contact your support teacher for a username and password.

YourTeacher

YourTeacher.com is an online multimedia math resource for Middle and High school students. Each lesson includes video examples, interactive practice, and self tests. Through HCOS school subscription you will receive a year’s access to Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Geometry, or Algebra 2 for only $25. Please contact your support teacher to receive a personal username and password, and arrange payment from your curriculum budget.

“Reading A to Z” and “Writing A to Z”

Finding reading and writing learning resources is now just a click away! HCOS is offering access to “Reading A to Z” and “Writing A to Z” resources at a discounted price. “Reading A to Z” has thousands of printable learning resources that support guided reading, phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, reading fluency, and alphabet and vocabulary learning. These professionally developed resources included downloadable ‘levelled’ books, lesson plans, worksheets, and reading assessment material. The “Writing A to Z” site provides hundreds of downloadable writing resources which include “core writing lessons grouped by genre and text type; mini-lessons targeting key writing skills; and writing tools for organizing and improving writing.” The resources are designed for K-6 learning level. These resources will save you time and money as you search for a resource specific to your child’s reading and writing ability. Through HCOS school subscription you will receive a year’s access to these excellent resources for only $25 each. Please contact your support teacher to arrange payment from your curriculum budget and to receive a username and password.

Volume 3 - Edition 2 - September 2006

Telling the Big Story

by Greg Bitgood

In our training time in August we brought together over 80 teachers who are working with us in our field of discipleship called Heritage Christian Schools. We brought in Ian Coddling, a Christian School consultant and former BC principal. Ian, through his very enthusiastic presentation, reminded us of why we are doing what we do. In a nutshell, he pointed us back to the importance of telling the “big story” over and over again in everything we do as educators. He reminded us that the greatest thing we can give our students when they finally graduate from our school or leave our homes is to see them firmly grounded in their place in the big story.

I have always been an advocate of Biblical Integration in everything we do as teachers and home educators. I have begun working on a book about this called All Truth is God’s Truth and require all of our teaching staff to read it. But Ian’s presentation reminded me of the importance of the broader perspective for our students. They won’t remember every verse of scripture or every point of integration in science or socials studies. What they will have, after thirteen years of schooling, is the comprehensive view of the world, or lack thereof, which was or was not constantly portrayed in their learning. What my aforementioned paper lacked was the idea of a comprehensive story of life that takes into it all of the disciplines of schooling and life itself.

...read more

Welcome to a New School Year!

by Sarah Bennett

This is going to be a great year!  We had our teacher training week during the last week of August and I was so impressed by the amazing teachers we have working with us.  They have really embraced the HCOS philosophy of supporting and encouraging homeschool families.  At HCOS we firmly believe in Quality Educational Choices with Christian Values.  Offering choices and flexibility has been important to us from the very beginning.  We know that no two homeschool families look the same so we try our best to adapt to the needs of each and every individual family.  Our teachers are trained specifically to understand the differences between classroom teaching and home learning.  During training they learn about multi-age teaching, homeschooling curriculum, and various philosophies of home education.  Many of our teachers homeschool their own children and that has really made a huge difference in our training sessions.  We also have our teachers attend the BC Christian Home Educators’ Convention where they attend workshops and browse the vendor hall. 

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Moving upward and onward

by Dan Knorr

A new year always brings new adventures. New grade levels, new classes, new friends, new events and the list seem to continue especially in the busy month of September. I myself have found that this month carries a heavy punch as various youth programs, school events, and personal things start at a running speed. Moving forward can often be busy, and overwhelming. It can cause high levels of stress and allow fears to corrupt our mind if we are not careful or it can be a glorious adventure filled with the glory of God!

Before I start preaching a full sermon here, let me introduce myself. My name is Pastor Dan and I am the chaplain for HCS, HCOS, and Kelowna Christian Center. I have no greater joy then interrupting people’s busy lives, pushing through the stress, the fear, and allowing people to have a moment where they experience Jesus Christ. I believe that our Heavenly Father desires to interrupt our busy lives with a gentle flood of his presence. I think He is waiting for us to slow down so that this September he can begin some new things in us not just us beginning new things. If we begin to take the time to seek God daily, and allow for Him to bring us life and refresh our entire being: body, mind and spirit He will be faithful to do so.

 

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FSA Tests

by Janet Rainbow

You may wonder what is going on with Janet. Is she overworked or maybe not working hard enough that she is bringing up FSA testing now? There are more important things to think about right now than some government test that is not scheduled to happen until May. Why is she not giving us some help with those SLP’s? Or better yet she could be informing us of a perfect curriculum for our struggling child, after all she is the Administrator in charge of special needs. Actually, I am writing about FSA’s now so that every parent with a student in grade 4 and 7 is aware of the following information.

Some of you out there may have no idea what I am talking about when I mention FSA tests. Let me explain. Fundamental skills assessment tests or FSA’s are government survey tests that tract how well BC students in grades 4 and 7 are able to read, write and do math. Basically, they are looking at two main things. One – how well school districts or each independent school is doing with the rest of the population in BC. Two – how successfully the PLO’s are being met. These tests used to also be given to the grade 10’s. It was partially, due to the findings on these tests that the government rewrote the grade 10 math PLO’s. They are not interested in how each individual student does only in the average. These tests are usually written over 3 days from about May 8 to May 19 th.

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HCOS IN THE NEWS!! BCTF raises objections to Christian online courses

By Jim Coggins

THE BC Teachers Federation has publicly expressed concerns about a BC Christian school that is offering online courses taught from a Christian perspective to public high school students.

The concerns were first raised by BCTF researcher Larry Kuehn in an interview on Vancouver's CKNW radio station September 7. They were repeated by BCTF president Jinny Sims in a September 12 interview on CBC radio's Early Edition.

Both were objecting to a letter sent in June by superintendent Greg Bitgood of Heritage Christian Schools of Kelowna to all school administrators and high schools, Christian and public, in the province. The letter offered Heritage's online courses, developed from what it termed a "Christian worldview," as an alternative to the regular school fare.

In the last three years, Heritage has developed a full set of curricula for grades 10 - 12 and has become the largest provider of "distributed learning" in the province, with over 900 full-time students registered. The courses are administered through Heritage's website.

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Our Schools are Growing!!

by Greg Bitgood

The school year has started with both our schools are continuing to grow at an amazing rate. Our campus school has reached a five year goal we set four years ago with 9% growth going from 315 students to 345. One very encouraging trend has been the many high school students who are continuing with us through to graduation. For the first time we have a larger enrollment in our Secondary than we do in our Elementary. Our school recently has been honoured by the Fraiser Institute for Elementary Academic Improvement.

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HCOS Presents the 2006-2007

Students and parents – Join together to memorize from Philippians!  Do you know that by memorizing 3 verses a week, you can have the book of Philippians memorized in only 35 weeks?  Every student (parent and staff) can meet the challenge to memorize verses from Philippians this year!  You can choose to memorize selected verses (at 1 verse per week) or Chapters 1, 2 and part of chapter 3 (at 2 verses per week) or the book of Philippians (3 verses per week) or Philippians and other selected verses (4 or more verse per week).  You will need to say all of your verses in one sitting with a maximum of 5 prompts to qualify for a certificate – so review, review, review as you go along! 

Ready?

Decide to be part of this :

  1. Let your teacher know your decision so that you are on the master ‘Philippians Challenge’ list. 
  2. Choose if you are going to aim for 1, 2, 3, 4 or more verses per week for the school year and print off the chart to track your memorizing.
  3. Choose your translation – please choose a translation, not a paraphrase (NIV, KJV, NKJV, NASB are recommended).
  4. Start memorizing.  Don’t limit yourself to 3 per week, if you want to do more – go for it!  Plan to review your verses, so that you remember them for life, and so you can say them all at the end of the year. 
  5. Let your teacher know each month how you are doing.
  6. Watch for the newsletter to see how much our school has memorized!

All students who achieve their goal in memorization receive a certificate and will be entered into draws for their category for a chance to win the following prizes:

  • 35 verses – Book
  • 70 verses – Discman
  • Philippians – MP3 Player
  • 4 or more verses per week – iPod

If anyone would like to donate prizes, we will add them to this list.  Parents who memorize Philippians will be entered into a draw for $50 curriculum gift certificate. 

Join the now!