August, Welcome Parties for Students.
Sept, Welcome Party for You!

At Aim Academy, we want every homeschool year to be better than the year before for your family! After what we all endured last year, what better way to kick-off 2021-2022 than with hoopla and celebration! 🎉🎊🎉 (Somebody's learned how to use emojis.)

🎈Our Welcome Parties for registered (and registering soon) students and parents will include prizes, contests, scavenger hunts, ice-breakers, prizes, get-to-know-you activities, wholesome fun, and prizes. Be sure to register your student(s) now so we can prepare.🎈 And did we mention prizes?

Elementary Welcome Party: Aug. 11 @ 3 PM ET. Register here.

Middle School Welcome Party: Aug 10 @ 7 PM ET. Register here.

High School Welcome Party: Aug 5 @ 3 PM ET. Register here.

Parent Welcome Party: Sept 9 @ 2 PM ET. Register here.

Whose got a brand new pair of roller skates? Meet . . .

Farrar Williams

Hey Farrar! We are sure glad to have you join our faculty! You have so much experience and creativity, we can't wait for Aim students to learn under your tutelage! 

Question for you: What are you most excited to do/study with your students in the History of Africa and Asia?

A.  I love reading books that kids don't usually get to read in history classes and that's a big focus of my African and Asian History class. Obviously, Trevor Noah's memoir is a really fun read with kids. They're too young to remember the anti-Apartheid movement and many have never heard of Nelson Mandela, so it's all new information to them. But Noah brings everything to life so well and connects South Africa's past with its present with such storytelling skill.

But I think my favorite book in the class is actually The Ocean of Churn in the India unit. Kids always get fascinated by the tales of pirates and kidnappings across the Indian Ocean. It's such a lively history book with a different perspective. The author, Sanjeev Sanyal, asks us to imagine how we would tell the story of history differently if we focused on the water instead of the land. Indeed, it changes so much! 

​Q. What do your students enjoy most about Secret Codes and Mysteries?

​A.  I run an ongoing puzzles and codes contest when I teach Secret Codes classes. Some kids always go crazy for it and have to solve every puzzle and code, even though a few are really hard and they're only required to attempt them, not actually find every answer. Obviously we decrypt a lot of codes, which is like solving cryptoquotes. But we do other things as well, like math and language puzzles. I do a book code where kids have to look in books to figure out the puzzle. At the end of class, I always send a prize to the winner. Of course, the prize involves more puzzles! A good puzzle solver deserves more!

Q. What are you getting back to now that the pandemic is (we sure hope!) over?

A. One of my best friends and I just got matching roller skates together. They're absolutely beautiful black roller skates with yellow wheels and little rainbows on the sides. I'm thinking of accessorizing mine with pom poms for the tops. After years of ripping up the ball bearings in our old sneaker style skates on the pavement of parking lots, we decided that if we were going to take our roller skate game to the next level, we needed pretty new skates with better wheels. On our first outing, we went to a big outdoor festival where professionals were teaching skate dancing lessons. I looked like a complete fool, but it was so much fun to be back skating. One of the things I love about roller skating is that whenever we go to a rink, there's always this crazy array of people doing it from little kids to grandparents to everyone in between.

Parent Reviews

“My daughter loved taking an Asian and African history course with Farrar Williams. The curriculum is a great mix of history monographs, maps, and primary sources that places Africa, Asia, and India at the center of study.  Farrar is an engaging and knowledgeable teacher who knows how to help young writers develop. My daughter gained a comprehensive understanding of complicated history, while growing as a writer and having fun.” – Helen D.

“My 7th grade son took Puzzles and Codes taught by Farrar and it’s been a fantastic experience. He’s a kid who doesn’t like a lot of school and typically doesn’t like anything that seems schoolish even if it’s a topic he likes. But he’s totally gotten into the class. It’s also been a nice gentle first online class. The work is interesting and challenging but not so much that it’s overwhelming. I think he likes the independence of doing it on his own.” – Alice