Family Stories
Some of our families have kindly shared their experience of what it is like to attend Island Discovery, either in a blended program or full time home learning.
IDLC has had a huge positive impact on both my children.
I’ve watched both of them grow in learning, but more importantly, in confidence and in leadership. The resources are great, the community members are wonderful and really helpful. The teachers allow and nurture the natural wonder and curiosity in the children and it’s a beautiful thing. I recommend IDLC to any parent who is wanting more for their child or children.
The Melanio Family
Thank you IDLC for bringing out the best in our kids!
IDLC has been such a gift to my family. My kiddo is very active and doesn’t thrive in traditional brick and mortar environments. He is working towards a career that uses his strengths and has learned so much about his gifts and abilities while collaborating with his long term teacher, Cheryl, on his learning plan.
Their teacher/student relationship is invaluable and his relationship with peers in his blended learning/distributed learning cohort has ensured he has the social skills and friend attachments that he so needs in adolescence.
Not only have his unique academic needs been met, but he has been supported to study his interests and achieved his Canadian Ski Instructor Level 1 and 2 at the age of 15 as well as become nearly fluent in American Sign Language. He has a goal of entering the Douglas College Sign Language interpreter program which requires near fluency. Without IDLC, he simply would not have had the time or the opportunity to pursue his own learning and career development goals. The ski instructor program was over 9 full days of formal learning and testing in skiing and instructing plus many years of developing his skiing skill. The ASL learnings have been every semester for 3 years now with his deaf instructor.
In a brick and Mortar program in the past, he has really struggled and not felt good about himself or his abilities. He has unique needs and in a brick and mortar or entirely online program, his unique strengths and abilities would not have fit well and I worry he would not be able to reach his full potential. Thank you IDLC for bringing out the best in our kids!
The Wilson Family
I can’t imagine being with any other learning group.
IDLC has allowed us to homeschool to our childrens’ unique requirements. Amy (teacher) has been the most spectacular help for both easing worries and giving fantastic, unique ideas for learning. She is exactly as involved as we need her to be. Al and the entirety IDLC has been such a wonderful team, with clear expectations, communication, and an unwavering commitment to individual learning. I can’t imagine being with any other learning group.
Jess S.
We love IDLC.
All the staff are super helpful, kind and knowledgeable.
We like the laid back nature of the program and never feel that anyone is putting pressure on us. Which is a huge help when you are a homeschooling parent. We have been very happy with the program for the last 5 years and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to join the wonderful world of homeschooling.
The Baer Family
The IDLC community is a dream come true.
With IDLC, we get the best of both worlds: spending lots of time together as a family pursuing our interests, while also enjoying the benefits of a regular classroom experience, classmates, and teacher support.
What’s more, the IDLC community is a dream come true, with small and relaxed classes, gentle kids, engaged families, and loving, energetic, and creative teachers. We are so grateful to have found IDLC and can’t see ourselves anywhere else.
Anna P.
We have found a community of brilliant, thoughtful, highly-sensitive learners who have embraced our daughter as one of their own.
For many of the students, this program is the only place where they can find other kids like them and teachers who know how to work with them.
It is the first time she has ever felt truly herself in a school environment and all that at only two days a week that the DL program is permitted to run.
She is already extremely attached to her teacher, who has gone above and beyond, time after time, to make sure her learning needs are met.
That face-to-face engagement with an experienced educator who knows how to work with kids like this is the difference between her wanting to attend school and not wanting to attend school.
Cory K.
We love the enriching, warm environment that our daughter experienced during her Kindergarten to Grade 5 years at Island Discovery.
We believe that the close connections with the teachers and their true dedication to considering each individual student and their strengths gave so much to our child.
Our shy daughter has a self-assurance that she has carried with her to her new middle school experience and she is excelling
Katherine W.
My personal story of my experiences with Island Discovery and our two boys 9yrs and 11yrs old.
I have two active, creative boys. They love acting classes, coding, video games, outside play, board games, hands on learning and activities. Island Discovery has always supported my family’s unique way on which we homeschool.
Island Discovery supports my attachment-based philosophy on parenting and schooling. Our family enjoys projects. We often call ourselves, “Project-Based Homeschoolers.” My boys love hands-on activities like Tinker Crates to learn their sciences, art and socials. We have moved in and out of unschooling tendencies over the years. However, we always fall back on child led learning philosophy.
I believe in following my children’s lead, supporting their ideas and passions with resources and support. I believe in being my children’s facilitator, not a lecturer. I think children need to be supported and allowed time to discover, make mistakes, change their minds, create projects, make decisions, see those decisions fail, start again; all the while working alongside them.
Island Discovery has always allowed me to do this with my children. The teachers are very supportive of individual family needs and rhythms. Our learning is valued and the children’s choice-driven projects are accepted as deep work.
The teachers are flexible and will work within our needs and learning plan even if it looks different from the regular public curriculum. I teach based on the needs of my children. When they were into Minecraft, Island Discovery has helped by adding the educational Minecraft package within our program. My boys do well with Math online and playing board games instead of worksheets and this has been supported and accepted.
For instance, my son makes his own board games to demonstrate his learning, such as our Klondike Gold Rush game, Windmill Nature Resource game, Penguins Socials game etc. We submit photos and videos easily online with SeeSaw with no issues, offering comments and information on what we were learning about. Our teacher then comments or asks questions about it. My boys love sharing their accomplishments with the teacher.
We use hands-on experiments, outdoor exploration, and cooking for our sciences. Again, these have all been accepted and valued as real learning from our support teachers. The teacher accepts these as real learning plans and goals.
Island Discovery understands that homeschoolers do homeschooling for a reason; to bond with our children, to think outside the ‘norms’ and to truly value our children’s process and progress at their own pace, not mine.
They value the passion of our children and support our family’s unique ways in which we follow our children’s lead.
I highly recommend Island Discovery for future homeschoolers who want to feel supported in their unique family ways on which they homeschool.
The Minchau family