Blossom School House

We had our last day of the 2025/2026 school year today! We celebrated with a pizza party, ice cream sundaes, field day games, and played board games that some of the students have been busy making over the last few weeks. It was so much fun!

Looking forward to nine weeks of our summer program now, starting on Monday! The kids are really excited to start working on their animal dioramas, a project we do every June. 💕🦥🦫🦙🐺🐴

One of the most beloved activities we do here at Blossom has always been our baking! Looking ahead to the 2026/2027 school year, I’m excited to give the group Baking Challenges (anyone else’s kid a fan of The Great British Bake-Off like mine?)! Pre-teens are capable of doing a lot successfully on their own, and baking boosts their confidence so much! It will be a great way for the girls to learn to work and have fun together too. 😁🌸

Blossom’s summer program begins in less than two weeks! Here are a few of the activities we have planned for our first week:

* Designing covers and brainstorming plot outlines for our first comic/short stories of the summer
* Creating anthropomorphic animal characters for an RPG adventure in a woodland setting
* Starting our read-aloud of The Penderwicks and making book club journals
* Solving an escape room challenge
* Making chocolate-covered frozen bananas
* Planning layout and materials needed for animal habitat dioramas

I keep my group small (no more than seven students at a time) so kids can get to know one another and make lasting friendships. Our daily schedule includes plenty of outdoor play and creative project time. The summer program is for all ages and genders (currently I have mainly 5th-6th grade ages enrolled).

I am running a flash special this week: new families who sign up for at least 3 days (reserved or with my “punch card” drop-in system) get one free day! Message me today to learn more. 😊🌸

One of the new things I did here at Blossom for the 2025/2026 school year were choose-your-own adventure style games. Students have enjoyed them so much! We started with a wilderness survival experience earlier in the year. Now we’re exploring a fantastical world with strange creatures and plants! Over the summer, students will play as anthropomorphic animals completing quests in a magical forest. We will start the 2026/2027 school year with young witches heading out into the world to improve their skills!

In addition to being a ton of fun (for the kids and myself!), these adventures help practice writing, reading, math, science, map-reading, cooperation between teammates, critical thinking, and so much more! Their creativity in making maps of these imaginary worlds and writing their character journals is amazing to see. 🤩

We are wrapping up the 2025/2026 school year here at Blossom! Did you know that full-time students attending Blossom attend more school days during the year here than they would at their local public school? Efficient planning, a daily schedule that supports learning rather than causing student fatigue, and the small group (less distractions and pauses due to behavioral issues) all help students make impressive strides. For the core subjects (math, language arts, science, history, and geography), students spend about three hours per day focused on their work. This is broken up throughout the day with ample outdoor time, art, enough time to actually eat lunch at a reasonable pace, and other fun activities like Poetry Tea Time and monthly project work. My full-time students started at a 5th grade level in September, finished their curriculum last month, and jumped right into 6th grade level early! Most importantly, they love learning and feel supported in exploring what they are curious about. 😊🌸

Blossom’s summer program runs for a total of nine weeks, from June 1st to July 31st. I have the following spaces left for most weeks:

Mondays - 2 spots
Tuesdays - 2 spots
Wednesdays - 3 spots
Thursdays - 2 spots
Fridays - 2 spots

If you’d like to join us, you can reserve days/weeks of your choice with our traditional monthly tuition model. If you prefer more flexibility, you can purchase one of our new “punch cards” for a set number of days to use over the summer. Looking forward to a great summer! 😄🌸

Looking for flexible, drop-in style summer fun for your child? Inspired by one of my currently attending families, Blossom is now offering “punch card” style attendance for our summer program in June and July. You pre-pay for an agreed-upon number of days to attend over the nine weeks I run my program, and have flexibility on when to use them. For example, you could attend a Tuesday and Wednesday one week, then a Friday the next week. Skip weeks as needed when you’re out of town or have other plans. You can also reserve weeks if needed with my more traditionally monthly tuition model.

Our summer will be full of creative projects like animal dioramas and DIY garden pots, baking, an exciting RPG adventure campaign, splash pad/sprinkler time in our yard on hot days, novel read-alouds, escape room mysteries, comic book creation, and more!

I keep my group small with no more than seven kids at a time, which really helps the kids get to know one another and make strong friendships. If your child is ready for a magical summer, please reach out today! Picture is of my daughter in Hawaii years ago when she was just two, she’s almost 11 now and ready to make some new summer friends! 😊☀️🌸

Research shows that many girls experience a sharp drop in confidence around ages 10-12. Hormonal shifts, a growing awareness of society’s pressures, and an increased exposure to social media can all contribute to this. Here at Blossom, we focus on increasing confidence and connection!

* No tests or official grading encourages a growth mindset rather than comparison and shame; a student keeps working on something until they fully understand it

* Expressing emotions is encouraged and supported! A small, tight-knit group leads to close relationships where girls feel comfortable being themselves. There isn’t pressure to look or act a certain way, or the disrespectful “jokes” many girls deal with around this age about bras, periods, acne, etc.
* Social media-free environment: we are a screen-free school except for the occasional science or geography video (which I use a projector for, not individual devices). We also focus on authentic connection rather than the latest TikTok, memes, etc.

The pre-teen years don’t have to be lonely, uncomfortable, and stressful. They can be a beautiful time of change and growth for our girls. Picture this: cozy mornings learning core subjects with their friends at our local coffee shop. Fun afternoons creating characters for their latest adventure campaign. Baking Swedish almond cake for Poetry Tea Time. Birdwatching at Mt Tabor Park on a sunny day. Singing Taylor Swift (my daughter’s favorite!) and swinging at the playground. If your daughter is ready for a magical year, Blossom is here! 🌸💕

Our summer program begins in just five weeks! One of our most beloved projects that we do each June are our animal dioramas. It’s always fun getting to see what animal each student chooses!

Spots are almost full, so reach out to reserve your child‘s spot today and join us for a magical summer of learning and fun! 😄☀️🌸

One of the many things I’m excited about for the 2026/2027 school year: Koriko, A Magical Year! I discovered this while researching different role-playing games for our Adventure Club on Tuesdays. Here’s the description from the website:

“Koriko: A Magical Year is a solo game designed for contemplation. It’s a bubbling cauldron of simple rules and writing prompts, stirred together to produce the story of a teenage witch spending a year away from home in an unfamiliar city—Koriko. You’ll use the book, a deck of tarot cards, and a teetering tower of dice to explore the city, work to improve your witch’s fortunes, and meet some of the city’s weird and wonderful residents.”

This will sound familiar to any fans of Kiki’s Delivery Service, my daughter’s favorite Studio Ghibli film! While each witch will be on her own unique adventure, it will be a fun, creative group activity as well.