Upcoming STAR Curriculum Themes

Over the past couple months, our staff has been hard at work creating amazing curriculum resources for our STAR classrooms. STAR stands for Systemic Teaching Achieving Results. Everyone has been working hard to fine tune the curriculum and materials to best meet the needs of the children and provides teachers with a one-of-a-kind curriculum that focuses on the unique learning needs of our students.

We are so excited to finally unveil our new curriculum for the STAR classrooms this semester! Each month, the curriculum will have a specific theme and all the materials will be related to that theme. Parents and caregivers will receive a weekly lesson plan that includes the target book, vocabulary and concepts, fine and gross motor goals, and songs we will working on with your kids.

The months of January and February will focus on:

Snowmen,
Snowflakes, and
Arctic animals.

We hope this hard work pays off both in terms of classroom success for the children as well as helping parents stay connected and involved with what your children are learning each week.

Thank You Dollar General for Our Music Literacy Grant!

Sara’s Garden and New Horizons Academy want to thank the Dollar General Literacy Foundation for supporting our Music Literacy Grant, which helped start our music program!

The Dollar General Music Literacy Grant helped start New Horizon Academy’s Music Program with Melissa Valentine leading the way. She is teaching elementary school to high school students about the importance of music and how it can help in the development of literacy skills with instruments, books, and materials provided through the Dollar General Literacy Foundation. Melissa provides music classes and programs every Monday to help our students improve their literacy and fine arts skills.

Thank you, Dollar General; and thank you, Melissa Valentine for bringing music alive for our students while improving their academic skills!

Year End Campaign: Sensory Room Expansion

The sensory room at New Horizons Academy is crucial to the success of our students. It is a place where our students can go to calm their bodies and then get back to the business of learning.

Our sensory room has been specially designed to create environments that provide an immersive sensory experience for children with various abilities and disorders in order to meet their individual and specific sensory diets.

We are constantly looking for ways to improve the valuable resources available to our students, including those in our sensory room. Over Christmas break, we hope to be able to update our sensory room in such a way that will allow us to provide both light and dark activities simultaneously. This exciting plan to divide the sensory room will allow us to put even more focus on the varying and unique sensory needs of our students.

Our 2017 year-end campaign is aimed at raising funds for a new LED interactive ball pool and calm and play crash pit for the sensory room. We believe these resources would be tremendous additions to the area and will offer something special for all of our children. They would provide both the energizing tactile stimulation from the ball pool as well as the calming and comforting effect from the calm and play crash pit.

Sensory Room Expansion Campaign
$4,199.00 – LED Interactive Ball Pool
$1,800.00 – Clear Balls for LED Ball Pool (Qty. 4,000)
$2,019.00 – Multi-Sensory Calm and Play Crash Pit
$8,018.00 – Total Project Cost or Campaign Goal

This new ball pool and crash pit would be amazing resources to “unveil” to the students when they come back from Christmas break.

Would you consider making a year-end donation or pledge to help us provide these amazing resources to our students?

Registration Includes:

Scramble format (4-player teams)
Green and cart fees
Range balls
Goodie bag
Contests and prizes
Awards for top teams
Lunch Buffet

Time	Schedule of Events
7:00 a.m.	Registration
	Range Open
8:00 a.m.	Shotgun Scramble
1:00 p.m.	Lunch Buffet at NHA Career Center
2:00 p.m.	Awards

Sara’s Garden is a 501(c)(3) organization. Your charitable contribution is tax deductible under 501(c)(3) of the IRS code, to the extent allowed by law. A receipt will be sent to you after your donation has been received to use for tax purposes.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call (419) 335-SARA, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

2017-18 NHA Yearbook Sponsorship

We are so thankful to our sponsors for making this past year’s yearbook project possible.

Our goal is to once again provide our students and their parents with this very special memento. We hope to raise funds through sponsors in order to keep the costs of the yearbooks as low as possible, so that more students and their families will be able to afford one.

We invite you to consider being a sponsor of this very special project!

We also gladly accept general donations for those not interested in being recognized as sponsors.

COST: $150.00

This level of sponsorship includes a 3.75″ x 4.25″ (approx.) color advertisement in the yearbook, recognition on our website and recognition on social media with a link to your business’ social media page or website.

COST: $90.00

This level of sponsorship includes a business card sized color advertisement in the yearbook and recognition on our website.

COST: $30.00

This level of sponsorship includes your business or name listed in the yearbook and website.

Advertisements must be received by March 1, 2017.
Ads can be emailed in .jpg/.jpeg format to jessiew@sarasgarden.org.
Ads may be dropped off at Sara’s Garden or New Horizons Academy.

Sara’s Garden is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization and your donation is tax-deductible within the guidelines of U.S. law. To claim a donation as a deduction on your U.S. taxes, please keep your email donation receipt as your official record. We’ll send it to you upon successful completion of your donation.

Thank You Yearbook Sponsors!

We would like to express thanks to the following sponsors for their support of our school’s 2016-2017 yearbook. This was the first year we were able to provide a yearbook for the children at New Horizons Academy and we are so thankful for this opportunity.

Please help us by supporting these amazing businesses whenever you can! Without their involvement, this amazing yearbook project would not have been possible!

Platinum Yearbook Sponsors

Grieser Transportation
Machacek Concrete LLC
Wauseon Eye Care
Wauseon Machine & Manufacturing

Gold Yearbook Sponsors

Brown Bag Market
Delta 109 Tavern & Eatery
Drs. Behringer, Herman, and Eckhardt-BHE Orthodontics
Maumee Trim & Upholstery
Scott Neuman–State Farm Insurance

NHA Now Enrolling for 2017-18

New Horizons Academy is currently enrolling for the 2017-18 academic school year.

NHA strives to make special education just that… special. Our commitment to high academic standards, quality intervention programs and innovative therapy services allows us to provide strong academic, behavioral and physical development in a safe and welcoming environment.

At New Horizons Academy kids come first. We exist for our students; our students do not exist for the school. Students don’t have to fit into the classes; the class and program is made to meet the individual student’s needs.

We have a truly amazing staff that administers excellent academic, intervention and therapy programs at all grade levels and in all areas of the curriculum. This dedication has provided a foundation upon which our students have experienced tremendous successes that their families had been told were not possible.

This is an exceptional school environment, which has the best interests of the students at heart. The ongoing support and involvement of our staff, administration and board, is critical to the mission of the school and to the sense of family, which is so important to us. Equally important is the role of the family, whose involvement and support enriches the life of our school.

We look forward to the possibility of serving your family and the opportunity to guide and support your child’s development towards increased independence and academic success.

If you are interested in additional information regarding 2017-18 enrollment, please contact Val Nafziger at 419.335.7272 or via email at valn@sarasgarden.org.

Thank You Dollar General for Supporting LEGO Literacy!

Sara’s Garden and New Horizons Academy want to thank the Dollar General Literacy Foundation for supporting LEGO Literacy!

Everyone LOVES LEGOs, and LEGO has developed specific literacy kits for educational development. We are so excited to say that we have just received a $2,000 grant from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation in support of this project.

The LEGO Starter Sets give children the start of a story and then encourage them to “tell” the story, build its components out of LEGOs, and finally to write it down for publication. Our classes will also use Classic LEGO Sets to explore shapes, sizes, and color patterns; so children can build, play, interact, and socialize together. Middle schoolers and high schoolers won’t be left out either, building robotic LEGOs to support science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) principles. Everyone will also enjoy reading a wide variety of LEGO books from beginning readers to chapter books and even architectural and classical literature with LEGO and Brick illustrations for preschoolers to high schoolers.

Thank you, Dollar General, for helping our children love learning through LEGO Literacy!

Celebrating Global Youth Services Day!

Thanks to Serve Ohio, Americorps, and the Ohio Commission on Service and Volunteerism, Sara’s Garden and New Horizons Academy celebrated Global Youth Service Day on Friday, April 21! The students, staff, and gardeners immersed themselves in “green therapy.” For some of our kids, this was the first time that they “got their hands dirty,” planting fruits, vegetables, and flowers in individual, classroom, and school planters. With Earth Day on April 22 and Arbor Day on April 28 through container gardening, they made their school, community, and the world a greener, more beautiful place to live, play, and grow in. Thank you, Serve Ohio!

NHA State Charter Approved!

We are thrilled to announce that New Horizons Academy has been approved by the Ohio Department of Education to become one of the newest non-public, chartered schools in the state of Ohio!

The New Horizons Academy teachers, staff, and students did an outstanding job with the Ohio Department of Education’s site visit on January 25!

Since New Horizons Academy has been providing outstanding educational and intervention opportunities for years, there will be very few changes in day-to-day operations with the charter’s approval. The biggest change is that many of our students’ home school districts have begun transporting them to New Horizons Academy if their families live more than two miles away from the school but less than 30 minutes away. Thank you to Archbold, Defiance, Delta, Liberty Center, Napoleon, Northeastern Local, Patrick Henry, Stryker, and Wauseon!

As a nonpublic, chartered school, the students’ home school districts are still responsible for their individualized education plans (IEP’s) while Wauseon Exempted Village Schools will be responsible for all testing. New Horizons Academy and its staff will continue to work closely with parents and home school districts on IEP goals and ETR plans.

New Horizons Academy is looking forward to its final ODE site visit before the end of this school year. NHA’s newly-formed school board will hold its next meeting on Tuesday, June 6 at 5:30 p.m. in the Hope Center.

Donate Your Old LEGOs

Do you have boxes of old LEGOs laying around? They could serve a crucial function to the kids here at our school.

Most parents already know the benefits of playing with LEGOs. What many people aren’t aware of are the powerful benefits playing with LEGOs can have for children with Autism.

Playing with LEGOs can be far more than just a way to pass the time and prevent boredom. For many of the students we serve at New Horizons Academy it can boost their play skills, transform their social skills and build self-esteem. We’ve learned that LEGO toy building blocks offer a highly routine, repetitive and structured form of play that many of our children with Autism find appealing.

Building success… One brick at a time!

Our team of specialists have created activities using LEGOs that can be integrated into their curriculum and free time. These activities can be simple step by step instructions that help build awareness and concentration to free building time that allows for creativity. Group activities can be designed to help children gain skills in both verbal and non-verbal communication, sharing, turn taking, collaboration, and other social skills.

Don’t throw your old LEGOs away! If you have LEGOs that you no longer want we would love to have them.

For more information, please contact our school office at 419.335.7272 or via email at info@newhorizonsacademy.org.