Maple Grove Mennonite Academy 2025

 Non-discrimination Policy:  Maple Grove Mennonite Academy will enroll students from all families regardless of race, color, or national origin who accept the standards stated in our handbook.  The parent will need to be in full agreement with the purpose of Maple Grove Mennonite Academy.

      The school is in its fourth year of operation and meets in the fellowship hall of Trinity Church on Main Street in Terre Hill.  We currently offer kindergarten (January to May, two days a week) and grades first through tenth, with plans to add grades eleven and twelve next year.   We currently have twenty-seven students and four teachers.  

     Our vision is to provide an environment where students thrive academically, spiritually, socially, and artistically.  

     Students receive daily instruction in all the basic subjects.  Small classes mean that students get lots of individual attention.  We use a wide variety of curriculum consisting of Rod and Staff, Eastern Mennonite Publications, Christian Light, Saxon, Abeka, Sonlight, and Rosetta Stone.  

We also spend time outside each day, playing various games, taking nature hikes, picking up science specimens, and appreciating God's beautiful creation.  

We also have classes in Spanish, music, and art every day.  Our music classes include choir, band, and a marimba ensemble.  

Four field trips a year is our goal.     

     In addition, we volunteer our time to help others.  We do at least two service projects a year and also raise money for missions projects.  

  To learn more about Maple Grove Mennonite Academy, please use the contact form to the right.

 Lead teacher Deana Swanson holds a Bachelor's Degree in Communication from the University of Texas at Arlington and completed courses for certification in Secondary English Education from Valdosta State University.  She has taught in the classroom for sixteen years, homeschooled her own children for thirteen years, and has taught music for twenty-five years.  Deana also teaches at the Shenandoah Christian Music Camp, Faith Builders Teachers Week, and is on the planning committees of the Anabaptist Orchestra, the Lancaster Meistersingers, and the Lancaster Academy of Music and Art. She is a member at Calvary Mennonite Fellowship in East Earl, Pennsylvania. 

   
    Elementary teacher Raina Shirk is a graduate of Lebanon Valley Mennonite School and is in her third year of teaching the lower elementary grades.  She has also attended Maranatha Bible School and is a member at Calvary Mennonite Fellowship in East Earl, Pennsylvania. 

   Elementary teacher Heidi Stoltzfus is currently in her fifth year working in the field of education.  She joined the staff in 2023 after she returned from Dunmore East, Ireland, where she served as a missionary for three years.  Heidi is a member of Calvary Mennonite Fellowship in East Earl, Pennsylvania.  

 

Nurturing a Healthy, Pro-Learning Classroom Culture

 This article was written for and originally posted on Faith Builder's The Dock for Learning.  

Classroom culture is created, nurtured, and maintained by the teacher.  Your classroom is your realm, and you, as the teacher, are the king or queen of it.  You have an incredible amount of influence over the happenings, attitudes, and outcomes of just about everything that happens in your classroom.  Rule well.  

First of all, the classroom culture needs to be a safe one if any true learning is to take place.  If students are worried that they will be mocked or laughed at, those feelings will take precedence over facts about atmospheric pressure or the religious beliefs of indigenous peoples.  The teacher should make expectations clear from the beginning, and then carefully handle any deviance from those expectations.  

For example, junior high girls are not allowed to giggle when the boys’ voices crack when they are reading aloud.  The boys are not allowed to pull the chairs out from underneath someone before they sit down.  It’s simply not allowed, and if it does happen, the offending student should be talked to (kindly but firmly, and privately); told why this is not acceptable, and admonished to never do it again.  Always give reasons for your expectations.  

Secondly, the classroom culture should be one that leans positively toward learning.  This can take place in two ways.  The first is the most obvious: academically.  The teacher has the influence and power to engage students in learning by modeling wonder and awe at a science experiment, sadness at the way the Native Americans were treated by the explorers, excitement when the twelve-step algebra problem was answered correctly, and elation when the students successfully diagram a compound-complex sentence.  

Secondly, our sense of awe, wonder, and elation is contagious.  If we as teachers are excited about the subject matter we are teaching, our students will be too.  If we convey these feelings to them, they will begin to feel like these things are interesting and important after all.  I’ve had a junior high boy write something like, “I’m motivated to do better because it matters to my teacher, and that makes me want to try harder.”  

On the other hand, if we approach whatever we are teaching with a nonchalant attitude, or even worse, like it is boring or not that important, then we’ve missed an important opportunity to motivate and encourage our students.  

After all, God created all of these (atmospheric pressure, and indigenous peoples, as well as mathematics and language) and these should engage our minds and create a sense of awe in us as we teach them.  Our approach should be that we have the privilege to learn about and study these topics, and to reveal the wonders of them to our students.  

That means that we have gathered all of the supplies for the science experiments, researched and found some photos to share for history class, and have our math and English lessons prepared ahead of time so that we don’t need to look at the teacher’s book to figure out how to get the right answers, (although I do at times consult mine to make sure my answer is correct.)

Third, learning isn’t just sitting at a desk reading, writing, or listening to a lecture.  It’s also discussing Bible doctrines, telling stories from your life to illustrate a point, and singing together.  It’s going on field trips, letting the kindergarteners play soccer with the eighth grade boys, and sharing a birthday treat.  It’s music and art and kindness and laughter and appreciation for each other’s gifts and talents. And it takes a teacher to lead out in these–to recognize these ourselves, to point them out to the other students, and to encourage them in our school and classrooms.   

 A teacher can explain why the kindergarteners get to play soccer with the big boys today – and to encourage everyone to have a good attitude about it as well.  A teacher can encourage kindness and sharing.   A teacher can pray with the student who just skinned his elbow– knowing that maybe the elbow doesn’t hurt that badly, but his father being in the hospital does.  

As a father directs the home, the teacher should direct the classroom.  Teachers have the ability and responsibility to explain: “We are going to do this; we are not going to do that, and here is the reason why.”  

Explain.  Encourage.  Nurture.  Preach it and teach it and don’t ever give up.   

A Few of My Favorite Things 2024

There are a few items in my classroom that I must have to function well, a few that make my life easier, and a few that just make me happy.  We'll start with the essentials. 

1.  A clock right next to my books on my teaching table.  When teaching multiple grades, a good schedule is a must, and staying on that schedule is imperative.  This helps.  

2.  My new stacker!  When my teacher daughter got one of these, I told her she was splurging.  She happily put it together while explaining how the 4th grade papers went in one slot, and the 5th grade papers in another . . . I was sold.  

Since I've gotten mine, all the math is separate from the English, all organized by grade level, ready for me to grab a stack and grade without sorting.  Eureka!  

3.  Plants on the window sills.  On ALL the window sills.  Especially in the winter.  Cheering.  Yay.   Double yay if you have a high school student who loves to take care of them.  

4.  Student art on the walls.  Folk art, pastel resist art, Alma Thomas art, name art, any art.  I love it all and it makes the classroom walls look happy.  

5.  Marimbas!  I got one for myself for a piece I was playing in the Anabaptist Orchestra and loved it.  Then my husband said, "You should have a marimba ensemble," and I was on a quest to find nine marimbas.  I've got six now and am looking for three more.   All the junior high and high schoolers play them and the sound is delightful.   

Related Posts:  A Few of My Favorite Things 2023 

 

2024 Lancaster Meistersingers Livestream Link

 

Here is the link to the 2024 Meistersingers livestream.  Enjoy! 

Celli!

The Anabaptist Orchestra's cello section 

 

Drip Sand Castles and Crystal Jellyfish

I love words, but in this case, pictures communicate more. 

 

Last week, our school went on a field trip to the Delaware beach where we found turtles, crabs, crystal jellyfish, and horseshoe crabs.  That was our science class.  I taught my students how to make drip sand castles for our art class.  We played and dug in the sand, watched the tide come in, jumped in the waves, and collected shells and pebbles.  The older gentlemen dug a fire pit with a built-in circle bench.  In the late afternoon, we roasted hot dogs and s'mores there for our evening meal.  Traveling to and from in our very own new (to us) bus, we sang all our choir songs and reviewed all the Scripture memory songs.  It was a most memorable and beautiful day.