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Register here to let Compass know that you are working towards the 2024-25 President's Volunteer Service Award and/or the American Citizenship Award. There is no cost to Compass students* to earn these awards. Once registered, a Compass student will receive a link to enroll in Volunteer Scholars, an affiliate organization and online portal for tracking volunteer hours. Additional information about the PVSA can be found on the Compass award webpage.

This is the fee for a Language Arts Skills Inventory with reading specialist Mrs. Vanlandingham. All new students who wish to be considered for enrollment in a Reading Rally language arts program must be assessed for level prior to registering. Mrs. Vanlandingham will advise families what level (Red-1, Green-2, Blue-1, Silver, etc) to register for. Once a family has paid for a Skills Inventory, the specialist will be in touch about scheduling. Most assessments are held on  Monday or Wednesday afternoons. All assessments are held in person at Compass. Virtual assessments will not be offered. The assessment is typically 20-30 minutes long for the child, with an additional 20-30 minute parent discussion. Students are given the Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI) which takes into consideration the 5 Pillars of Literacy: Phonics, Phonemic Awareness, Vocabulary, Fluency, and Reading Comprehension. Within those categories, the QRI has more than 30 measures including vowels, blends, articulation, implicit and explicit questions, self-correction, and miscue analysis. Students will also be asked to write a brief retelling of a sample passage. Parents will be advised which level Reading Rally their child should register for. Parents will not receive a detailed report but may take notes on the specialist's observations and recommendations. The assessment fee is non refundable if the family elects not to enroll in a Reading Rally class. Please note that 10 levels of Reading Rally are offered for Fall 2024, and the recommended level could be on a Monday or a Wednesday and may fall at a time that conflicts with other class preferences.

Children will put on a delightful Mother’s Day Tea with help from Compass’s Chef Mimi. Enroll in a 3-hour workshop where kids will make 6 recipes; two finger sandwiches: Pimento Cheese and Cucumber; three sweets: Blueberry Loaf Mini-Muffins, Strawberry Danish, and Chai Cookies; and a delicious Raspberry Lemonade. Afterwards, the children will serve their mothers and enjoy tea on tablecloths with flowers and candles. Notes: Students with allergies to food ingredients or dietary restrictions cannot be accommodated in this class. Recipes may contain nuts, dairy, wheat, gluten, and eggs. All food supplies will be conventional, mass market ingredients. Specialty food preparations/certifications such as halal, kosher, and organic will not be used due to cost and sourcing logistics. Supply Fee: A supply fee of $23.00 is due payable to the instructor BEFORE the first day of class. What to Bring: None- Disposable aprons and take-home containers provided. What to Wear: Students should wear clean clothes and have long hair tied back, braided, or secured under a bandana (male and female). Cooking Class Requirements: For more information and FAQs, see the Compass Cooking Classes webpage.

Prerequisites: None

**This class will be taught in a Hybrid format with an online lecture on Mondays (9:00 am - 9:55 am) over a live, online platform** and in-person lab and activities on Wednesdays (9:30 am - 10:55 am). Registration for the Lab section will automatically enroll the student in the Lecture section.

This is a full-year, lab-based course that covers traditional concepts in physics. Physics is a college-preparatory course that encourages students to engage in scientific inquiry, investigations, and experimentation so they develop a conceptual understanding and basic scientific skills. Physics will help students understand phenomena in the physical world such as the forces on a roller coaster, wave action at the beach, speakers for their music, batteries in electric cars, and the electronics that power their favorite devices.

Students will develop an in-depth conceptual and analytical understanding of principles such as Newton's laws of motion, work and energy, momentum, circular motion, thermodynamics, sound, properties of light, electric fields and energy, and magnetism. This course will use algebra- and trigonometry- based mathematical models to introduce the fundamental concepts that describe mechanics. The course is designed to emphasize scientific thinking and reasoning, problem solving, and experimentation.

Meeting Dates: This is a 29-week course that will not meet during the week of May 11-13, 2026.

Prerequisites/Corequisites: Students should have completed Algebra I, Geometry, and basic, right-angle trigonometry before taking this course. Students should be concurrently enrolled in Algebra II or PreCalculus when taking this course. For those students who have not covered trigonometry or other key Algebra II topics prior to encountering them in this course, the instructor will recommend resources and videos for independent review or instruction. Students are encouraged to buy the textbook over the summer to work through the Math Review section before September. The emphasis in this course is teaching/learning physic concepts, not teaching or re-teaching mathematical concepts.

Class Expectations: For both in-person and virtual class meetings, students are expected to come prepared, have class materials, and be ready to participate in class discussions and activities. During virtual lectures (Mondays), students are expected to be seated at a desk or table and have their cameras on.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 4 - 6 hours of independent study/homework every week consisting of pre-reading chapters, taking detailed notes on concepts before class, completing problem-solving activities, analyzing data, and writing formal lab reports.

Assignments: All assignments and announcements will be posted on Google classroom management site. There, students access assignments; upload lab reports, message instructor and classmates; and attend virtual conferences. Parents can view the course instructions and materials via their students' accounts.

Assessments: The instructor will assign points for correct answers on quizzes and tests, and points/feedback for lab reports. Homework assignments will be marked as complete or incomplete. Parents can calculate a letter grade using the student's points earned divided by points available.

Textbook/Materials: Students should purchase or rent Physics by James S. Walker (2014 ed.) (ISBN #9780131371156.)

Prerequisites: Concurrent Algebra II or higher

Social dancing does not have to be slow or stuffy! There is energy in the ballroom with Action Dance! Students will learn three new, dynamic, rhythmic dances: Rumba (Cuban), Samba (Brazilian), and American Tango (non-romantic) . The class may revisit spring 2023 Swing Dancing for review and to learn new variations. New students are welcome.

Emphasis in the class will be on having fun and learning techniques to help dancers be comfortable and relaxed. Social dances encourage confidence, social presence, posture, and poise in teens. Social dancing is partner-based dance; consider signing up with a friend! Please note that in order to demonstrate some steps and forms, students may occasionally be invited to partner with their instructor.

Topics in this Series: Action Dance: Social Scene (Semester 1), Action Dance: Street Party (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: None

Assessments: Informal feedback will be given in class. Formal assessments or grades will not be given.

What to Wear: Students should wear loose, comfortable clothing.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a component (partial) credit in fine arts for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

Discover the world of robotics using kids' favorite, interlocking building bricks! Students will build and program a different whimsical, mechanized project each week using the WeDo 2.0 robotics system by LEGO Education.

First quarter, students will construct Animated Animals such as a hopping bunny, lumbering elephant, creeping frog, leaf-munching giraffe, trotting horse, mommy and baby bird, flapping owl, and a prowling, growling tiger.

Their robots will be built using special-shaped LEGO components from the WeDo Educational set, motors, motion sensors, tilt sensors and a programmable, Bluetooth control unit ("brain"). Student will use classroom tablets to program the control units using an intuitive drag-and-drop coding modules.

Prior experience with LEGO or coding is not required. All equipment is furnished.

Topics in this Series: Animated Animals (Quarter 1), Jurassic Giants (Quarter 2); Rush Hour! (Quarter 3), and Creepy Crawlies (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

Can your child sit in a circle for story time? Line up for lunch? Take turns talking? This one-day, 3-hour (half-day) program is a "taste" of kindergarten for 5- year-olds. Start your child's week off right with "Mornings with Miss M" at Compass Kindergarten. Children will work in a small group with an experienced early elementary educator for this dynamic, play-based program that offers regular interaction and socialization.

This fun, activity-based program will create rhythm and routine in a homeschooled kindergartner's week and give them a sense of community and a peer group. Children will practice routines and transitions as they move through the morning. Each session will include some simple structure such as a daily arrival song/greeting, circle time, story, snack time, activity, lunch, active game, and closing/goodbyes. Through games and activities, they will also practice key childhood social skills such as sharing, taking turns, and entering play with others. Academic basics such as the ABCs, days of the week, colors, shapes, and number sense will be integrated into activities involving fairy tales, nature and art. The teacher will provide ideas for parents to work on at home with their child during the week.

Compass Kindergarten is offered in three weekly sessions: Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. Registration is stand-alone for each day so parents can register for one, two, or all three. While each kindergarten class will give children the opportunities for learning and playing in a social environment along with classroom routines, each of the three days will focus on a particular area of study and discovery of how each is connected.

On Mondays, the focus will be on Language Arts where students will be exposed to folktales, seasonal stories, and classic favorites while also practicing some foundational language arts skills. The stories read in class will be used as inspiration to connect aspects of literacy such as comprehension, comparing similar/different, recalling sequences, and predicting outcomes. The Alphabet Book will be used as as "spine" to spark discussions on capital and lower case letter forms, initial letter sounds, blends, vowel sounds, rhyming words, and other pre-phonics skills. The language arts-themed kindergarten session is intended to enhance and clarify literacy skills being introduced at home, but is not a comprehensive reading curriculum.

Readiness: Students must be age five (5) by the start of the program or have the teacher's approval for younger. To be successful in this program, entering kindergartners must be able to do the following preschool-level skills: (1) be able to separate from parents with little discomfort; (2) be able to sit and listen to a story or stay on a task for 10 minutes; (3) be able to follow simple, age-appropriate directions from the teacher or another adult; (4) be able to write and recognize his/her first name; (5) be able to hold and use crayons and scissors correctly; (6) be completely self sufficient in a public restroom (wiping, flushing, washing hands, etc.)

Other Notes: Children should bring a bagged lunch and water bottle to each session. There is a $50.00 material fee for class consumables due payable to the teacher on the first day of class.

Parents can choose to drop children off for this program (different than Compass's school-year policies for 55 minute classes.)

Registration for this program is by 14-week semester with priority registration for continuing students.

Parents who are shopping around or applying to alternate kindergarten programs should review the Compass withdrawal policy.

Prerequisites: None

Can your child sit in a circle for story time? Line up for lunch? Take turns talking? This one-day, 3-hour (half-day) program is a "taste" of kindergarten for 5- year-olds. Start your child's week off right with "Mornings with Miss M" at Compass Kindergarten. Children will work in a small group with an experienced early elementary educator for this dynamic, play-based program that offers regular interaction and socialization.

This fun, activity-based program will create rhythm and routine in a homeschooled kindergartner's week and give them a sense of community and a peer group. Children will practice routines and transitions as they move through the morning. Each session will include some simple structure such as a daily arrival song/greeting, circle time, story, snack time, activity, lunch, active game, and closing/goodbyes. Through games and activities, they will also practice key childhood social skills such as sharing, taking turns, and entering play with others. Academic basics such as the ABCs, days of the week, colors, shapes, and number sense will be integrated into activities involving fairy tales, nature and art. The teacher will provide ideas for parents to work on at home with their child during the week.

Compass Kindergarten is offered in three weekly sessions: Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. Registration is stand-alone for each day so parents can register for one, two, or all three. While each kindergarten class will give children the opportunities for learning and playing in a social environment along with classroom routines, each of the three days will focus on a particular area of study and discovery of how each is connected.

On Fridays, the focus will be on science and exploration of the natural world through stories, crafts, and observations both inside and outside the classroom. Themes include seasons, weather, local animals, and the five senses. As a bonus, Compass kindergarten students assist in carring for the Compass lab animals (1 gecko, 3 bearded dragnons, 1 fire-bellied toad, and 1 rat.)

Readiness: Students must be age five (5) by the start of the program or have the teacher's approval for younger. To be successful in this program, entering kindergartners must be able to do the following preschool-level skills: (1) be able to separate from parents with little discomfort; (2) be able to sit and listen to a story or stay on a task for 10 minutes; (3) be able to follow simple, age-appropriate directions from the teacher or another adult; (4) be able to write and recognize his/her first name; (5) be able to hold and use crayons and scissors correctly; (6) be completely self sufficient in a public restroom (wiping, flushing, washing hands, etc.)

Other Notes: Children should bring a bagged lunch and water bottle to each session. There is a $50.00 material fee for class consumables due payable to the teacher on the first day of class.

Parents can choose to drop children off for this program (different than Compass's school-year policies for 55 minute classes.)

Registration for this program is by 14-week semester with priority registration for continuing students.

Parents who are shopping around or applying to alternate kindergarten programs should review the Compass withdrawal policy.

Prerequisites: None

Students will enjoy making delicious recipes and family favorites that feature a variety of fruits, vegetables, and fresh ingredients. Recipes are selected to be nutritious, fun, and simple to make. Each class will focus on a portion of a meal including appetizer, salad, soup, side dish, main dish, and dessert. The Compass chefs' culinary adventures will include:

Basil Pesto Crostini (contains pine nuts)
Creamy Tomato Soup
Layered Beet Brussels Sprouts Salad
Baked Poblano Mac & Cheese
Twice Baked Sweet Potato
Sheet Pan Bake with Honey Mustard Chicken and Potato
Pineapple Torte

Students will be eating what they make each week and bringing home the recipes and leftovers. These engaging cooking classes will get students excited about helping in the kitchen, experimenting, and trying new foods. Students will be exposed to healthy ingredients they may not regularly eat. They will learn important kitchen skills such as safety, sanitation, measuring, knife skills, and other tricks of the trade. Culinary vocabulary and terms are introduced each week, with no-pressure verbal review of those words the following week.

Notes: Students with allergies to food ingredients or dietary restrictions cannot be accommodated in this class. Recipes may contain nuts, dairy, wheat, gluten, and eggs. All food supplies will be conventional, mass market ingredients. Specialty food preparations/certifications such as halal, kosher, and organic will not be used due to cost and sourcing logistics.

Topics in this Series: Fall Fare with Flair (Quarter 1), Festive Fall Flavors (Quarter 2), Winter Warm-Ups (Quarter 3), Savory Spring Specialties (Quarter 4).

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $45.00 is due payable to the instructor on or before the first day of class.

What to Bring: None- Disposable aprons and take-home containers provided.

What to Wear: Students should wear clean clothes and have long hair tied back, braided, or secured under a bandana (male and female).

Cooking Class Requirements:For more information and FAQs, see the Compass Cooking Classes webpage.

Prerequisites: None

In this class, middle school students will learn to work as independent investigators using the scientific method. Students will observe the systems under investigation, choose a pattern or trend that interests them, and then develop a testable hypothesis. Students will learn how to: design a scientific experiment for either a laboratory or field setting, choose appropriate controls, minimize investigator bias, correctly perform measurements and to record and analyze data.

During first quarter, students will design experiments relating to animal behavior. Possible areas of investigation include behavior at the individual level (such as substrate selection with pill bugs or millipedes); learned behavior with planaria; foraging and habitat preferences with hermit crabs; territoriality among betta fish or hissing cockroaches; or social behavior with ant colonies. Others may design experiments that test intraspecific interactions, predator-prey relationships, or animal competition.

Students will learn how to locate peer-reviewed scientific literature to research their subject. By the end of the quarter, students will have completed their independent investigations, summarized the results in a poster, and will present their data to the class. Each quarter will focus on a different aspect of science.

A lab fee of $20.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Topics in this Series: Animal Behavior (Quarter 1), Chemistry (Quarter 2), Environmental Science (Quarter 3), and Microbiology & Human Behavior (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

This is a place-holder for the Interdisciplinary Science lecture. Students should register for the Interdisciplinary Lab, which will automatically enroll them in both class sections. A physical meeting room will be designated for on-campus students who have classes immediately before or after this virtual session.

Prerequisites: Pre-Algebra

Separate fact from fiction in the study of law and order. Did you know that on average it can take up to six months to get a DNA report, not same day? Did you realize that law enforcement only spend 4% of their time on violent crimes, not in high-speed car chases or high stakes foot races? This course is taught by a PhD candidate and adjunct professor in Criminology, Tayler Shreve. It is a survey of the Criminal Justice system for teens who are interested in becoming practitioners or professionals in this vast field which includes attorneys, investigators, detectives, forensic scientists, law enforcement officers, corrections officials, wardens, FBI, DEA, or ATF agents, researchers, or advocates.

First semester, students will examine the broad themes of criminals (who?) and the crimes they commit (what?), and the settings and neighborhoods where crimes are most likely to occur (where? when?) and what motivates them to commit crimes (why?). The class will talk about trends and theories in criminology, criminal psychology, and profiles, and what the studies and statistics reveal about criminals and the justice system.

Theories that will be discussed this semester include: Early criminological theory from the Chicago School; Social Disorganization Theory; Life Course Theory; Differential Association Theory; and the Reintegrative Shaming Theory. To understand theories, the class will read real case studies such as: the Menendez brothers (Parricide, Social Bonds Theory), Ted Bundy (Labeling Theory), and Bernie Madoff (Anomie/ Strain Theory)

Students will discover how this information is interpreted and applied whether you are working in law enforcement, policymaking, the judicial system, or correctional network. Finally, the class will talk about law enforcement and how they build a case once a crime is committed. Students will read and discuss actual cases, looking at the facts, evidence, forensics, and alibis from real case files. They will learn what is a cold case, and how these can be 'cracked' years later. This semester, the class will host guest speakers such as a police canine team, a detective, and/or a forensic expert, and may take a trip to the Herndon police station.

This course is not a study in social justice or reform but instead relies heavily on the facts, statistics and policies of our existing criminal justice system, details that every advocate and reformer should also understand.

Rating/Advisory: For sensitive students, please note that in the examination of actual crimes, violence such as assault and murder will be discussed. References may be made to illicit substances and weapons used in the commission of crimes. Course content will be filtered to be age-appropriate for high school students in the instructor's judgement. For example, real crime scene photos may be shown with evidentiary details, but not victims or body parts. Students may read autopsy reports, but they will not be shown autopsy photos, and cases of rape will be referred to as sexual assault with no intimate details.

Topics in this Series: Crimes and Cases (Semester 1), Courts and Corrections (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be on-level for high school reading and comprehension.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class on class reading and activities.

Assignments: The instructor offers a Choose-Your-Own-Assignment policy in which students will be required to complete a certain number of assignments out of a selection of assignments offered. This allows a student to drill down on themes that they prefer and spend less time on topics that they do not prefer. All assignments will be posted on password-protected Canvas classroom management site. There, students access assignments, find course documents, upload homework, track points earned, and message instructor and classmates.

Assessments: The instructor will award points for completed assignments that parents can use to assign a grade.

Textbook/Materials: All materials will be links to open-source materials or scans of documents provided by the instructor and posted to the class Canvas site.

Lab/Supply Fee: None

What to Bring: Notebook or paper, pen, or pencil.

Non-Meeting Days: In addition to the scheduled days-off on the published Compass schedule, this is a 12-week class with two additional days off to be announced.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a component (partial) credit in Civics or Career Exploration for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

Who doesn't love a good "Whodunnit" mystery? In this workshop, tween actors will work together to bring a cast of characters to life through creative adaptations and interpretive improvisation. Using materials from a commercial murder mystery role playing game (RPG), students will assume the personas of outrageous and offbeat characters. As the drama unfolds in rounds guided by clue cards, eclectic evidence, and fictitious forensics, a victim, a motive, and eventually the guilty party will be revealed.

At the Shadow Spy School, secrets and surveillance shape the syllabus. This isn't just any academy- it's the supreme school for stealth and subterfuge, where teens train to master misdirection, perfect personas, and deceive with dazzling dexterity. Each year, the centerpiece celebration is the Disguise Dinner, a night steeped in secrecy and soaked in suspense. But this year, the atmosphere is alive with anxious anticipation. A sinister scheme may sabotage the soiree. Who's behind it? What is the menacing motive? Every exchange might hide a critical clue. As you step into Mirage Manor, it becomes clear-this is no simple supper. It's a mission masquerading as a meal. The game has begun, and your moves matter, and the spellbinding saga starts.

Student actors will be guided through the development of a strong, compelling character, complete with unique ways of speaking, gesturing, and moving, an original costume, a backstory, and of course, an alibi. In this workshop, students benefit from experimenting with acting and improvisation and working as a team. This class is best suited for students who are active listeners, are flexible and easily adapt, have a sense of humor, and enjoy working in a collaborative group. Students need to be able to stay in sync with the flow of the class. This is not an "anything goes" or free-for-all class.

Supply Fee: A class fee of $25.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class for a script and costs related to props and performance license fee.

Topics in this Series:

Prerequisites: None

A substantial snowfall in Sapporo or record rain in Ratnapura are noteworthy, but what about methane snow on Pluto's peaks and helium rain with ammonia hailstones on Jupiter? There is nothing new about twice-daily tides at Tybee island, but did you know there is tidal activity on the moon Titan? We know Alaska's Mount Veniaminof is volcanic, but did you know there are also volcanoes on Venus? Seismic activity is called earthquakes on Earth but called marsquakes on Mars!

Planetary science is an interdisciplinary field that combines geology, physics, chemistry, astronomy, seismology, and biology to our understanding of forces and phenomena on Earth and other planets. The class will examine Earth processes such as planetary formation and structure, cratering, tectonics, rock cycle, water cycle, sedimentary cycle, and aspects of oceanography and atmospheric science and evaluate the similar and different conditions on other planets and moons. Students will learn how space expeditions such as the Cassini, Galileo, and Kepler missions have collected valuable images and data on the conditions of other planets and their moons. They will discover how exoplanets have been identified and discuss what conditions might be found on these out-of-solar system planets. Just for fun, the class will tackle the contentious debate on whether Pluto and some other Kuiper belt bodies should be planets.

In this year-long laboratory science course, students will pair weekly discussions with experiments and activities that demonstrate concepts such as crater-dating, energy impact of asteroids in crater formation, erosion/degradation of craters, rock classification, tectonics using an earthquake table, spectra/light analyses to determine mineral content, and more. The class will also learn about the tools of planetary science on earth and in space. Students' laboratory work may also include citizen scientist initiatives using data and images collected by NASA and other institutions. Some lab activities may use computers and a spreadsheet to analyze publicly available data.

Note: This course will include select astronomy topics as they relate to the formation of planets and the solar system and the discovery of exoplanets, but this is not a course in astronomy. Themes such as galactic dynamics and life cycle of stars will not be covered. Also, while this course will include some concepts in atmospheric and oceanic sciences, there will be minimal overlap with the 2024-25 Atmospheric and Oceanic Science course at Compass, so students may take this course without substantial duplication.

Class Meetings: This course meets two days per week with a one-hour lecture on Monday mornings at 10:00 am and a laboratory on Fridays at 10:00 am. Students register for the lab section, and enrollment in the lecture section is automatic. Six (6) lab meetings over the duration of the year will take longer than one hour and will start at 9:30 am. The instructor will give students several weeks' notice, but enrolled students should understand that six times in the year, they will have to come for a longer lab session at an earlier start time.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class on reading and assignments.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted on password-protected Canvas classroom management site. There, students access assignments, upload homework, take automated quizzes and tests, track grades, and message instructor and classmates.

Assessments: Completed assignments will be assessed points. Parents can calculate a letter grade using the student's points earned divided by points available, in weighted categories that include assignments, labs, quizzes, tests, projects, and presentations. Parents may view all scoring and comments at any time through the Canvas site.

Textbook/Materials: Students should purchase or rent Envisioning Exoplanets: Searching for Life in the Galaxy by Michael Carroll (ISBN: 978-1588346919)

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $100.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

What to Bring: Paper or notebook, pen or pencil

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a full credit lab science for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

Financing a motorcycle, buying your first car, comparing lease options on an apartment, understanding your paycheck, and selecting insurance. These are all real-life scenarios that young adults will face within the first five years of graduating high school, if not sooner. These choices and others are an inevitable part of "adulting" and require a solid understanding of essential math skills.

This course will work through practical, real-life situations and will review the math skills needed to make informed choices. Often called "Consumer Math," this course will review arithmetic concepts such as decimals, fractions, discounts, rates, ratios, proportions, rounding, simple interest, estimating, and measurements. However, instead of working math problems in abstract exercises, students will revisit these concepts in the context of scenarios they will encounter in everyday life.

What is a better deal: an extra 15% off the already discounted sales price of 30% off or Buy One, Get One free? Students will be able to use/apply arithmetic concepts to common scenarios to make informed consumer choices. Course themes include:

Banking and Checking Accounts including balancing a checkbook (on paper and spreadsheet), understanding fees, and interest.
Saving and Investing including how money grows, simple and compounding interest, overview of how stocks, bonds, savings accounts, and CDs work, and discussion on personal emergency fund.
Credit Cards including fees, minimum payments, interest, what happens when the balance is not paid off, and a look at consumer credit scores.
Measurement/Metric System/Unit Conversion including a review of what units are used for what items in imperial and metric systems, common ballparks and estimates, mathematical methods to convert and compare units, and the use of apps to make conversions.
Sales/Discounts by looking at examples to compare various promotions and to calculate which is a better deal.
Wages/Income including calculating weekly or bi-weekly or annual pay from a rate, estimate payroll withholdings as percentages, look at hour overtime affects earnings, commissions, and a survey of the salaries and hourly rates for variety of jobs teens and young adults might have.
Pricing and Cost including sales taxes and how goods and services are priced and what mark-ups should be considered- useful for those wanting to have their own business.
Rent/Mortgages For rentals, understand application fees, security deposits, and pre-paid amounts, monthly rate and what is included, and term of lease and make comparison among options. For purchases: understand how mortgages vary based on down payment, term, and interest rate. Students will look at cost of homes in their area and practice using online calculators to adjust down payment, term, interest rate, and homeowners' insurance affect monthly payment, and they will look briefly at how the amount paid towards principle and interest (P/I) change over time.
Types of Insurance including auto, health, and hazard insurance. What is required, what is recommended, and how much do they cost? Understanding option such as employer-paid v. self-pay; private insurance v. ACA marketplace policy; and terminology such as co-pay, co-insurance, deductible, out-of-pocket maximum, etc.
Loans- Auto/Student/Personal/Consumer (such as furniture) including understanding how down payment, term, and interest rate affect your monthly payment and what it means to have "no interest for 12 months" or "zero down."
Automobiles including the cost of warranties and what they cover, the costs of owning and operating a vehicle, fuel efficiency, and the metrics of EVs.
Budgeting including a personal plan given assumed career/average salary, and all anticipated expenses (housing, utilities, transportation, food, insurance, medical, clothing, entertainment).

Prerequisites: Pre-Algebra

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-1.5 hours per day on reading, review, and homework on most non-class days. Homework assignments will run on a 7-day cycle, with assignments posted on Thursdays and due the following Thursday. Students are advised to start homework once it is assigned (i.e., not wait until the night before it is due). Weekly homework assignments will be of a length that a student should be able to complete them in two or three at-home work sessions. Solutions will be provided for some homework problems, but students are expected to show all steps of their work.

Assignments: The Canvas online class management system will be used to post assignments and scores. Students should have their own e-mail address in order to be set up as users of the Canvas system. Parents can also be set up as Canvas guests/observers for purposes of tracking the student's progress and workload.

Assessments: Student progress will be assessed by: (1) The instructor checking that weekly homework sets are attempted and complete and (2) detailed grading of periodic take-home tests. Parents will be able to view accumulated points awarded in the class for the purpose of determining a parent-awarded course grade. See the instructor's webpage for detailed homework and test policy, including late work and re-work.

Textbook/Materials: Students should purchase or rent Mathematics for Business and Personal Finance,by McGraw Hill Publishers, 1st Edition (ISBN-13: 978-0078805059) [race cars on cover]

What to Bring: Notebook or paper, pen or pencil, textbook and/or workbook. From time to time the instructor may ask students to bring a smart phone (for apps) or laptop for in-class investigation.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as full credit in Mathematics or Personal Finance for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: Pre-Algebra

Reading and writing affect a student's achievement in all aspects of schoolwork, so strong language arts skills are fundamental to success in homeschooling. This weekly class is a small group of 3-6 students who read and write at a similar level. Students follow a comprehensive language arts curriculum under the guidance of an experienced reading specialist. Each Monday class meeting will include a short story with select vocabulary words, a graphic organizer, main themes, and embedded learning objectives. Students will continue to practice language arts skills at home with easy-to-implement "page a day" workbook activities assigned by the instructor and implemented by the parents. For most early elementary learners, enrollment in Reading Rally can serve as a complete, self-contained language arts curriculum where families will not need additional resources in reading, comprehension, composition, spelling, and grammar. Weekly readings are organized around thematic units. The instructor will teach students how to approach a new story as a fun reading puzzle. For example, before reading aloud in class, students will conduct a "picture walk" to overview and predict elements of the story from the illustrations, review a graphic organizer to assist in writing sentences, define vocabulary words, and preview summary questions. Then, the instructor will read the story aloud, model good reading practices, and encourage students to read. Students will only be asked to read aloud when they feel comfortable and have built trust in their group. All follow-up activities are designed around learning objectives such as decoding, comprehension, prediction, visualization, and verbalization. READINESS: As a comprehensive language arts curriculum, a student must be at a similar grade level ability in reading, comprehension, and writing. Early readers who have not learned to write, for example, or emerging readers who struggle with comprehenion, may not be a good fit for this class. In addition, students must have the hand-eye coordination and basic handwriting skills to be able to copy the instructor's many notes, examples, and definitions from the classroom white board into their own notebook. Grade level references in Reading Rally are based on scope, sequence and pacing that correlate to the Grade Level Equivalent (GLE) standards of learning. Students who are more than one year behind in GLE in language arts or who have a difference in skill level between their reading and writing may be recommended for a second, weekly class meeting on Fridays or 1-on-1 private instruction to make up ground in reading or writing skills. Additional class meetings or private instruction will be an additional cost. ATTENTION! Parents should not register for a Reading Rally class until they have had a Language Arts Skills Inventory (i.e. brief assessment) and placement determination by the reading specialist. This must be scheduled separately through Compass at a cost of $125.00. The fee is due prior to the assessment and is not refundable in the event the child is not recommended for a reading group. The instructor has experience working with reluctant and fearful readers, those who are late bloomers, neurodivergent, dyslexic, and ESOL students. However, she might recommend a more complete evaluation by another professional if she suspects other learning differences are impacting the student's langauge arts learning. Students will work from a spiral bound copy of reading textbook and workbook by Pearson. A class fee of $70 - $180 is due payable to Compass for the required books. Students continuing from one semester to the next will receive priority registration to remain with their reading group.

Prerequisites: Skills Inventory

Reading and writing affect a student's achievement in all aspects of schoolwork, so strong language arts skills are fundamental to success in homeschooling and beyond. This weekly class is a small group of 3-6 students* who read and write at a similar level. Students follow a comprehensive language arts curriculum under the guidance of an experienced reading specialist. Each class meeting will include a short story with select vocabulary words, a graphic organizer, main themes, and embedded learning objectives. Students will continue to practice language arts skills at home with easy-to-implement "page a day" workbook activities assigned by the instructor and implemented by the parents. For most early elementary learners, enrollment in Reading Rally can serve as a complete, self-contained language arts curriculum where families will not need additional resources in reading, comprehension, composition, spelling, and grammar.

Weekly readings are organized around thematic units. The instructor will teach students how to approach a new story as a fun reading puzzle. For example, before reading aloud in class, students will conduct a "picture walk" to overview and predict elements of the story from the illustrations, review a graphic organizer to assist in writing sentences, define vocabulary words, and preview summary questions. Then, the instructor will read the story aloud, model good reading practices, and encourage students to read. Students will only be asked to read aloud when they feel comfortable and have built trust in their group. All follow-up activities are designed around learning objectives such as decoding, comprehension, prediction, visualization, and verbalization.

READINESS: As a comprehensive language arts curriculum, a student must be at a similar grade level ability in reading, comprehension, and writing. Early readers who have not learned to write, for example, or emerging readers who struggle with comprehenion, may not be a good fit for this class. In addition, students must have the hand-eye coordination and basic handwriting skills to be able to copy the instructor's many notes, examples, and definitions from the classroom white board into their own notebook.

Grade level references in Reading Rally are based on scope, sequence and pacing that correlate to the Grade Level Equivalent (GLE) standards of learning. Students who are more than one year behind in GLE in language arts or who have a difference in skill level between their reading and writing may be recommended for 1-on-1 private instruction to make up ground in reading or writing skills. Additional class meetings or private instruction will be an additional cost.

ATTENTION! (1) Parents should not register for a Reading Rally class until they have had a Language Arts Skills Inventory (i.e. brief assessment) and placement determination by the reading specialist. This must be scheduled separately through Compass at a cost of $125.00. The fee is due prior to the assessment and is not refundable in the event the child is not recommended for a reading group. (2) Parents should not assume a specific reading section until the student has been evaluated. Reading skill levels are not interchangeable, and refunds will not be issued if you do not "get" the level you prefer. It is recommended you get your reading group assignment before scheduling other classes. (3) The instructor has experience working with reluctant and fearful readers, those who are late bloomers, neurodivergent, dyslexic, and ESOL students. However, she might recommend a more complete evaluation by another professional if she suspects other learning differences are impacting the student's langauge arts learning. (4) Pricing is based a minimum 3 students in a level. In the event only 2 students are assigned to one level, the family will be asked to pay the upcharge to a 2-person semi-private class. (3) Students will work from a spiral bound copy of reading textbook and workbook by Pearson. A class fee of $60-$120 (varies by reading level) is due payable to Compass for the required books.

Students continuing from one semester to the next will receive priority registration to remain with their reading group.

Prerequisites: Language Arts Skills Inventory for new students

Reading Rangers is a supplemental reading class for beginning readers. The class is whole language inspired with phonics and decoding games, partner reading, and vocabulary lists for home. The group will explore habits of curious readers through the examination of renowned children's picture story books from authors such as Leo Lionni, Robert McCloskey, Eric Carle, AA Milne, Michael Bond, Janell Cannon, Mem Fox, Hans Christian Andersen, Aesop, the Brothers Grimm, and others. Other books will also be selected based on the interests and level of the enrolled children. The class will discuss characters, setting, sequence of events, and predict outcomes. Children may repeat this class each quarter as new books will be introduced each session, and stories will not be repeated.

Note: This class is designed for students to enjoy a fun, new dimension of reading with peers and a teacher, but this will not take the place of a comprehensive language arts curriculum and daily reading practice.

Reading/Skills Readiness: Students should be able to read Level 1 books such as Frog & Toad and Little Bear. (In other words, students in this group should have progressed beyond Bob-type books.) Students should be able to read the following sight words: all, am, are, at, ate, be, black, brown, but, came, day, did, do, eat, four, get, go, good, have, he, in, into, is, like, must, new, no, now, on, our, out, please, pretty, ran, ride, saw, say, she, so, soon, that, the, there, they, this, to, too, under, want, was, well, went, what, white, who, will, with, yes.

Prerequisites: None

Learn to play the violin! Students will learn the fundamentals of playing the violin using a combination of traditional and Suzuki methods. They will begin by learning how to hold the instrument, how to correctly grasp the bow, parts of the instrument, and the names of the open strings. Students will be taught sequential techniques by adding one finger at a time to each string until they can play a complete scale. The class will be taught to play in unison from sheet music. At the end of the semester, the class will be able to play several simple tunes and will demonstrate for the parents.
Music education enhances teamwork and cooperative learning and provides children with a path for self-expression. Scientific research has shown that music lessons not only improve organizational skills and executive functioning but that they also develop self-confidence.

Class Expectations: Students will be asked to bring their violin, bow, and case to every class. In order to fully benefit from the in-class instruction, daily, at-home practice is expected. A student violin can be purchased or rented from most music stores and should be set up professionally by a local music store or a string luthier. The cost of the class sheet music is included.

Prerequisites: None

Kids take to the stage as they collaboratively write and perform their very own play with unique characters and an original storyline. What happens when our cast travels "back" to the future? What futuristic changes and inventions will they find? What mix-up awaits kids from 2023 dropping in on the future, and will they meet grown-up versions of themselves?

Students will begin with improvisational games to get to know each other, then read through the two, prepared scripts together. Through group activities and guided discussion, they will create new characters, brainstorm variations, craft plot changes, add lines, and cast their parts. The instructor will then update and customize the class script with the students' input.

The class will learn the practical aspects of acting, as they work on script read-through, blocking, costume/prop design, and planning the show. Students will develop their own "actor's toolkit" of voice, body, and imagination in this creative process! Actors will grow in confidence and communication skills in preparation for a final sharing with parents on the final day of the quarter.

Once the script is fully developed with everyone's parts, about half-way through the quarter, it will be emailed to parents. Parents will be expected to help their children memorize their script/lines/cues and assemble a simple make-at-home costume, ideally from clothing items and accessories you already own and a little creativity. Note: Students who are emerging readers (not able to read at a 3rd/4th grade level) would be better suited to the Young Actor's Playhouse class, rather than this level.

Topics in this Series: Back to the Future (Quarter 1), Secrets & Spies (Quarter 2),Times Travel Tale (Quarter 3), Freaky Friday (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

This is a complete course in high school Algebra II which will cover fundamental concepts and provide a solid foundation of mathematical literacy, problem solving, reasoning, and critical thinking skills that are necessary for the exploration of more advanced and rigorous topics in mathematics. Topics in Algebra II include linear functions, systems of equations and inequalities, quadratic functions and complex numbers, exponential and logarithmic functions, rational and irrational algebraic functions, and quadratic relations and systems. In addition, this course will cover higher degree functions with complex numbers, sequences and series, probability, data analysis, and trigonometric and circular functions. Students will explore these topics through class discussions, practice problems, and open-ended problem solving.

Prerequisite: Students should have a solid foundation Algebra I in order to take this class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-1.5 hours per day on reading, review, and homework on most non-class days. Homework assignments will run on a 7-day cycle, with assignments posted on Thursdays and due the following Thursday. Students are advised to start homework once it is assigned (i.e., not wait until the night before it is due). Weekly homework assignments will be of a length that a student should be able to complete them in two or three at-home work sessions. Solutions will be provided for some homework problems, but students are expected to show all steps of their work.

Assignments: The Canvas online class management system will be used to post assignments and scores. Students should have their own e-mail address in order to be set up as users of the Canvas system. Parents can also be set up as Canvas guests/observers for purposes of tracking the student's progress and workload.

Assessments: Student progress will be assessed by: (1) The instructor checking that weekly homework sets are attempted and complete and (2) detailed grading of periodic take-home tests. Parents will be able to view accumulated points awarded in the class for the purpose of determining a parent-awarded course grade. See the instructor's webpage for detailed homework and test policy, including late work and re-work.

Textbook: Students should purchase or rent the required textbook for this class: Algebra and Trigonometry: Functions and Applications- Prentice Hall Classics (ISBN-10 0131657100, ISBN-13 978-0131657106). A scientific calculator similar to the Casio fx-115ES PLUS is required for this class.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a complete credit in Algebra II for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: Algebra I

LEGO Mindstorms components and motors are not just for building robots! These interconnecting pieces can be constructed into an infinite number of unique, mechanized machines- much like an erector set!

Each week, students will build a new gadget or gizmo like a mechanized inchworm, a ball shooter, a claw, an insect-like crawler, and more. Students will incorporate simple machines, complex machines, and small motors into their projects. They will work with new parts, more gears, and specialty pieces that they have not used even in prior 'Build It Better' classes.

Topics in this Series: Gadgets & Gizmos (Quarter 1); Widgets and Whatsits (Quarter 2): Marble Mazes (Quarter 3); and Crazy Contraptions (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

Children will enjoy making delicious recipes and family favorites that feature a variety of fruits, vegetables, and fresh ingredients. Recipes are selected to be nutritious, fun, and simple to make. Each class will focus on a portion of a meal including appetizer, salad, soup, side dish, main dish, and dessert. The Compass chefs' culinary adventures will include:

-Basil Pesto Crostini (contains pine nuts)
-Creamy Tomato Soup
-Layered Beet Brussels Sprouts Salad
-Baked Poblano Mac & Cheese
-Twice Baked Sweet Potato
-Sheet Pan Bake with Honey Mustard Chicken and Potato
-Pineapple Torte

Students will be eating what they make each week and bringing home the recipes and leftovers. These engaging cooking classes will get students excited about helping in the kitchen, experimenting, and trying new foods. Students will be exposed to healthy ingredients they may not regularly eat. They will learn important kitchen skills such as safety, sanitation, measuring, knife skills, and other tricks of the trade. Culinary vocabulary and terms are introduced each week, with no-pressure verbal review of those words the following week.

Notes: (1) Students with allergies to food ingredients or dietary restrictions cannot be accommodated in this class. Recipes may contain nuts, dairy, wheat, gluten, and eggs. All food supplies will be conventional, mass market ingredients. Specialty food preparations/certifications such as halal, kosher, and organic will not be used due to cost and sourcing logistics. (2) Children must be minimum age 6 for this class and be able to listen to and follow instructions.

Topics in this Series: Fall Fare with Flair (Quarter 1), Festive Fall Flavors (Quarter 2), Winter Warm-Ups (Quarter 3), Savory Spring Specialties (Quarter 4).

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $45.00 is due payable to the instructor on or before the first day of class.

What to Wear: Students should wear clean clothes and have long hair tied back, braided, or secured under a bandana (male and female).

Cooking Class Requirements:For more information and FAQs, see the Compass Cooking Classes webpage.

Prerequisites: None

Children are full of stories and bubbling over with big ideas! In this class, students will learn how to capture their creative vision into a simple story that they will write and illustrate. First quarter, our storytellers will uncover passages and portals beyond bookshelves and blank walls. Will they find the key to the mysterious secret room, or can they ever unlock the truth?

Students will learn how to build a Story Arc through guided, weekly activities. They will discover the key elements to composing a story such as crafting characters, posing a problem, advancing the action, constructing the climax, and writing the resolution- through brainstorming questions like, "Who is in your story?", "Where does this take place?", "What does that look like?" and "What happened after ____?"

Emerging writers or readers are welcome and will receive support, if needed, to get their own words written down. Psst- don't tell your child, but this class helps lay the foundation in language arts for more advanced creative writing and composition.

Topics in this Series: Once Upon a...Secret Room (Quarter 1), Shipwreck (Quarter 2), Magic Kingdom (Quarter 3), Winding Path (Quarter 4)

Prerequisites: None

FUNctional Fitness is a dynamic PE program for that incorporates well-rounded exercises to get tweens up and moving mid-day! No two workouts are the same, but each day's activities incorporate exercises that target 10 areas: cardio-vascular endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy. FUNctional Fitness focuses on functional movements that are fundamental to all aspects of play and exercise- pulling, pushing, running, throwing, climbing, lifting, and jumping. Work-outs are scalable and adaptable to different individual's own level, and the emphasis is on fun, safety, and personal accomplishment rather than competition among classmates. When the weather permits, some exercises may be taken outdoors. The physical challenges of FUNctional Fitness will foster self-confidence, focus, and help instill a foundation for a lifetime of fitness. The color name in the class title refers to the collectable token students will earn each quarter they take the class. Collect all 8! Students may enroll in FUNctional Fitness at any time, regardless of the color name No one color is a prerequisite for any other color, and tokens can be earned in any order. All equipment is furnished. Students are asked to wear loose, comfortable clothing, such as running pants or sweatpants, and comfortable, supportive athletic shoes. FUNctional Fitness continues each quarter, and students may repeat the class to continue to improve fitness. No two workouts are the same!

Prerequisites: None

Homeschool musicians who play violin, viola, cello, or bass are invited to join this homeschool string ensemble! Musicians will have an opportunity to develop orchestral skills and enjoy the experience of practicing, playing, and performing as a group. The ensemble will start each week with tuning and warm-ups such as playing musical scales and simple exercises. Then the musicians will work on several group songs each semester where they will improve musical literacy, learn to follow the directions from the conductor, and learn to play in different keys-- as a group. During the final session of the semester, a concert will be held for friends and family.

This ensemble is intended for advanced beginner, intermediate, and advanced strings students who are concurrently enrolled in private lessons. As a guideline, a student should be able to play a D major scale in two octaves on his/her instrument to be prepared for string ensemble. Students are expected to be able to locate notes on their instruments, read music and be able to identify all rhythmical patterns.

The instructor will provide the ensemble repertoires, and these arrangements will be specially composed to accommodate the range of abilities of all stringed players in the ensemble. Participants are expected to prepare and practice at home for at least 15 - 20 minutes per day. The cost of the cost of photocopied music is included.

Prerequisites: None

More than 4.4 billion people saw their personal data stolen in just three of the top data breeches in the last decade! Key personal, financial, and business data is unintentionally released, or worse, hacked, when digital information is not properly secured in cyberspace. Cyber-viruses have crippled and compromised major businesses and governments. This is why the cybersecurity industry is in high demand, with a job growth projection of 33% per year and starting salaries in excess of $125,000!

This course is an introduction to fundamentals of cybersecurity in an interactive, information technology (IT) class taught by a cybersecurity practitioner. The course is designed to give students an overview of cybersecurity as a potential career field and get them interested in pursuing cybersecurity learning at a higher level by preparing for the CyberPatriot national youth cyber defense competition. CyberPatriot, created by the Air Force Association, is a nationwide program that puts students in the role of IT professionals tasked with protecting a company's computer systems.

First semester, students will learn the basics of three computer operating systems (OS): Windows, Windows Server, and Linux. The class will learn to systematically examine key elements of an operating system to identify vulnerabilities that might appear due to set-up errors or malware in areas such as password policies, unwanted files, out-of-date apps and browsers, and incorrect user and administrator set-up. Students will learn how to apply best practices to fix those vulnerabilities.

Students will put their knowledge to the test in a nationwide cyber defense competition- Cyber Patriots. Compass teams of 4-5 teens will collaborate to "secure" (i.e. clean and correct) three mock computers in 4-hour competitions. As part of the class, students will be expected to remain at Compass on 3 Friday afternoons: in late October, mid-November, and mid-December from 3:30 pm-7:30 pm. In these 4-hour sessions, class members will eat pizza and snacks while identifying and correcting vulnerabilities. Points will be awarded for their findings and solutions, and teams earning enough points will be invited to a semi-final competition in mid-January.

Students' work on operating systems will take place on virtual machines that do not interfere with the student's own computer.

Prerequisites: None.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class completing reading and virtual labs.

Assignments: Will be posted on a Teams classroom for students, and key reminders will be emailed to parents.

Assessments: Students will receive informal feedback throughout the semester.

Class Fee: There is fee of $225 to register a co-ed team and no cost to register an all-girl team. The team fee will be divided among the 3, 4, or 5 people on the team.

What to Bring/Equipment: Students must bring a PC or Mac laptop to class each week. These should be no more than 3 years old. Chromebooks and tablets cannot be used. Students should also bring their laptop charger to class each week.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a component (partial) credit in Technology or Career Exploration for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

Krav Maga is the Israeli martial art which teaches self defense and fitness. Students of Krav Maga are taught a series of strategies to assess and respond to common situations, such as facing a bully. Kids are always taught first and foremost to get away, to get help, and to try to deescalate the situation. When that fails, students practice a technique that includes a warning strike followed by escape, and finally, they learn how to stand up for themselves and how to counterattack if a situation escalates and becomes threatening. Kids are empowered and gain confidence when they rehearse how to handle real-life situations. Exercises and in-class practice incorporate balance, coordination, energy, and other key elements of fitness along with life skills such as confidence, teamwork, respect, discipline, and respect.

Students may enroll in Krav Maga at any time, and everyone will begin as a white belt. Each quarter, students will practice the full range of skills, but there will be two "featured" moves that a student can earn a belt stripe for being able to demonstrate. Featured moves will include a combative strike and a defensive escape technique. No one stripe is a prerequisite for any other color, and color stripes can be earned in any order.

First quarter, students will have the chance to earn a Red Stripe. Featured moves include: cover defense and wrist locks (red stripe); straight punch defense and bear hugs (orange stripe); head movement defense and front 2-handed choke (yellow stripe); round kick defense and back 2-handed choke (green stripe); front kick defense and guillotine choke (blue stripe); clinch defense and rear choke (purple stripe); ground striking defense and head lock defense (brown stripe); and 360 defense and full Nelson (black stripe).

Students will be able to test for belt promotions to move through the ranks of white belt, yellow belt, orange belt, etc. On average, it is estimated that a student will be ready for a belt test after four quarters/four color stripes. Belt testing will be by coach approval.

Topics in this Series: Red Stripe (1st Quarter), Orange Stripe (2nd Quarter), Yellow Stripe (3rd Quarter) and Green Stripe (4th Quarter).

Assessments: Belt testing for promotion will be by coach recommendation, but on average will take 4 quarters.

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $6.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class- for new students only- for a white belt to collect the colored stripes! A belt test fee of $25.00 is due payable to the instructor when a student is ready to test for promotion.

What to Bring: Refillable water bottle.

What to Wear: Participants should wear their belt along with shorts, leggings, or loose, comfortable athletic pants, and comfortable athletic shoes or sneakers.

Prerequisites: None

Have fun the final weeks of summer! Look forward to early fall! Animals are active and sunning themselves. Plants are mature, and flowers have gone to seed. The stream may have slowed down from summer drought, but discoveries at the water's edge abound.

Step outdoors to each week to explore nature with a senior naturalist/outdoor educator. Take a break from sit-down classes, indoor activities, and screen time to explore the natural world, get fresh air, and exercise. The group will explore the southern section of Sugarland Stream Valley Park in Herndon while they discover all the secrets that woods hold when you stop, look, listen, smell, touch, turn-over, and peek under!

A portion of each session will be seeking and discussing what is found each season. Students will get to know native animals and key types of plants and trees in our area. Emphasis will be on becoming comfortable with things they encounter outdoors, observing and appreciating discoveries in nature, safe exploration of the woods, and how to be a good steward of nature. The class will also discuss outdoor skills such as shelter and outdoor safety. Students will play games in the woods to practice outdoor skills.

Visit the Compass Nature Quest class webpage for more information on the program, location, and Frequently Asked Questions. Students should come prepared for class with outdoor/play clothes, closed-toe shoes, sunscreen and/or insect repellent, a hat, and jacket or layered outerwear depending on the weather/temperature. The group exploration/activities in the woods are for enrolled students only, and tag-along parents and siblings cannot be accommodated.

Prerequisites: None

Have fun the final weeks of summer! Look forward to early fall! Animals are active and sunning themselves. Plants are mature, and flowers have gone to seed. The stream may have slowed down from summer drought, but discoveries at the water's edge abound.

Step outdoors to each week to explore nature with a senior naturalist/outdoor educator. Take a break from sit-down classes, indoor activities, and screen time to explore the natural world, get fresh air, and exercise. The group will explore the southern section of Sugarland Stream Valley Park in Herndon while they discover all the secrets that woods hold when you stop, look, listen, smell, touch, turn-over, and peek under!

A portion of each session will be seeking and discussing what is found each season. Students will get to know native animals and key types of plants and trees in our area. Emphasis will be on becoming comfortable with things they encounter outdoors, observing and appreciating discoveries in nature, safe exploration of the woods, and how to be a good steward of nature. The class will also discuss outdoor skills such as shelter and outdoor safety. Students will play games in the woods to practice outdoor skills.

Visit the Compass Nature Quest class webpage for more information on the program, location, and Frequently Asked Questions. Students should come prepared for class with outdoor/play clothes, closed-toe shoes, sunscreen and/or insect repellent, a hat, and jacket or layered outerwear depending on the weather/temperature. The group exploration/activities in the woods are for enrolled students only, and tag-along parents and siblings cannot be accommodated.

Children must be minimum age 4 by the start of this class and be able to separate from his parent comfortably AND follow the teacher's instructions.

Prerequisites: None

Learn history and geography through hands-on, interactive play rather than by studying flat, dull maps! Many great games feature play on map-based boards that can be used as teaching tools. Visual and kinesthetic learners will remember where Mongolia and Madagascar are when they have amassed miniature armies there! The instructor will use board games from his personal collection as teaching tools. In addition, he creates custom boards to use with modified game rules and playing pieces.

First quarter, students will learn about ancient civilizations and the cradle of mankind featuring Mesopotamia and settlements throughout the Fertile Crescent on a custom-designed version of the game Risk. The class will be able to identify and locate the kingdoms of Babylonia, Assyria, Sumer, Akkad, Elam, and Phoenicia dotted with the early cities of Ur, Ninevah, Babylon, and Uruk to understand what is now the Middle East. The game continues week-to-week with students reviewing the geography as they set the game back up. For each era and conflict, students learn which countries were engaged and where they were located, capitals and key cities, shared borders and boundaries, and prominent geographic features and waterways. They gain an understanding of why countries were at war and how those events influenced history and the modern map.

There is a $15.00 supply fee due to the instructor on the first day of class for custom-printed maps and shared class materials. Topics in this Series include: Ancient Civilizations/ Bronze Age (1st Quarter); Ancient Greece (2nd Quarter); Ancient Rome (3rd Quarter); and Medieval Times (4th Quarter).

Prerequisites: None

Reading and writing affect a student's achievement in all aspects of schoolwork, so strong language arts skills are fundamental to success in homeschooling and beyond. This weekly class is a small group of 3-6 students* who read and write at a similar level. Students follow a comprehensive language arts curriculum under the guidance of an experienced reading specialist. Each class meeting will include a short story with select vocabulary words, a graphic organizer, main themes, and embedded learning objectives. Students will continue to practice language arts skills at home with easy-to-implement "page a day" workbook activities assigned by the instructor and implemented by the parents. For most early elementary learners, enrollment in Reading Rally can serve as a complete, self-contained language arts curriculum where families will not need additional resources in reading, comprehension, composition, spelling, and grammar.

Weekly readings are organized around thematic units. The instructor will teach students how to approach a new story as a fun reading puzzle. For example, before reading aloud in class, students will conduct a "picture walk" to overview and predict elements of the story from the illustrations, review a graphic organizer to assist in writing sentences, define vocabulary words, and preview summary questions. Then, the instructor will read the story aloud, model good reading practices, and encourage students to read. Students will only be asked to read aloud when they feel comfortable and have built trust in their group. All follow-up activities are designed around learning objectives such as decoding, comprehension, prediction, visualization, and verbalization.

READINESS: As a comprehensive language arts curriculum, a student must be at a similar grade level ability in reading, comprehension, and writing. Early readers who have not learned to write, for example, or emerging readers who struggle with comprehenion, may not be a good fit for this class. In addition, students must have the hand-eye coordination and basic handwriting skills to be able to copy the instructor's many notes, examples, and definitions from the classroom white board into their own notebook.

Grade level references in Reading Rally are based on scope, sequence and pacing that correlate to the Grade Level Equivalent (GLE) standards of learning. Students who are more than one year behind in GLE in language arts or who have a difference in skill level between their reading and writing may be recommended for 1-on-1 private instruction to make up ground in reading or writing skills. Additional class meetings or private instruction will be an additional cost.

ATTENTION! (1) Parents should not register for a Reading Rally class until they have had a Language Arts Skills Inventory (i.e. brief assessment) and placement determination by the reading specialist. This must be scheduled separately through Compass at a cost of $125.00. The fee is due prior to the assessment and is not refundable in the event the child is not recommended for a reading group. (2) Parents should not assume a specific reading section until the student has been evaluated. Reading skill levels are not interchangeable, and refunds will not be issued if you do not "get" the level you prefer. It is recommended you get your reading group assignment before scheduling other classes. (3) The instructor has experience working with reluctant and fearful readers, those who are late bloomers, neurodivergent, dyslexic, and ESOL students. However, she might recommend a more complete evaluation by another professional if she suspects other learning differences are impacting the student's langauge arts learning. (4) Pricing is based a minimum 3 students in a level. In the event only 2 students are assigned to one level, the family will be asked to pay the upcharge to a 2-person semi-private class. (3) Students will work from a spiral bound copy of reading textbook and workbook by Pearson. A class fee of $60-$120 (varies by reading level) is due payable to Compass for the required books.

Students continuing from one semester to the next will receive priority registration to remain with their reading group.

Prerequisites: Language Arts Skills Inventory for new students

Reading and writing affect a student's achievement in all aspects of schoolwork, so strong language arts skills are fundamental to success in homeschooling and beyond. This weekly class is a small group of 3-6 students* who read and write at a similar level. Students follow a comprehensive language arts curriculum under the guidance of an experienced reading specialist. Each class meeting will include a short story with select vocabulary words, a graphic organizer, main themes, and embedded learning objectives. Students will continue to practice language arts skills at home with easy-to-implement "page a day" workbook activities assigned by the instructor and implemented by the parents. For most early elementary learners, enrollment in Reading Rally can serve as a complete, self-contained language arts curriculum where families will not need additional resources in reading, comprehension, composition, spelling, and grammar.

Weekly readings are organized around thematic units. The instructor will teach students how to approach a new story as a fun reading puzzle. For example, before reading aloud in class, students will conduct a "picture walk" to overview and predict elements of the story from the illustrations, review a graphic organizer to assist in writing sentences, define vocabulary words, and preview summary questions. Then, the instructor will read the story aloud, model good reading practices, and encourage students to read. Students will only be asked to read aloud when they feel comfortable and have built trust in their group. All follow-up activities are designed around learning objectives such as decoding, comprehension, prediction, visualization, and verbalization.

READINESS: As a comprehensive language arts curriculum, a student must be at a similar grade level ability in reading, comprehension, and writing. Early readers who have not learned to write, for example, or emerging readers who struggle with comprehenion, may not be a good fit for this class. In addition, students must have the hand-eye coordination and basic handwriting skills to be able to copy the instructor's many notes, examples, and definitions from the classroom white board into their own notebook.

Grade level references in Reading Rally are based on scope, sequence and pacing that correlate to the Grade Level Equivalent (GLE) standards of learning. Students who are more than one year behind in GLE in language arts or who have a difference in skill level between their reading and writing may be recommended for 1-on-1 private instruction to make up ground in reading or writing skills. Additional class meetings or private instruction will be an additional cost.

ATTENTION! (1) Parents should not register for a Reading Rally class until they have had a Language Arts Skills Inventory (i.e. brief assessment) and placement determination by the reading specialist. This must be scheduled separately through Compass at a cost of $125.00. The fee is due prior to the assessment and is not refundable in the event the child is not recommended for a reading group. (2) Parents should not assume a specific reading section until the student has been evaluated. Reading skill levels are not interchangeable, and refunds will not be issued if you do not "get" the level you prefer. It is recommended you get your reading group assignment before scheduling other classes. (3) The instructor has experience working with reluctant and fearful readers, those who are late bloomers, neurodivergent, dyslexic, and ESOL students. However, she might recommend a more complete evaluation by another professional if she suspects other learning differences are impacting the student's langauge arts learning. (4) Pricing is based a minimum 3 students in a level. In the event only 2 students are assigned to one level, the family will be asked to pay the upcharge to a 2-person semi-private class. (3) Students will work from a spiral bound copy of reading textbook and workbook by Pearson. A class fee of $60-$120 (varies by reading level) is due payable to Compass for the required books.

Students continuing from one semester to the next will receive priority registration to remain with their reading group.

Prerequisites: Language Arts Skills Inventory for new students

"Empowered!" is how recent students of coach Iman Castenada described their self defense seminars. Teens and adults feel confident, capable, and in-control when they have the physical and mental tools to evade and escape uncomfortable or even dangerous situations. Self defense and personal safety are essential life skills for any teen or adult who is out in the community and interacting with others. This class emphasizes situational awareness and making safe choices. Students will work in pairs and small groups to act out mock scenarios, rehearse strategies, and practice defensive moves and strikes. Topics will cover a range of situations from assessing the safety of a new place; conscientiously carrying out daily activities (like carrying a purse or backback, walking/jogging alone, parking a car, taking public transportation, and traveling), de-escalating a bully, disarming an agressor, escaping an attacker, and if necessary, fighting back to save your life. This workshop is taught by Iman Casteneda, Compass's homeschool PE and Jiu Jitsu Fit instructor. She earned a black belt in Jiu Jitsu under Royce Gracie, a particularly grueling program that took her more than 10 years to prepare for. She is also personal trainer, Cross-Fit instructor, Muy Thai practitioner, former MMA (mixed martial arts) competitor, former EMT, and survivor of assault. The color name in the class title refers to the collectable token students will earn each quarter they take the class. Collect all 8! Students may enroll in Self Defense and Personal Safety at any time, regardless of the color name No one color is a prerequisite for any other color, and tokens can be earned in any order. All equipment is furnished. Students are asked to wear loose, comfortable clothing, such as running pants or sweatpants, and comfortable, supportive athletic shoes. Self-Defense and Personal Safety continues each quarter, and students may repeat the class to learn additional skills and build the reflexes, recall, and reactions to use when needed. No two sessions are the same! Note: This is a co-ed class. Students must be minimum age 13. Compass adults are welcome to register.

Prerequisites: None

TinkerTech is a lab-based class that focuses on the "E" in STEM- Engineering! Discover the everyday challenges we can solve through engineering in this hands-on, project focused class! Students will practice the three main steps of the engineering design process by asking, "What is the problem?", "What are possible solutions?", and "How can I improve on the design?"

Students will tackle simulated challenges that span a variety of engineering disciplines- civil engineering, structural engineering,
and mechanical engineering. Projects in Standout Structures will include towers, bridges, platforms, pipelines, and design-a-water tower.

Student engineers will work together to solve problems and brainstorm options given a variety pf project materials. For each project, students
will be challenged to adjust their designs, make modifications, re-design to optimize their creations, and retest performance. Basic building, measuring, and data collection will be used to challenge all minds in engineering!

A lab fee of $20.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Topics in this Series: Standout Structures (Quarter 1); Marvelous Machines (Quarter 2); Transport & Thrust (Quarter 3); and Extreme Entertainment (Quarter 4)

Prerequisites: None

Wee Writers is a simple journaling class for emergent kindergarten writers ages 5 and 6. Beginning writers will use basic sight words and phonetics while writing about feelings and experiences. Students will learn basic sentence structure with noun-verb construction, initial capital letter, and ending punctuation. Beginning sentences such as, "I lik cak." or "I drnk wtr." would be typical of emergent writers. Students will illustrate their journal entries and have opportunities to share and discuss their writing with peers. Children may repeat this class each quarter as new writing activities will be introduced each session.

Note: This class is designed for students to enjoy a fun, new dimension of writing with peers and a teacher, but this will not take the place of a comprehensive language arts curriculum and regular writing practice.

Writing Readiness Enrolling students must be able to (1) recognize and write his/her first name; (2) recognize and write each letter of the alphabet and know the corresponding sounds; and (3) hold and use crayons and scissors correctly.

Social Readiness: Students must be age five (5) by the start of the class. To be successful in this program, kindergartners must be able to do the following preschool-level skills: (1) be able to separate from parents with little discomfort; (2) be able to sit and stay on a task for 10 minutes; (3) be able to follow simple, age-appropriate directions from the teacher or another adult; (4) be completely self-sufficient in a public restroom (wiping, flushing, washing hands, etc.)

Prerequisites: None

Writing is not only a critical skill for school and life, it gives kids a voice! In this class, fifth and sixth graders will gain confidence, increase writing fluency, and learn how to incorporate writing into everyday work and play. The objective of this class is for each student to progress and improve his/her own writing. This class does not have a fixed curriculum trying to achieve the same outcome and same skillset for each child, because each student comes to class with different writing experience and varying needs. Instead, through personalized feedback from the instructor and peer feedback exercises, student writers will improve their writing skills from where they started.

Students will learn the steps of the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing. Key skills practiced at this level include organizing one's thoughts, defining a purpose and audience for the paper, formulating a topic sentence or main idea, developing supporting details, using correct sentence structure (for example, initial capitalization and end punctuation). Students will always be encouraged to write about what interests them. They will write for a few minutes in class each week and will be expected to write short assignments at home and submit their work to the instructor for feedback. Each week, the instructor will share brief lessons on grammar (such as correct capitalization, agreement, tenses, parts of speech, use of adjectives/adverbs), and/or style (for example, using metaphors, adding details, building tension). Examples and exercises will be presented from a variety of styles and genres with the instructor using models from fiction, poetry, and non-fiction.

Students should be on or near grade level for reading. Writing Well is offered each quarter under the same class name, but students may take it each quarter to continue to improve their writing skills.

Prerequisites: None

This is a complete course in high school Algebra I which will cover fundamental concepts in algebra and provide a solid foundation of mathematical literacy, problem solving, reasoning, and critical thinking skills that are necessary for the exploration of more advanced and rigorous topics in mathematics. This course is designed to emphasize the study of algebraic problem-solving with the incorporation of real-world applications. Topics in Algebra I include number systems, linear systems, rational numbers, complex numbers, exponents, roots, radicals, quadratic equations, polynomials, factoring, absolute values, ratios, and proportions. In addition, the course will cover solving and graphing systems of functions, linear equations, and inequalities. Students will explore these topics through class discussions, practice problems, and open-ended problem-solving.

Prerequisite: Students should have a solid foundation in pre-algebra topics in order to take this class. In addition, students should be capable of copying the sample problems and solutions worked in class on the white board to his/her own notes as examples for completing homework.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-1.5 hours per day on reading, review, and homework on most non-class days. Homework assignments will run on a 7-day cycle, with assignments posted on Thursdays and due the following Thursday. Students are advised to start homework once it is assigned (i.e., not wait until the night before it is due). Weekly homework assignments will be of a length that a student should be able to complete them in two or three at-home work sessions. Solutions will be provided for some homework problems, but students are expected to show all steps of their work.

Assignments: The Canvas online class management system will be used to post assignments and scores. Students should have their own e-mail address in order to be set up as users of the Canvas system. Parents can also be set up as Canvas guests/observers for purposes of tracking the student's progress and workload.

Assessments: Student progress will be assessed by: (1) The instructor checking that weekly homework sets are attempted and complete and (2) detailed grading of periodic take-home tests. Parents will be able to view accumulated points awarded in the class for the purpose of determining a parent-awarded course grade. See the instructor's webpage for detailed homework and test policy, including late work and re-work.

Textbook: Students should purchase or rent the required textbook for this class: "Elementary Algebra" by Harold R. Jacobs. Revised Edition (paperback): ISBN-13: 978-1683442554 OR First Edition (hardcover): ISBN-13: 978-0716710479 A calculator is not needed for this course.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a complete credit in Algebra I for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

Students of ASL will continue to improve their fluency in this 3rd year course. As students become more advanced signers, emphasis will be on focusing on the meaning of a conversation (whole) and storytelling rather than individual signs (parts) or phrases. In conversation, students will learn to confirm information by asking questions in context. Third year students will continue to build their vocabulary, apply ASL grammar, and will learn to describe places, giving directions, giving opinions about others, discussing plans and goals, ask for advice, give opinions, make comparisons and use superlatives, and narrate stories. Other skills covered in ASL III include expressing year, phone numbers, time, and currency in numbers, giving directions, locations, etc. Each unit will include presentations and readings on Deaf culture and Deaf history. Class time will be dedicated to interactive ASL activities and signing practice.

ASL students will have a Deaf instructor. She regularly teaches all-hearing classes and is an excellent role model for students to meet and interact with a native speaker of ASL and to lean natural facial expressions, gestures, and body language used in Deaf communications. ASL students will have more confidence when they encounter Deaf instructors in college or greet speakers of ASL in social settings. Because the instructor is Deaf, students are not permitted to speak aloud in class. This approach improves visual attention and encourages immersion in the language. Students will be able to ask questions of the instructor by writing on individual white boards, but they will be encouraged to sign in order to communicate with the instructor. Lessons are facilitated with Power Point presentations, and a professional ASL interpreter will assist the class on the first day of class.

Hundreds of colleges and universities, including all public institutions of higher learning in Virginia, accept ASL as a distinct foreign language. This allows hearing and Deaf students to fulfill foreign language requirements for admission to college. Teens who have difficulty writing, spelling, or have challenging pronunciation in English, can be successful with ASL as a second or foreign language choice. Penn State University research demonstrated that the visual and kinesthetic elements of ASL helped to enhance the vocabulary, spelling, and reading skills in hearing students.

Prerequisite: ASL II students who wish to enroll in ASL III must pass a proficiency exam and receive instructor approval.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours each week outside of class on required vocabulary exercises, readings, and signing practice.

Assignments: Homework assignments will be posted online in the Canvas digital classroom platform. Through Canvas, students will be asked to post short videos of themselves signing as homework. Enrolled students will be asked to review ASL 1 and 2 vocabulary, grammar, and facial expressions.

Assessments: The instructor will assign points using a class rubric for the parent's use in assigning a course grade. Course rubrics will evaluate students on their sign production, fingerspelling, ASL grammar, facial expressions including "above the nose" grammar (brows and body movement), and "below the nose" modifiers (lip expressions).

Textbook/Supply Fee: There is a supply fee of $30.00 payable to the online publisher for the digital access code for the interactive e-textbook, TRUE+WAY AS for 2 units. There could be an additional $15 due if the class progresses to a third unit in late Q3/early Q4. With their subscription, students may also accces a free searchable, bilingual ASL & English dictionary, called What's the Sign?

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a full credit in World Languages for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

Little kids will be introduced to watercolor painting in a small group class under the guidance of a professional painter and art teacher. The class will learn the theory of color mixing and the techniques of blending, building up color, creating gradients, and applying light washes. The class will learn how to select the right brush and how to use water to create different effects. Our new painters will practice using paint and brush strokes to create effects like light and shadow, dimension, and texture, and how to develop backgrounds, foregrounds, and detail work. Students will try techniques such as applying and removing paint, layering, stippling, and dabbing, along with wet and dry brush techniques. Students will complete several paintings on canvas boards. A variety of subjects, such as still life, animals, florals, landscapes, seascapes, fantasy, abstracts, or "mimic the masters" will be introduced to illustrate different painting techniques through in-class projects. There is an $15.00 supply fee due payable to the instructor on the first day of class. Topics in this series include: Watercolor Painting (Quarter 1), Tempera Painting (Quarter 2), Acrylic Painting (Quarter 3), and MultiMedia Painting (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

Kids will enjoy making delicious recipes and family favorites that feature a variety of fruits, vegetables, and fresh ingredients. Recipes are selected to be nutritious, fun, and simple to make. Each class will focus on a portion of a meal including appetizer, salad, soup, side dish, main dish, and dessert. The Compass chefs' culinary adventures will include:

-Basil Pesto Crostini (contains pine nuts)
-Creamy Tomato Soup
-Layered Beet Brussels Sprouts Salad
-Baked Poblano Mac & Cheese
-Twice Baked Sweet Potato
-Sheet Pan Bake with Honey Mustard Chicken and Potato
-Pineapple Torte

Students will be eating what they make each week and bringing home the recipes and leftovers. These engaging cooking classes will get students excited about helping in the kitchen, experimenting, and trying new foods. Students will be exposed to healthy ingredients they may not regularly eat. They will learn important kitchen skills such as safety, sanitation, measuring, knife skills, and other tricks of the trade. Culinary vocabulary and terms are introduced each week, with no-pressure verbal review of those words the following week.

Notes: (1) Students with allergies to food ingredients or dietary restrictions cannot be accommodated in this class. Recipes may contain nuts, dairy, wheat, gluten, and eggs. All food supplies will be conventional, mass market ingredients. Specialty food preparations/certifications such as halal, kosher, and organic will not be used due to cost and sourcing logistics.

Topics in this Series: Fall Fare with Flair (Quarter 1), Festive Fall Flavors (Quarter 2), Winter Warm-Ups (Quarter 3), Savory Spring Specialties (Quarter 4).

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $45.00 is due payable to the instructor on or before the first day of class.

What to Wear: Students should wear clean clothes and have long hair tied back, braided, or secured under a bandana (male and female).

Cooking Class Requirements:For more information and FAQs, see the Compass Cooking Classes webpage.

Prerequisites: None

Compass cooks will enjoy a culinary tour of the world with Global Gourmet classes! Menus feature a variety of fruits, vegetables, and fresh ingredients seasoned and prepared to represent regional flavors and traditional dishes from the featured country. Recipes are selected to be nutritious, fun, and simple to make. The Compass chefs' gastronomy adventures will include:

-Mexican Street Corn Flatbread
-Mexican Salad with Grilled Corn
-Caldo de Pollo
-Mexican rice
-Sheet pan fajitas
-Black Bean Dip and Corn Salsa
-Tres Leche Cake

Students will be eating what they make each week and bringing home the recipes and leftovers. These engaging cooking classes will get students excited about helping in the kitchen, experimenting, and trying new foods. Students will be exposed to healthy ingredients they may not regularly eat. They will learn important kitchen skills such as safety, sanitation, measuring, knife skills, and other tricks of the trade. Culinary vocabulary and terms are introduced each week, with no-pressure verbal review of those words the following week.

Notes: Students with allergies to food ingredients or dietary restrictions cannot be accommodated in this class. Recipes may contain nuts, dairy, wheat, gluten, and eggs. All food supplies will be conventional, mass market ingredients. Specialty food preparations/certifications such as halal, kosher, and organic will not be used due to cost and sourcing logistics.

Topics in this Series: Mexican (Quarter 1), Italian (Quarter 2), Japanese (Quarter 3), French (Quarter 4).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $45.00 is due payable to the instructor on or before the first day of class.

What to Bring: None- Disposable aprons and take-home containers provided.

What to Wear: Students should wear clean clothes and have long hair tied back, braided, or secured under a bandana (male and female).

Cooking Class Requirements: For more information and FAQs, see the Compass Cooking Classes webpage.

Prerequisites: None

Student artists will enjoy working hands-on, in 3-dimensions with a variety of sculpting and crafting materials to create original Decorative Arts. Assembling decorative items is multi-sensory, and students enjoy the tactile experience of shaping, stacking, forming, flattening, and layering a selection of materials to create unique, personal projects. Decorative art engages a different artistic skillset than coloring, drawing, and writing, and encourages creativity to represent objects in three dimensions. In this studio environment, students will create original hand-made pieces using a range of artistic techniques and a myriad of materials to choose from.

Second quarter, students will create beautiful, textured mosaics and will learn to work with materials such as tiles, pebbles, beads, shells, recycled bits, and adhesives. Kids will explore the art of fitting small pieces together to compose a larger, mosaic work. Example past projects include a mosaic with geometric wooden shapes; a fall leaf mosaic incorporating beads; mosaic photo frame, mosaic stepping stone built on a paver, and a mosaic wall hanging with polymer clay components and tiles. All pieces will be grouted after class, off site by the instructor and will be available the next class. A supply fee of $40.00 per student is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Topics in this Series: Sculpture Skills (Quarter 1), Marvelous Mosaics (Quarter 2), Fiber Arts Fun (Quarter 3), and Upcycled Sculpture (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

Student artists will enjoy working hands-on, in 3-dimensions with a variety of sculpting and crafting materials to create original Decorative Arts. Assembling decorative items is multi-sensory, and students enjoy the tactile experience of shaping, stacking, forming, flattening, and layering a selection of materials to create unique, personal projects. Decorative art engages a different artistic skillset than coloring, drawing, and writing, and encourages creativity to represent objects in three dimensions. In this studio environment, students will create original hand-made pieces using a range of artistic techniques and a myriad of materials to choose from.

Fourth quarter, students will create unique sculptures and decorative items from salvaged materials. Upcycling and recycling are conscientious ways to transform and reuse materials that would ordinarily be discarded! Everyday throw-aways such as cans, bottles, lids, and cardboard tubes will be turned into sculptures. Example past projects include bottle top "mosaics", cute bottle people, and re-envisioned florist vases. Some projects will take two weeks to complete with the first week dedicated to the construction and second week focused on finishing techniques such as painting and embellishing. A supply fee of $20.00 per student is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Topics in this Series: Sculpture Skills (Quarter 1), Marvelous Mosaics (Quarter 2), Fiber Arts Fun (Quarter 3), and Upcycled Sculpture (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

Students will draw in a relaxed, informal studio setting, where they will learn the fundamentals of drawing along with the elements of art and principles of design. Most drawing projects are "student's own" where each artist selects their own subject to incorporate demonstrated techniques such as representing light and dark, creating texture and patterns, and shading to show dimension.

First quarter, students will learn to translate what they observe in real life to 2D on paper. Example beginning projects include a pumpkin, a cow skull, and class favorite, "Walter" the teddy bear. Throughout the course, students will progress to draw more carefully and more accurately and to represent more refined details in their drawings.

The instructor will demonstrate various techniques by developing a sample drawing. Students may elect to follow the class sample or may apply the drawing skills to an entirely unique drawing. This class is suitable for beginners who have never drawn before and for intermediate art students who have worked with other media and are interested in exploring drawing. Drawing can provide a relaxing, needed break from rigorous academic classes and over-scheduled lives in a fun, supportive environment.

Topics in this Series: Everyday Objects (Quarter 1), Portraits and Creative Caricatures (Quarter 2), Creating Narrative (Quarter 3), and Imitating Illustration Styles (Quarter 4).

Workload: Work outside of class is optional for those who wish to practice their drawing techniques.

Assessments: Individual feedback is given in class. Formal assessments will not be given.

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $18.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class for a sketchbook, a pencil box with pencils of varying hardness, and an eraser. Returning drawing students do not need to pay a supply fee and are expected to replace their drawing supplies as needed, with similar or better quality.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a component (partial) credit in Fine Arts for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

Fun Fit PE encourages young elementary schoolers to move and play during the day! Kids will enjoy games such as flag tag, tug-of-war, soft dodge ball, relays, and silly obstacle courses with challenges such as crab crawl, log roll, or bunny hop. Activities will engage hand-eye coordination, gross motor skills and improve accuracy, endurance, speed, agility, and flexibility. Fun Fit PE is a fun, supportive, small-group experience with a dedicated coach where the emphasis is on doing one's best and individual improvement rather than competition or comparison with classmates. Equally as important, young athletes get to practice valuable life skills such as working with teammates, good sportsmanship, taking turns, cooperation, and communicating with the coach All activities will take place on the thick mats of Compass's new physical fitness center. Children will play in socks or bare feet as shoes cannot be worn on the mats. They should wear loose, comfortable clothing and bring a reusable water bottle. The color name in the class title refers to the collectable token students will earn each quarter they take the class. Collect all 8! Children may enroll in Fun Fit PE at any time, regardless of the color name No one color is a prerequisite for any other color, and tokens can be earned in any order.

Prerequisites: None

You might have gone through high school using beginner-level Google tools like Docs, Sheets, and Slides, but to prepare for college and career, it might be time to learn Microsoft Office 365. While Google Workspace applications are generally liked for their ease of collaboration and cloud-based accessibility, Microsoft Office 365 tools are preferred in many majors and industries for their advanced features, refinement, and computing power. Any high school student who plans to pursue a college major in business, science, engineering, or other data-driven field should learn Microsoft Office, and anyone wishing to enter the job market or enhance their resume with recognized credentials as a Certified Microsoft Office Specialist should take this class. Furthermore, any student bound for college or the work world who is not proficient in these computer applications can take this class to catch up on 21st century skills.

First semester, students will work through official Microsoft study materials to become certified as a Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) in Word and Power Point. Working in Word will help a student create attractive and professional-looking reports, multicolumn newsletters, resumes, business correspondence. Specific skills covered in the Word Associate curriculum include: managing documents; inserting and formatting text, paragraphs, and sections; managing tables and lists; creating and managing references; inserting and formatting graphic elements; and managing document collaboration. Working in Power Point will help a student create and manage professional-looking presentations that may be used for sales pitches, employee training, instructional materials, or exhibit slideshows. Specific skills covered in the Power Point Associate curriculum include: creating slide content; inserting and formatting text, shapes, and images; inserting tables, charts, SmartArt, 3D models, and media; applying transitions and animations; managing slides; and managing multiple presentations.

An additional benefit of this course may be earned college credit. The American Council on Education (ACE) has recommended that MOS certifications in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint be considered as computer application in higher education institutions. 1800 accredited ACE-member, degree-granting colleges, universities, and other education-related organizations may award college credit to students who earned these certifications.

Prerequisite: Basic keyboarding skills.

Levels: Students who take this course on-level can earn MOS certifications. Students who take both semesters of this course will additionally qualify as a Microsoft Office Specialist: Associate level for earning at least three certifications. Students who wish to pursue a more rigorous curriculum and designate this as an "honors" level course on their transcript can self-study for the Microsoft Office Specialist: Expert level which requires two additional exams passed at the Expert level (and additional testing fees of $200.)

Equipment: Students should bring a laptop to class which has a local copy of Microsoft Office 2019 installed or a current subscription and access to Microsoft Office 365.

Course Materials: Students will work from the official Microsoft Office Specialist study guides that will be provided in class and is included in the course tuition

Assessment: Students will take computer-based exams for each application: The MO-110: Microsoft Word (Microsoft 365 Apps)and the MO-310: Microsoft PowerPoint (Microsoft 365 Apps) first semester and the MO-210: Microsoft Excel (Microsoft 365 Apps) second semester.

Testing Fees: A fee of $100 per exam is required to take the Microsoft Office Specialist exams.

Non-Meeting Days: In addition to the scheduled days-off on the published Compass schedule, this class will have two other days off with the actual dates to be announced.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a component (partial) credit in Career Exploration or Technology for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

Have fun the final weeks of summer! Look forward to early fall! Animals are active and sunning themselves. Plants are mature, and flowers have gone to seed. The stream may have slowed down from summer drought, but discoveries at the water's edge abound.

Step outdoors to each week to explore nature with a senior naturalist/outdoor educator. Take a break from sit-down classes, indoor activities, and screen time to explore the natural world, get fresh air, and exercise. The group will explore the southern section of Sugarland Stream Valley Park in Herndon while they discover all the secrets that woods hold when you stop, look, listen, smell, touch, turn-over, and peek under!

A portion of each session will be seeking and discussing what is found each season. Students will get to know native animals and key types of plants and trees in our area. Emphasis will be on becoming comfortable with things they encounter outdoors, observing and appreciating discoveries in nature, safe exploration of the woods, and how to be a good steward of nature. The class will also discuss outdoor skills such as shelter and outdoor safety. Students will play games in the woods to practice outdoor skills.

Visit the Compass Nature Quest class webpage for more information on the program, location, and Frequently Asked Questions. Students should come prepared for class with outdoor/play clothes, closed-toe shoes, sunscreen and/or insect repellent, a hat, and jacket or layered outerwear depending on the weather/temperature. The group exploration/activities in the woods are for enrolled students only, and tag-along parents and siblings cannot be accommodated.

Prerequisites: None

Find fascinating things in late fall! Hike through piles of fallen leaves. See farther through the bare branches. Look for evidence of animals getting ready for winter and birds migrating to warmer locales. Discover changes in plant life, observe stream ecology, and watch for changes in the weather!

Step outdoors to each week to explore nature with a senior naturalist/outdoor educator. Take a break from sit-down classes, indoor activities, and screen time to explore the natural world, get fresh air, and exercise. The group will explore the southern section of Sugarland Stream Valley Park in Herndon while they discover all the secrets that woods hold when you stop, look, listen, smell, touch, turn-over, and peek under!

A portion of each session will be seeking and discussing what is found each season. Students will get to know native animals and key types of plants and trees in our area. Emphasis will be on becoming comfortable with things they encounter outdoors, observing and appreciating discoveries in nature, safe exploration of the woods, and how to be a good steward of nature. The class will also discuss outdoor skills such as shelter and outdoor safety. Students will play games in the woods to practice outdoor skills.

Visit the Compass Nature Quest class webpage for more information on the program, location, and Frequently Asked Questions. Students should come prepared for class with outdoor/play clothes, closed-toe shoes, sunscreen and/or insect repellent, a hat, and jacket or layered outerwear depending on the weather/temperature. The group exploration/activities in the woods are for enrolled students only, and tag-along parents and siblings cannot be accommodated.

Prerequisites: None

Learn history and geography through hands-on, interactive play rather than by studying flat, dull maps! Many great games feature play on map-based boards that can be used as teaching tools. Visual and kinesthetic learners will remember where Mongolia and Madagascar are when they have amassed miniature armies there! The instructor will use board games from his personal collection as teaching tools. In addition, he creates custom boards to use with modified game rules and playing pieces.

First quarter, students will learn about ancient civilizations and the cradle of mankind featuring Mesopotamia and settlements throughout the Fertile Crescent on a custom-designed version of the game Risk. The class will be able to identify and locate the kingdoms of Babylonia, Assyria, Sumer, Akkad, Elam, and Phoenicia dotted with the early cities of Ur, Ninevah, Babylon, and Uruk to understand what is now the Middle East. The game continues week-to-week with students reviewing the geography as they set the game back up. For each era and conflict, students learn which countries were engaged and where they were located, capitals and key cities, shared borders and boundaries, and prominent geographic features and waterways. They gain an understanding of why countries were at war and how those events influenced history and the modern map.

There is a $15.00 supply fee due to the instructor on the first day of class for custom-printed maps and shared class materials. Topics in this Series include: Ancient Civilizations/ Bronze Age (1st Quarter); Ancient Greece (2nd Quarter); Ancient Rome (3rd Quarter); and Medieval Times (4th Quarter).

Prerequisites: None

Science Station is an exciting, hands-on lab experience where our stdent- scientists dive into the world of discovery. Through engaging experiments and guided exploration, elementary students will be introduced to key scientific concepts, vocabulary, and systems of classification. They'll make predictions, conduct tests, analyze outcomes, draw conclusions, and build confidence using scientific tools, and take accurate measurements-all while deepening their understanding of how science works.

Each quarter centers around a unifying theme that reinforces essential principles and lab skills. In Biology Basics, students will explore the building blocks of life by observing microscopic organisms, studying life cycles and metamorphosis, and investigating vital biological processes such as respiration and digestion.

A lab fee of $20.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Topics in this Series: Biology Basics (Quarter 1),Physics Fundamentals (Quarter 2), Chemistry Connections (Quarter 3), and Environmental Explorer (Quarter 4)

Prerequisites: None

Total Training is a dynamic PE program for that incorporates well-rounded exercises to get teens moving mid-day! No two workouts are the same, but each day's activities incorporate exercises that target 10 areas: cardio-vascular endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy. Total Training focuses on functional movements that are fundamental to all aspects of play and exercise- pulling, pushing, running, throwing, climbing, lifting, and jumping. Work-outs are scalable and adaptable to different individual's own level, and the emphasis is on fun, safety, and personal accomplishment rather than competition among classmates. The physical challenges of Total Training will foster self-confidence, focus, and help instill a foundation for a lifetime of fitness. The color name in the class title refers to the collectable token students will earn each quarter they take the class. Collect all 8! Teens may enroll in Total Training at any time, regardless of the color name No one color is a prerequisite for any other color, and tokens can be earned in any order. All equipment is furnished. Students are asked to wear loose, comfortable clothing, such as running pants or sweatpants, and comfortable, supportive athletic shoes. Total Training continues each quarter, and students may repeat the class to continue to improve fitness. No two workouts are the same!

Prerequisites: None

Young readers and writers will explore classic tales in a variety of creative, multi-media interpretations. Pulling from classic children's literature including fairy tales, fables, and favorites, such as Newberry Award medalists, the group will explore 3-4 well-known stories each quarter (generally spending 2 weeks per tale).

First quarter will feature beloved fables featuring truth and transformation such as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast,
The Frog Prince, and Sleeping Beauty.

For each story, the instructor will share a lively read-aloud of the featured story. Then, the class may watch a short clip of an animated, televised, or stage version of the same story. Next, the group will hear a re-telling of the same story from a different angle, such as one adapted to a theme, a different era, or a different culture. Students will discuss what was the same and what was different among the different adaptations. Was a character added or omitted? Was the performed version true to the original? Finally, students will write and illustrate their own, original re-telling of the story by changing characters, setting, or even crafting a surprise, new ending. New Twists on Old Tales introduces some basic literary elements and rudimentary literary analysis skills to encourage children to think more deeply about what they read.

Topics in this Series: Truths & Transformations (Quarter 1), Clever Characters (Quarter 2), Snowy Stories (Quarter 3), and Happy Endings, Second Chances (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

Reading and writing affect a student's achievement in all aspects of schoolwork, so strong language arts skills are fundamental to success in homeschooling and beyond. This weekly class is a small group of 3-6 students* who read and write at a similar level. Students follow a comprehensive language arts curriculum under the guidance of an experienced reading specialist. Each class meeting will include a short story with select vocabulary words, a graphic organizer, main themes, and embedded learning objectives. Students will continue to practice language arts skills at home with easy-to-implement "page a day" workbook activities assigned by the instructor and implemented by the parents. For most early elementary learners, enrollment in Reading Rally can serve as a complete, self-contained language arts curriculum where families will not need additional resources in reading, comprehension, composition, spelling, and grammar.

Weekly readings are organized around thematic units. The instructor will teach students how to approach a new story as a fun reading puzzle. For example, before reading aloud in class, students will conduct a "picture walk" to overview and predict elements of the story from the illustrations, review a graphic organizer to assist in writing sentences, define vocabulary words, and preview summary questions. Then, the instructor will read the story aloud, model good reading practices, and encourage students to read. Students will only be asked to read aloud when they feel comfortable and have built trust in their group. All follow-up activities are designed around learning objectives such as decoding, comprehension, prediction, visualization, and verbalization.

READINESS: As a comprehensive language arts curriculum, a student must be at a similar grade level ability in reading, comprehension, and writing. Early readers who have not learned to write, for example, or emerging readers who struggle with comprehenion, may not be a good fit for this class. In addition, students must have the hand-eye coordination and basic handwriting skills to be able to copy the instructor's many notes, examples, and definitions from the classroom white board into their own notebook.

Grade level references in Reading Rally are based on scope, sequence and pacing that correlate to the Grade Level Equivalent (GLE) standards of learning. Students who are more than one year behind in GLE in language arts or who have a difference in skill level between their reading and writing may be recommended for 1-on-1 private instruction to make up ground in reading or writing skills. Additional class meetings or private instruction will be an additional cost.

ATTENTION! (1) Parents should not register for a Reading Rally class until they have had a Language Arts Skills Inventory (i.e. brief assessment) and placement determination by the reading specialist. This must be scheduled separately through Compass at a cost of $125.00. The fee is due prior to the assessment and is not refundable in the event the child is not recommended for a reading group. (2) Parents should not assume a specific reading section until the student has been evaluated. Reading skill levels are not interchangeable, and refunds will not be issued if you do not "get" the level you prefer. It is recommended you get your reading group assignment before scheduling other classes. (3) The instructor has experience working with reluctant and fearful readers, those who are late bloomers, neurodivergent, dyslexic, and ESOL students. However, she might recommend a more complete evaluation by another professional if she suspects other learning differences are impacting the student's langauge arts learning. (4) Pricing is based a minimum 3 students in a level. In the event only 2 students are assigned to one level, the family will be asked to pay the upcharge to a 2-person semi-private class. (3) Students will work from a spiral bound copy of reading textbook and workbook by Pearson. A class fee of $60-$120 (varies by reading level) is due payable to Compass for the required books.

Students continuing from one semester to the next will receive priority registration to remain with their reading group.

Prerequisites: Language Arts Skills Inventory for new students

4th grade math is a full-year, complete math curriculum for students who have covered the 3rd grade equivalent math skills (see prerequisites). This course uses the Grade 4 Math Mammoth curriculum which homeschool guru Cathy Duffy (cathyduffyreviews.com) calls "an amazingly well-developed program." She praises the program saying, "Math Mammoth has created a very high-quality product... the content is also top-notch. Some people have compared Math Mammoth with Singapore Math since both programs teach for mastery and understanding." Read more about Math Mammoth here: https://www.mathmammoth.com/complete-curriculum

This class meets twice a week and is designed to be a complete program in which students receive instruction in person at Compass and complete homework on off-days at home. Parents do not have to select a curriculum or deliver the instruction, but rather are expected to ensure that assignments are being completed on time and assisting the student in checking attempted homework.

Topics covered in Grade 4 Math Mammoth include:

Chapter 1: Addition, Subtraction, Patterns, and Graphs
Chapter 2: Large Numbers and Place Value
Chapter 3: Multi-Digit Multiplication
Chapter 4: Time and Measuring
Chapter 5: Division
Chapter 6: Geometry
Chapter 7: Fractions
Chapter 8: Decimals

4th Grade Math is being offered at Compass as a full year class with 59 in-person class meetings. Attendance is very important. In the event of a missed class due to illness or travel, students may cover the missed lesson through online recorded lectures by the author available on YouTube.

Prerequisites: Grade 3 Math or equivalent, with experience/familiarity in following:

-Multiplication tables and basic division facts
-Mental addition and subtraction
-Regrouping in addition and subtraction (carrying and borrowing)
-Basic word problems
-Multiplication and related concepts
-Clock to the minute and elapsed time calculations
-Basic money calculations (finding totals and change)
-Place value and rounding with four-digit numbers
-Quadrilaterals, perimeter, and area
-Division and related concepts (remainder, word problems)
-Measuring lines in inches and centimeters
-Basic usage of measuring units
-The concept of a fraction and mixed number, equivalent fractions, and comparing fractions

For guidance if a child is ready for Grade 4 math, parents can administer the Math Mammoth end-of-3rd-grade placement test. A score of 80% is recommended to place into Grade 4.

Assignments: Assignments will be made in class as a range of pages to complete on the topics that were taught in class. The instructor will follow up with an email repeating the assigned pages.

Assessments: Each class, the instructor will check that students have completed the assigned homework. Homework will be recorded as attempted or not attempted. Parents will be provided with an answer key for homework. Students will have take-home unit tests that will be graded by the instructor. Parents may track unit test scores in order to assign their own grades and complete homeschool record-keeping.

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $50.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for Grade 4, color edition worktext book. Students will be issued the 4A book first semester, and the 4B book second semester.

What to Bring: Students should bring a spiral notebook, pencil, and their worktext to class each week.

Prerequisites: None

Students of ASL will continue to improve their fluency in this 2nd year course. As students become more advanced signers, emphasis will be on focusing on the meaning of a conversation (whole) rather than individual signs (parts). In conversation, students will learn to confirm information by asking questions in context. Second year students will continue to build their vocabulary, apply ASL grammar, and will learn to make requests, ask for advice, give opinions, make comparisons and use superlatives, and narrate stories. Other skills covered in ASL II include expressing year, phone numbers, time, and currency in numbers, appearance, clothing, giving directions, locations, etc. Each unit will include presentations and readings on Deaf culture and Deaf history. Class time will be dedicated to interactive ASL activities and signing practice.

ASL students will have a Deaf instructor. She regularly teaches all-hearing classes and is an excellent role model for students to meet and interact with a native speaker of ASL and to lean natural facial expressions, gestures, and body language used in Deaf communications. ASL students will have more confidence when they encounter Deaf instructors in college or greet speakers of ASL in social settings. Because the instructor is Deaf, students are not permitted to speak aloud in class. This approach improves visual attention and encourages immersion in the language. Students will be able to ask questions of the instructor by writing on individual white boards, but they will be encouraged to sign in order to communicate with the instructor. Lessons are facilitated with Power Point presentations, and a professional ASL interpreter will assist the class on the first day of class.

Hundreds of colleges and universities, including all public institutions of higher learning in Virginia, accept ASL as a distinct foreign language. This allows hearing and Deaf students to fulfill foreign language requirements for admission to college. Teens who have difficulty writing, spelling, or have challenging pronunciation in English, can be successful with ASL as a second or foreign language choice. Penn State University research demonstrated that the visual and kinesthetic elements of ASL helped to enhance the vocabulary, spelling, and reading skills in hearing students.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours each week outside of class on required vocabulary exercises, readings, and signing practice.

Assignments: Homework assignments will be posted online in the Canvas digital classroom platform. Through Canvas, students will be asked to post short videos of themselves signing as homework. Enrolled students will be asked to review ASL 1 vocabulary, grammar, and facial expressions.

Assessments: The instructor will assign points using a class rubric for the parent's use in assigning a course grade. Course rubrics will evaluate students on their sign production, fingerspelling, ASL grammar, facial expressions including "above the nose" grammar (brows and body movement), and "below the nose" modifiers (lip expressions).

Textbook/Supply Fee: There is a $30.00 subscription payable to the online publisher. With their subscription, students may also accces a free searchable, bilingual ASL & English dictionary, called What's the Sign?

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a full credit in World Languages for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

**Returning students meet for 1 hour (2:00 pm- 2:55 pm) first semester and for 2 hours (1:00 pm- 2:55 pm) second semester so they do not have to repeat instruction in Python coding.**

Imagine a phone app that could quickly reunite lost pets, connect the poor with resources that they need, or report a problem in the community! Code for a Cause is the Compass-based Technovation hub where middle school and high school girls will participate in the "world's largest technology entrepreneurship program for girls." Each year, Technovation teams solve real world problems through technology that they develop!
Through Technovation, girls work with women mentors, identify a problem in their community, develop a mobile app, and launch a startup. Since 2010, 140,000 girls around the world have developed mobile apps and small businesses to solve problems ranging from food waste and nutrition to women's safety, education, and much more. In this year-long program, girls will work in teams and learn the skills they need to change the world through technology.

First semester, the class will participate in team building activities and will be introduced to coding. Students will use Ozaria from Code Combat, a Python-based platform that applies stories and a gamified approach to teach the logic of coding and terminology. Once students understand these fundamentals, they will apply what they've learned in the PyCharm application outside of Code Combat's environment.

Second semester, students will form teams of 2-3 girls who will brainstorm and identify a community problem. They will propose a mobile app or AI solution to the issue and conduct market research to see if their idea is unique and feasible. Next, the team will begin developing an app following the Technovation curriculum using Python for the logic and Kivy for the Graphical User Interface. In class, girls will be coached step-by-step on the process of creating an interactive application. Finally, girls will learn how to brand their app, create a business plan, look at what it would take to bring the app to market and plan and record a pitch video for their app.

The weekly Technovation work sessions will be facilitated by an experienced Technovation coach and cybersecurity engineering student at GMU. In addition, there will be guest speakers spread throughout the semester talking on topics such as APIs, AI ethics, Marketing, Pitching to Investors, and more. Guest speakers in the past have had job titles such as CEO, Senior Cybersecurity Executive, Manager of Marketing and Communications, and Software Developer.

Participation in Technovation gives girls the confidence to pursue more computer science courses (70%) and the foundation to eventually major in computer science (26%). Technovation teams are in 100 countries, and the program is sponsored by Oracle, Google, 3M, Adobe Foundation, and others.

Level: All students will meet together, but student teams will compete in either Junior or Senior division depending the ages of the team members as of August 1, 2026: Junior Division is for girls ages 13-15, and Senior Division is for girls ages 16-18. In addition to the app and competition document, the Junior division has an additional submission of a User Adoption Plan. The Senior division has an additional submission of a Business Plan.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: Will be posted on Teams classroom for students, and key reminders will be emailed to parents.

Assessments: Students will receive informal feedback throughout the project.

Lab/Supply Fee: A software fee of $50.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class for access to Code Combat.

What to Bring: For this class, students should bring their laptop and charger. Chromebooks or Tablets cannot be used.

Non-Meeting Days: In addition to the scheduled days-off on the published Compass schedule, this class will not meet on 12/12/25, 1/16/26 or 5/15/26, plus one other date in both fall and spring to be announced.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a full credit in Technology or Career Exploration for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

Tweens will enjoy making delicious recipes and family favorites that feature a variety of fruits, vegetables, and fresh ingredients. Recipes are selected to be nutritious, fun, and simple to make. Each class will focus on a portion of a meal including appetizer, salad, soup, side dish, main dish, and dessert. The Compass chefs' culinary adventures will include:

-Basil Pesto Crostini (contains pine nuts)
-Creamy Tomato Soup
-Layered Beet Brussels Sprouts Salad
-Baked Poblano Mac & Cheese
-Twice Baked Sweet Potato
-Sheet Pan Bake with Honey Mustard Chicken and Potato
-Pineapple Torte

Students will be eating what they make each week and bringing home the recipes and leftovers. These engaging cooking classes will get students excited about helping in the kitchen, experimenting, and trying new foods. Students will be exposed to healthy ingredients they may not regularly eat. They will learn important kitchen skills such as safety, sanitation, measuring, knife skills, and other tricks of the trade. Culinary vocabulary and terms are introduced each week, with no-pressure verbal review of those words the following week.

Notes: (1) Students with allergies to food ingredients or dietary restrictions cannot be accommodated in this class. Recipes may contain nuts, dairy, wheat, gluten, and eggs. All food supplies will be conventional, mass market ingredients. Specialty food preparations/certifications such as halal, kosher, and organic will not be used due to cost and sourcing logistics.

Topics in this Series: Fall Fare with Flair (Quarter 1), Festive Fall Flavors (Quarter 2), Winter Warm-Ups (Quarter 3), Savory Spring Specialties (Quarter 4).

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $45.00 is due payable to the instructor on or before the first day of class.

What to Wear: Students should wear clean clothes and have long hair tied back, braided, or secured under a bandana (male and female).

Cooking Class Requirements:For more information and FAQs, see the Compass Cooking Classes webpage.

Prerequisites: None

Compass cooks will enjoy a culinary tour of the world with Global Gourmet classes! Menus feature a variety of fruits, vegetables, and fresh ingredients seasoned and prepared to represent regional flavors and traditional dishes from the featured country. Recipes are selected to be nutritious, fun, and simple to make. The Compass chefs' gastronomy adventures will include:

-Mexican Street Corn Flatbread
-Mexican Salad with Grilled Corn
-Caldo de Pollo
-Mexican rice
-Sheet pan fajitas
-Black Bean Dip and Corn Salsa
-Tres Leche Cake

Students will be eating what they make each week and bringing home the recipes and leftovers. These engaging cooking classes will get students excited about helping in the kitchen, experimenting, and trying new foods. Students will be exposed to healthy ingredients they may not regularly eat. They will learn important kitchen skills such as safety, sanitation, measuring, knife skills, and other tricks of the trade. Culinary vocabulary and terms are introduced each week, with no-pressure verbal review of those words the following week.

Notes: Students with allergies to food ingredients or dietary restrictions cannot be accommodated in this class. Recipes may contain nuts, dairy, wheat, gluten, and eggs. All food supplies will be conventional, mass market ingredients. Specialty food preparations/certifications such as halal, kosher, and organic will not be used due to cost and sourcing logistics.

Topics in this Series: Mexican (Quarter 1), Italian (Quarter 2), Japanese (Quarter 3), French (Quarter 4).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $45.00 is due payable to the instructor on or before the first day of class.

What to Bring: None- Disposable aprons and take-home containers provided.

What to Wear: Students should wear clean clothes and have long hair tied back, braided, or secured under a bandana (male and female).

Cooking Class Requirements: For more information and FAQs, see the Compass Cooking Classes webpage.

Prerequisites: None

Kratos wears a leather baldric. Captain America grasps a shield. Harley Quinn sports spiked wrist cuffs, and Lara Croft wouldn't go to war without her weaponry. Great accessories and carefully crafted garments make great cosplay. If you are interested in the world of cosplay and want to bring some of your favorite characters to life, this class will teach you the skills to craft costumes and accessories.

First quarter, students will learn to work with EVA foam and thermal plastics. They will learn to use patterns, cut, layer, glue, carve, heat-shape, and paint foam and thermal plastic accessories. Projects for the quarter include a dagger with sheath and a treasure chest. *Note: projects this quarter are all new from those in 2024-25, so a student could repeat the class to build his/her cosplay wardrobe and to practice and refine crafting skills.

In this class, students will follow templates and patterns provided by and demonstrated by the instructor. Pieces will be individualized through paint and embellishments, but the goal is for cosplayers to learn specialized crafting techniques that they can use at home to make additional, unique pieces. There is a $55.00 supply fee for in-class materials, the shared use of classroom tools/supplies, and some take-home tools to continue crafting at home. First quarter, students will take home 2 types of Exacto knives, a small cutting mat, patterns, and foam remnants. Note: Project themes or materials are subject to change due to availability or sourcing at the time of the class.

Cosplayers who would like to create original fabric costume elements such as capes, vests, skirts, and more, may want to co-register for this instructor's Learn to Sew classes.

Topics in this Series: Foam & Plastics (Quarter 1), Resins and Metal Work (Quarter 2), Leather Work (Quarter 3), Mending & Alterations (Quarter 4) etc. Students continuing from one quarter receive priority pre-registration for the next quarter.

Prerequisites: None

Workload: Students should expect to spend 0-1 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: Will be communicated in weekly e-mails and posted in a Google classroom.

Assessments: will not be given

Textbook/Materials: All materials will be furnished.

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $55.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a component (partial) credit in fine arts/theater for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

Students will delve into the world of crime scene investigators (CSIs) as seen each week on Law and Order, NCIS, and the CSI television series! Students will be introduced to the field of forensic science which is the application of science, such as biology, chemistry, pharmacology, and physics, to the criminal justice system.

First semester, students will learn the scientific methodologies used in forensic investigation and how to process a crime scene. They will practice measuring, sketching, photographing, documenting, collecting, preserving, and cataloging crime scene evidence. Students will also apply observation skills, interpret evidence, and use logic and deductive reasoning to the investigative process.

Each week, students will perform in-class labs and activities to understand common, investigative forensics such as fingerprinting, including identifying fingerprint patterns, and learning how to find and lift latent fingerprints. The class will practice techniques for collecting and analyzing blood and saliva samples, blood typing, and evaluating blood spatter. The class will expand their forensic toolbox with impression evidence, such as footprints and tire tracks, and making molds thereof. They will learn how fibers, fabrics, hair, poison, drugs, pollen, insects, and other trace evidence can be used to unravel a crime. Students will also consider arson evidence, toxicology, and toolmarks in criminal investigative analysis as well as how ballistics, such as firearms evidence and bullet trajectories, are used in investigations.

The class will use case studies and forensic data from actual crimes- both solved and unsolved- to see how forensic science is used in investigating and prosecuting cases in the criminal justice system. The class will have occasional guest speakers from the criminal justice system and at least one field trip to a police crime lab.

This course is taught by a PhD candidate and professor of Criminology, Tayler Shreve. It is an introduction to criminology for teens who are interested in becoming practitioners or professionals in the vast criminal justice system or those who enjoy true crime books, blogs, or movies.

Rating/Advisory: For sensitive students, please note that in the examination of actual crimes, violence such as assault and murder will be discussed. References may be made to illicit substances and weapons used in the commission of crimes. Course content will be filtered to be age-appropriate for high school students in the instructor's judgement. For example, real crime scene photos may be shown with evidentiary details, but not victims or body parts. Students may read autopsy reports, but they will not be shown autopsy photos, and cases of rape will be referred to as sexual assault with no intimate details.

Topics in this Series: Fundamentals of Forensic Science (Semester 1) and Cold Case Files (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester will receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: There are assignments both in and out of the classroom. Students have the ability to submit assignments based on their learning style(s): written assignments, presentations, spoken recordings (podcast, TedTalk, etc.).

Assessments: Students will receive feedback on all assignments. There are no exams in this course, however points will be assigned for completed assignments, participation, and attendance.

Textbook/Materials: Articles and case studies will be posted by the instructor as downloadable pdfs.

Lab/Supply Fee: A lab fee of $100 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Non-Meeting Days: In addition to the scheduled days-off on the published Compass schedule, this is a 12-week class with two additional days off to be announced.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a component (partial) credit in humanities or career exploration for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

Student artists will enjoy working hands-on, in 3-dimensions with a variety of sculpting and crafting materials to create original Decorative Arts. Assembling decorative items is multi-sensory, and students enjoy the tactile experience of shaping, stacking, forming, flattening, and layering a selection of materials to create unique, personal projects. Decorative art engages a different artistic skillset than coloring, drawing, and writing, and encourages creativity to represent objects in three dimensions. In this studio environment, students will create original hand-made pieces using a range of artistic techniques and a myriad of materials to choose from.

Third quarter, students will work with a variety of fibers and textiles to create unique, 3-dimensional projects. From fuzzy chenille to fluffy cotton and scratchy jute to scrumptious viscose, students will enjoy the tactile experience of looping, lashing, layering, weaving or knotting assorted textures in fabrics and fibers. Students may also work with burlap, felt, leather, muslin, wool, yarn, or string. Example past projects include a string sculpture, a knotted flannel scarf, a wall hanging, and wool felting projects. Students may sew embellishments such as buttons on their finished projects, but this is not a sewing class. A supply fee of $30.00 per student is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Topics in this Series: Sculpture Skills (Quarter 1), Marvelous Mosaics (Quarter 2), Fiber Arts Fun (Quarter 3), and Upcycled Sculpture (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

Student artists will enjoy working hands-on, in 3-dimensions with a variety of sculpting and crafting materials to create original Decorative Arts. Assembling decorative items is multi-sensory, and students enjoy the tactile experience of shaping, stacking, forming, flattening, and layering a selection of materials to create unique, personal projects. Decorative art engages a different artistic skillset than coloring, drawing, and writing, and encourages creativity to represent objects in three dimensions. In this studio environment, students will create original hand-made pieces using a range of artistic techniques and a myriad of materials to choose from.

First quarter, students will create one-of-a-kind sculptures and will learn to work with materials such as papier mache, air-dry and polymer clays, wire, plaster, etc. Example past projects include a wire wave sculpture, layered paper collage, clay animals, or sculpey flowers. Some projects may take two weeks to complete with one week dedicated to forming and shaping the base sculpture and the second week focused on finishing techniques such as painting and embellishing. A supply fee of $40.00 per student is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Topics in this Series: Sculpture Skills (Quarter 1), Marvelous Mosaics (Quarter 2), Fiber Arts Fun (Quarter 3), and Upcycled Sculpture (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

The best way to understand a biome is to build (a model) one! A biome is a large zone on Earth characterized by its climate, soil, vegetation, and organisms with special adaptations for the unique environment. In modeling biomes, students will learn how they are different than similar ecological concepts like habitats and ecosystems. Students will discover how human activities, such as deforestation and habitat destruction, are transforming biomes.
In this science-themed diorama class, students will be exposed to concepts such as trophic levels, the water cycle, biological competition, geographic isolation, convergent evolution, species diversification, natural vs unnatural climate change, food webs, habitat loss, and ecological niches, while they are working on their models.

Tropical rainforest biomes are equatorial regions that are warm and wet with diverse vegetation that forms a canopy. Humidity and a covering of leaf litter create a layer of nutrients which supports a wide variety of vegetation. Tropical rainforests are famous for terrestrial biodiversity, including insects, birds, and mammals.

Each student will create an individual diorama. Students will craft and hand-shape their scene on a 10 x 14 inch foam board using artistic, model-making techniques. They will customize their dioramas with landforms, waterways, plant life, and paint. Once individual projects are constructed, students will populate them with miniature figures and combine their dioramas alongside those of their classmates to create a larger terrain. Students will then compete in a zoology-based survival strategy game. Each student will create one board and receive a set of miniatures to take home with them. Course documents such as maps, game rules and all other instructional media will be available via a Google Drive link which will be emailed to parents. There is a $25.00 materials fee payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Topics in this series include: Tropics (The Rainforest)- Quarter 1; Tundra (The Arctic)- Quarter 2; Arid (The Desert)- Quarter 3; and Grasslands (The Savanna)- Quarter 4.

Prerequisites: None

Students will learn how to think like electrical engineers as they learn about conductors, batteries, and circuits to understand how electricity powers the things they use every day.

Learn about electricity basics such as atoms and what makes a material a conductor or an insulator. In the first investigation of electric circuits, students will use their own bodies to complete a circuit that lights up LED lights and sounds a siren! The class will learn about open and closed circuits and discuss why the human body has a current. Students will learn to use a volt meter and measure their own body's voltage. Next, the class will explore the conductivity of fruits and vegetables. Kids will be asked to bring one or more samples of fruits or veggies from home to measure the voltage, experiment on, and compare results. They will also build circuits with these foods and experiment with attaching power sources in series to increase the voltage. The third area of exploration will be building paper circuits. Students will apply the principles they learned to build a light-up postcard. Finally, the class will learn about magnetism, what a magnet is, and why it behaves that way. Students will explore which items are attracted to a magnetic and which are not, and they will share their findings. Next, they will make their own magnets out of paper clips. We will discuss the magnetic poles of the earth and build a compass, to discover where we are.

Topics in this Series: Battery Blast (Quarter 1); Cool Conductors (Quarter 2); Simple Circuits (Quarter 3); and Super Circuits (Quarter 4). Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $15.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Prerequisites: None

Fun Fit PE encourages young elementary schoolers to move and play during the day! Kids will enjoy games such as flag tag, tug-of-war, soft dodge ball, relays, and silly obstacle courses with challenges such as crab crawl, log roll, or bunny hop. Activities will engage hand-eye coordination, gross motor skills and improve accuracy, endurance, speed, agility, and flexibility. Fun Fit PE is a fun, supportive, small-group experience with a dedicated coach where the emphasis is on doing one's best and individual improvement rather than competition or comparison with classmates. Equally as important, young athletes get to practice valuable life skills such as working with teammates, good sportsmanship, taking turns, cooperation, and communicating with the coach All activities will take place on the thick mats of Compass's new physical fitness center. Children will play in socks or bare feet as shoes cannot be worn on the mats. They should wear loose, comfortable clothing and bring a reusable water bottle. The color name in the class title refers to the collectable token students will earn each quarter they take the class. Collect all 8! Children may enroll in Fun Fit PE at any time, regardless of the color name No one color is a prerequisite for any other color, and tokens can be earned in any order.

Prerequisites: None

This is a complete course in high school Geometry which will cover fundamental concepts and provide a solid foundation of mathematical literacy, problem solving, reasoning, and critical thinking skills that are necessary for the exploration of more advanced and rigorous topics in mathematics. Students will learn deductive reasoning, and logic by completing geometric proofs. Topics in geometry include: lines, angles, congruence, concurrence, inequalities, parallel lines, quadrilaterals, transformations, area, similarity, right triangles, circles, regular polygons, and geometric solids. Students will explore these topics through class discussions, practice problems, and open-ended problem solving.

Prerequisite: Students should have a solid foundation in Algebra I in order to take this class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-1.5 hours per day on reading, review, and homework on most non-class days. Homework assignments will run on a 7-day cycle, with assignments posted on Thursdays and due the following Thursday. Students are advised to start homework once it is assigned (i.e., not wait until the night before it is due). Weekly homework assignments will be of a length that a student should be able to complete them in two or three at-home work sessions. Solutions will be provided for some homework problems, but students are expected to show all steps of their work.

Assignments: The Canvas online class management system will be used to post assignments and scores. Students should have their own e-mail address in order to be set up as users of the Canvas system. Parents can also be set up as Canvas guests/observers for purposes of tracking the student's progress and workload.

Assessments: Student progress will be assessed by: (1) The instructor checking that weekly homework sets are attempted and complete and (2) detailed grading of periodic take-home tests. Parents will be able to view accumulated points awarded in the class for the purpose of determining a parent-awarded course grade. See the instructor's webpage for detailed homework and test policy, including late work and re-work.

Textbook: Students should purchase or rent the required textbook for this class: Geometry: Seeing, Doing, Understanding, 3rd edition (ISBN-10 0716743612, ISBN-13 978-0716743613) A calculator is not needed for this course.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a complete credit in Geometry for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: Algebra I

Krav Maga is the Israeli martial art which teaches self defense and fitness. Students of Krav Maga are taught a series of strategies to assess and respond to common situations, such as facing a bully. Teens are always taught first and foremost to get away, to get help, and to try to deescalate the situation. When that fails, students practice a technique that includes a warning strike followed by escape, and finally, they learn how to stand up for themselves and how to counterattack if a situation escalates and becomes threatening. Teens are empowered and gain confidence when they rehearse how to handle real-life situations. Exercises and in-class practice incorporate balance, coordination, energy, and other key elements of fitness along with life skills such as confidence, teamwork, respect, discipline, and respect.

Students may enroll in Krav Maga at any time, and everyone will begin as a white belt. Each quarter, students will practice the full range of skills, but there will be two "featured" moves that a student can earn a belt stripe for being able to demonstrate. Featured moves will include a combative strike and a defensive escape technique. No one stripe is a prerequisite for any other color, and color stripes can be earned in any order.

First quarter, students will have the chance to earn a Red Stripe. Featured moves include: cover defense and wrist locks (red stripe); straight punch defense and bear hugs (orange stripe); head movement defense and front 2-handed choke (yellow stripe); round kick defense and back 2-handed choke (green stripe); front kick defense and guillotine choke (blue stripe); clinch defense and rear choke (purple stripe); ground striking defense and head lock defense (brown stripe); and 360 defense and full Nelson (black stripe).

Students will be able to test for belt promotions to move through the ranks of white belt, yellow belt, orange belt, etc. On average, it is estimated that a student will be ready for a belt test after four quarters/four color stripes. Belt testing will be by coach approval.

Topics in this Series: Red Stripe (1st Quarter), Orange Stripe (2nd Quarter), Yellow Stripe (3rd Quarter) and Green Stripe (4th Quarter).

Assessments: Belt testing for promotion will be by coach recommendation, but on average will take 4 quarters.

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $6.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class- for new students only- for a white belt to collect the colored stripes! A belt test fee of $25.00 is due payable to the instructor when a student is ready to test for promotion.

What to Bring: Refillable water bottle.

What to Wear: Participants should wear their belt along with shorts, leggings, or loose, comfortable athletic pants, and comfortable athletic shoes or sneakers.

Prerequisites: None

Physician. Physical Therapist. Phlebotomist. Paramedic. Did you know that the Healthcare Industry makes up more than 18% of the US economy and employs 20 million workers in the US? Chances are that several Compass teens will work in this field. This course is designed to give students an overview of the healthcare field and a foot in the door to begin work as an Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) or Emergency Medical Technician (EMT).

First semester will cover the Emergency Essentials that every EMR/EMT must know: stopping bleeding, starting care, and stabilizing a patient. Students will learn what to do in trauma, mass casualty, or hazardous materials incidents where the victims are bleeding or have broken bones, wounds, or head injuries. Every class will include practical, hands-on skills training and labs such as using a tourniquet, applying dressings, and splinting. Throughout the course, the class will learn medical terminology and aspects of human anatomy related to Emergency Essentials. They will use critical thinking skills to reason through problems they might encounter during emergencies. Finally, they will discover how HIPPA, privacy, consent, and legal issues play in the EMR/EMT's role and how these emergency responders interface with law enforcement, hospitals, and other specialties in the community.

EMRs/EMTs are first-on-the-scene, frontline healthcare workers. In Virginia, individuals age 16 or older who earned their license can volunteer or be hired to work on an ambulance, a private medical transport service, or as an assistant or technician in clinical settings. Work as an EMR/EMT can be a young adult's full time job, side gig through college, or help them earn clinical hours that advanced medical programs want to see.

Topics in this Series: Emergency Essentials (Semester 1), Crisis Care (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Schedule: This is a 12-week semester instead of 14 weeks. The two dates off will be announced based on instructor's professional calendar.
Prerequisite: Students must have completed a workshop in CPR prior to taking this course and will be asked to provide a copy of their certification. An option is the Compass 2-day. 6-hour First Aid/CPR training on June 10 and 11. Alternatively, this Instructor can conduct an outside CPR workshop for $80.00 per student.

Levels/Certification: Students under age 16 may enroll in this class, but they must be age 16 by October 1 in order to sit for the EMR or EMT exam in the spring of 2025. Students must take both semesters to prepare for an exam. This class will be taught at two levels concurrently: On-Level which prepares students for the EMR exam and Honors which prepares students for the EMT exam. Both levels meet together for all classes and perform the same in-class activities and labs. Those on the Honors track will have additional readings for EMT preparation.

Prerequisites: None

Music Makers explores many facets of the musical experience- singing, moving, dancing, listening, and playing instruments. The class will explore musical stories, famous composers, and different genres of music while playing a variety of percussion instruments (drums, sticks, triangles, woodblocks and more!). Students will learn to play a beginning pitched instrument on glockenspiels (a small barred instrument like the xylophone). Using an Orff-based approach, students will learn to read and write beginning musical notation and learn musical terminology all in the context of fun and play. Music Makers classes provide a fun, pressure-free environment to experience music and movement with the goal of general musicianship and excellent preparation for further, individual instrument lessons if desired. Music Makers helps every child acquire the essential building blocks for a future of musical learning! Students may join Music Makers at any quarter, and they may return again and again since new music, themes, and skills are constantly introduced.

Prerequisites: None

Find fascinating things in late fall! Hike through piles of fallen leaves. See farther through the bare branches. Look for evidence of animals getting ready for winter and birds migrating to warmer locales. Discover changes in plant life, observe stream ecology, and watch for changes in the weather!

Step outdoors to each week to explore nature with a senior naturalist/outdoor educator. Take a break from sit-down classes, indoor activities, and screen time to explore the natural world, get fresh air, and exercise. The group will explore the southern section of Sugarland Stream Valley Park in Herndon while they discover all the secrets that woods hold when you stop, look, listen, smell, touch, turn-over, and peek under!

A portion of each session will be seeking and discussing what is found each season. Students will get to know native animals and key types of plants and trees in our area. Emphasis will be on becoming comfortable with things they encounter outdoors, observing and appreciating discoveries in nature, safe exploration of the woods, and how to be a good steward of nature. The class will also discuss outdoor skills such as shelter and outdoor safety. Students will play games in the woods to practice outdoor skills.

Visit the Compass Nature Quest class webpage for more information on the program, location, and Frequently Asked Questions. Students should come prepared for class with outdoor/play clothes, closed-toe shoes, sunscreen and/or insect repellent, a hat, and jacket or layered outerwear depending on the weather/temperature. The group exploration/activities in the woods are for enrolled students only, and tag-along parents and siblings cannot be accommodated.

Prerequisites: None

Venture outdoors each week to explore the woods with a senior naturalist and mentor while learning valuable survival skills. Students will learn how to construct a temporary debris shelter, make cordage, identify edibles, track animals, purify water, perform basic first aid, and use maps and compass (orienteering). Students will get to know native animals and key types of plants and trees in our area. Emphasis will be on becoming comfortable with things you encounter outdoors, safe exploration of the woods, how to be a good steward of nature, and what to do if you ever became lost or injured in the woods. Skills will be reintroduced and adapted each each quarter because the available plants, animals, materials, and water sources change with each season. Students will have a blast, develop greater self-confidence, and build a strong connection to nature and to the real world! Explorations in the woodsis for enrolled students only, and tag-along parents and siblings cannot be accommodated. For information on where the class meets, what to wear, and inclement weather, see the webpage for Compass's Nature Quest program.

Prerequisites: None

This is a complete course in high school PreCalculus which will cover fundamental concepts and provide a solid foundation of mathematical literacy, problem solving, reasoning, and critical thinking skills that are necessary for the exploration of more advanced and rigorous topics in mathematics. Topics in Precalculus include functions: polynomial, rational, exponential, logarithmic, and trigonometric (right angle and unit circle). In addition, the course will cover polar coordinates, parametric equations, analytic trigonometry, vectors, systems of equations/inequalities, conic sections, sequences, and series. Students will explore these topics through class discussions, practice problems, and open-ended problem solving.

Prerequisite: Students should have a solid foundation Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry in order to take this class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-1.5 hours per day on reading, review, and homework on most non-class days. Homework assignments will run on a 7-day cycle, with assignments posted on Thursdays and due the following Thursday. Students are advised to start homework once it is assigned (i.e., not wait until the night before it is due). Weekly homework assignments will be of a length that a student should be able to complete them in two or three at-home work sessions. Solutions will be provided for some homework problems, but students are expected to show all steps of their work.

Assignments: The Canvas online class management system will be used to post assignments and scores. Students should have their own e-mail address in order to be set up as users of the Canvas system. Parents can also be set up as Canvas guests/observers for purposes of tracking the student's progress and workload.

Assessments: Student progress will be assessed by: (1) The instructor checking that weekly homework sets are attempted and complete and (2) detailed grading of periodic take-home tests. Parents will be able to view accumulated points awarded in the class for the purpose of determining a parent-awarded course grade. See the instructor's webpage for detailed homework and test policy, including late work and re-work.

Textbook: Students should purchase or rent the required textbook for this class: Precalculus: Mathematics for Calculus, 7th edition by Stewart, Redlin, and Watson (ISBN-13: 978-1305115309). A scientific calculator similar to the Casio fx-115ES PLUS is required for this class.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a complete credit in Precalculus for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: Algebra II

Little kids will learn the basics of hand sewing and discover it is "sew simple" to create fun things they can play with and use every day. First quarter, Sew Simple students will sew a storybook with memorable characters from a children's class tale.

Kids will learn practical sewing skills such as pinning and placement, a running stitch, attaching a button, scissor skills, and stuffing. The group will be working with pre-cut felt components from kits that will be enhanced with buttons and accessories. Since students may work at different rates, some projects may not be completed in class and will be sent home to finish sewing with the newly learned skills. Students should be at age/grade level for fine motor skills for this class and should be a minimum of age 6. A material fee of $40.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class. Note: Project themes or materials are subject to change due to availability or sourcing at the time of the class.

Topics in this series include: Sew a Story (Quarter 1), Monster Mash-Up (Quarter 2), Polar Pals (Quarter 3), and Fairytale Fun (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

Total Training is a dynamic PE program for that incorporates well-rounded exercises to get teens moving mid-day! No two workouts are the same, but each day's activities incorporate exercises that target 10 areas: cardio-vascular endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy. Total Training focuses on functional movements that are fundamental to all aspects of play and exercise- pulling, pushing, running, throwing, climbing, lifting, and jumping. Work-outs are scalable and adaptable to different individual's own level, and the emphasis is on fun, safety, and personal accomplishment rather than competition among classmates. The physical challenges of Total Training will foster self-confidence, focus, and help instill a foundation for a lifetime of fitness. The color name in the class title refers to the collectable token students will earn each quarter they take the class. Collect all 8! Teens may enroll in Total Training at any time, regardless of the color name No one color is a prerequisite for any other color, and tokens can be earned in any order. All equipment is furnished. Students are asked to wear loose, comfortable clothing, such as running pants or sweatpants, and comfortable, supportive athletic shoes. Total Training continues each quarter, and students may repeat the class to continue to improve fitness. No two workouts are the same!

Prerequisites: None

Writers @ Work is a fundamental writing class that will prepare seventh and eighth grade students for high school level composition. Writing is not only a critical skill for high school and beyond, it gives teens a voice! In this class, teens will gain confidence, increase writing fluency, and learn how to incorporate writing into schoolwork and hobbies. The objective of this class is for each student to progress and improve his/her own writing. This class does not have a fixed curriculum trying to achieve the same outcome and same skillset for each child, because each student comes to class with different writing experience and varying needs. Instead, through personalized feedback from the instructor and peer feedback exercises, student writers will improve their writing skills from where they started.

Students will always be encouraged to write about what interests them, but prompts will also be offered. They will write for a few minutes in class each week and will be expected to write short assignments at home and submit their work to the instructor for feedback. Students will receive individual feedback to work on aspects of their writing such as organizing thoughts, defining a purpose and audience for the paper, formulating a topic sentence or main idea, developing supporting details, using correct sentence structure (for example, initial capitalization and end punctuation).

The instructor will model the steps of the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing. Writing tips will be introduced throughout the year pulling from both a "toolbox" of grammar rules (i.e. sentence structure, complex and compound sentences, independent and dependent clauses, parts of speech, agreement, tense, use of dialogue and quotation marks, correct use of punctuation) and stylistic techniques (i.e., using metaphors, adding details, and building tension). Examples and exercises will be presented from a variety of styles and genres.
Students should be on or near grade level in reading to take this class.

Writers @ Work is offered both semesters under the same class name, but students may take it each semester to continue to improve their writing skills.

Prerequisites: None

Students will use LEGO to design and build simple engineering projects out of everyone's favorite building toy! In this 90-minute class, students will explore concepts and vocabulary in physics, mechanical engineering, structural engineering, aerospace engineering, and architecture while playing with their creations.

First quarter, junior engineers will tackle Super Structures, using the Pyramids of Giza, the Great Wall of China, the Seattle Space Needed, Eiffel Tower, and the world's biggest bridges for their inspiration.

Each class begins with 10-minutes of free build from tubs of LEGO components followed by a short discussion and demonstration of the day's project and concepts. Students build individually or in groups. Instructors will provide individual assistance, facilitate challenges, performance testing, competitions, and modifications to projects. Some projects may have been introduced in prior year's sessions, but each new build is unique, and student's building skills and understanding will have grown.

Students must be minimum age 5 and able to separate from their parents for this class.

Topics in this Series: Super Structures (Quarter 1); Awesome Automobiles (Quarter 2); Monster Machines (Quarter 3); Colossal Construction (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

Reading and writing affect a student's achievement in all aspects of schoolwork, so strong language arts skills are fundamental to success in homeschooling and beyond. This weekly class is a small group of 3-6 students* who read and write at a similar level. Students follow a comprehensive language arts curriculum under the guidance of an experienced reading specialist. Each class meeting will include a short story with select vocabulary words, a graphic organizer, main themes, and embedded learning objectives. Students will continue to practice language arts skills at home with easy-to-implement "page a day" workbook activities assigned by the instructor and implemented by the parents. For most early elementary learners, enrollment in Reading Rally can serve as a complete, self-contained language arts curriculum where families will not need additional resources in reading, comprehension, composition, spelling, and grammar.

Weekly readings are organized around thematic units. The instructor will teach students how to approach a new story as a fun reading puzzle. For example, before reading aloud in class, students will conduct a "picture walk" to overview and predict elements of the story from the illustrations, review a graphic organizer to assist in writing sentences, define vocabulary words, and preview summary questions. Then, the instructor will read the story aloud, model good reading practices, and encourage students to read. Students will only be asked to read aloud when they feel comfortable and have built trust in their group. All follow-up activities are designed around learning objectives such as decoding, comprehension, prediction, visualization, and verbalization.

READINESS: As a comprehensive language arts curriculum, a student must be at a similar grade level ability in reading, comprehension, and writing. Early readers who have not learned to write, for example, or emerging readers who struggle with comprehenion, may not be a good fit for this class. In addition, students must have the hand-eye coordination and basic handwriting skills to be able to copy the instructor's many notes, examples, and definitions from the classroom white board into their own notebook.

Grade level references in Reading Rally are based on scope, sequence and pacing that correlate to the Grade Level Equivalent (GLE) standards of learning. Students who are more than one year behind in GLE in language arts or who have a difference in skill level between their reading and writing may be recommended for 1-on-1 private instruction to make up ground in reading or writing skills. Additional class meetings or private instruction will be an additional cost.

ATTENTION! (1) Parents should not register for a Reading Rally class until they have had a Language Arts Skills Inventory (i.e. brief assessment) and placement determination by the reading specialist. This must be scheduled separately through Compass at a cost of $125.00. The fee is due prior to the assessment and is not refundable in the event the child is not recommended for a reading group. (2) Parents should not assume a specific reading section until the student has been evaluated. Reading skill levels are not interchangeable, and refunds will not be issued if you do not "get" the level you prefer. It is recommended you get your reading group assignment before scheduling other classes. (3) The instructor has experience working with reluctant and fearful readers, those who are late bloomers, neurodivergent, dyslexic, and ESOL students. However, she might recommend a more complete evaluation by another professional if she suspects other learning differences are impacting the student's langauge arts learning. (4) Pricing is based a minimum 3 students in a level. In the event only 2 students are assigned to one level, the family will be asked to pay the upcharge to a 2-person semi-private class. (3) Students will work from a spiral bound copy of reading textbook and workbook by Pearson. A class fee of $60-$120 (varies by reading level) is due payable to Compass for the required books.

Students continuing from one semester to the next will receive priority registration to remain with their reading group.

Prerequisites: Language Arts Skills Inventory for new students

5th grade math is a full-year, complete math curriculum for students who have covered the 4th grade equivalent math skills (see prerequisites). This course uses the Grade 5 Math Mammoth curriculum which homeschool guru Cathy Duffy (cathyduffyreviews.com) calls "an amazingly well-developed program." She praises the program saying, "Math Mammoth has created a very high-quality product... the content is also top-notch. Some people have compared Math Mammoth with Singapore Math since both programs teach for mastery and understanding." Read more about Math Mammoth here: https://www.mathmammoth.com/complete-curriculum

This class meets twice a week and is designed to be a complete program in which students receive instruction in person at Compass and complete homework on off-days at home. Parents do not have to select a curriculum or deliver the instruction, but rather are expected to ensure that assignments are being completed on time and assisting the student in checking attempted homework.

Topics covered in Grade 5 Math Mammoth include:

Chapter 1: The Four Operations
Chapter 2: Large Numbers and the Calculator
Chapter 3: Problem Solving
Chapter 4: Decimals, Part 1
Chapter 5: Graphing
Chapter 6: Decimals, Part 2
Chapter 7: Fractions: Add and Subtract
Chapter 8: Fractions: Multiply and Divide
Chapter 9: Geometry

4th Grade Math is being offered at Compass as a full year class with 59 in-person class meetings. Attendance is very important. In the event of a missed class due to illness or travel, students may cover the missed lesson through online recorded lectures by the author available on YouTube.

Prerequisites: Grade 4 Math or equivalent, with experience/familiarity in following:

-Addition and subtraction
-Early algebraic thinking
-The order of operations
-Graphs
-Large numbers and place value
-Rounding and estimating
-Multi-digit multiplication
-Word problems
-Some basic conversions between measuring units
-Measuring length
-Time calculations
-Long division
-The concept of remainder
-Factors
-Area and perimeter
-Measuring and drawing angles
-Classifying triangles according to their angles
-Adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers (like fractional parts)
-Equivalent fractions
-Comparing fractions
-Multiplying fractions by whole numbers
-The concept of a decimal (tenths/hundredths)
-Comparing decimals

For guidance if a child is ready for Grade 5 math, parents can administer the Math Mammoth end-of-4th-grade placement test. A score of 80% is recommended to place into Grade 5.

Assignments: Assignments will be made in class as a range of pages to complete on the topics that were taught in class. The instructor will follow up with an email repeating the assigned pages.

Assessments: Each class, the instructor will check that students have completed the assigned homework. Homework will be recorded as attempted or not attempted. Parents will be provided with an answer key for homework. Students will have take-home unit tests that will be graded by the instructor. Parents may track unit test scores in order to assign their own grades and complete homeschool record-keeping.

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $52.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for Grade 5, color edition worktext books. Students will be issued the 5A book first semester, and the 5B book second semester.

What to Bring: Students should bring a spiral notebook, pencil, and their worktext to class each week.

Prerequisites: None

Kids take to the stage as they collaboratively write and perform their very own play with unique characters and an original storyline. When the sun goes down and the Sandman comes, dreams transform our characters and carry them away on an adventure in The Land of Nod! What weird and wacky escapades will take place in the dreamland that our young actors will create and perform?

Students will begin with improvisational games to get to know each other, then read through the two, prepared scripts together. Through group activities and guided discussion, they will create new characters, brainstorm variations, craft plot changes, add lines, and cast their parts. The instructor will then update and customize the class script with the students' input.

The class will learn the practical aspects of acting, as they work on script read-through, blocking, costume/prop design, and planning the show. Students will develop their own "actor's toolkit" of voice, body, and imagination in this creative process! Actors will grow in confidence and communication skills in preparation for a final sharing with parents on the final day of the quarter.

Once the script is fully developed with everyone's parts, about half-way through the quarter, it will be emailed to parents. Parents will be expected to help their children memorize their script/lines/cues and assemble a simple make-at-home costume, ideally from clothing items and accessories you already own and a little creativity. Note: Students who are emerging readers (not able to read at a 3rd/4th grade level) would be better suited to the Young Actor's Playhouse class, rather than this level.

Topics in this Series: The Craziest Dream Ever (Quarter 1), Mix Up on Mars (Quarter 2), Super DUper New Superheroes (Quarter 3), Twisted Treasure Tale (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

Dragged into World War II relatively unprepared, the American army ballooned in size while having to learn how to fight a modern war with tanks and airplanes all while overseas. To split the German army's attention from the beleaguered Soviets, the Allies needed to open a second front of the war. Not yet ready to attack Fortress Europe, the Americans started off small by aiding the British against the combined Italian and German armies in North Africa. The campaign was difficult but served as the proving ground which produced as battle-hardened American soldiers, ready to take the war to Europe.

Using artistic model-making techniques, hand tools, and historical maps, students will each form a 10" X 14" shaped, foam diorama with landscape elements (hills, trenches, rivers, ridges, vegetation, barbed wire, etc.) to represent a scene of a famous historical engagement. Students will each receive 1:72 scale miniature soldiers to populate their scene. Once individual projects are constructed, students will combine their dioramas alongside those of their classmates to approximate the larger battlefield terrain. Students will spend the remainder of the quarter learning about the tactics and outcomes of the military engagement while playing a table-top strategy game. Student strategists will use a simplified version of the Fire and Fury historical wargaming rule system for moving troops and equipment. Along with their classmates, students will see how this battle progressed and test different outcome scenarios that might have occurred with different battlefield choices.

The instructor will use maps and visual presentations to explain the historical background and circumstances leading up to the specific battle. Course documents, such as period maps, game rules and all other instructional media will be available via a Google Drive link which will be emailed to parents.

Topics in this series include: Operation Torch/North Africa (Quarter 1), Battle of Stalingrad (Quarter 2), Iwo Jima (Quarter 3), and Philppine Sea (Quarter 4).

There is a $25.00 materials fee payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Prerequisites: None

Tweens will be introduced to watercolor painting in a small group class under the guidance of a professional painter and art teacher. The class will learn the theory of color mixing and the techniques of blending, building up color, creating gradients, and applying light washes. The class will learn how to select the right brush and how to use water to create different effects. Our new painters will practice using paint and brush strokes to create effects like light and shadow, dimension, and texture, and how to develop backgrounds, foregrounds, and detail work. Students will try techniques such as applying and removing paint, layering, stippling, and dabbing, along with wet and dry brush techniques. Students will complete several paintings on canvas boards. A variety of subjects, such as still life, animals, florals, landscapes, seascapes, fantasy, abstracts, or "mimic the masters" will be introduced to illustrate different painting techniques through in-class projects. There is an $15.00 supply fee due payable to the instructor on the first day of class. Topics in this series include: Watercolor Painting (Quarter 1), Tempera Painting (Quarter 2), Acrylic Painting (Quarter 3), and MultiMedia Painting (Quarter 4).

Prerequisites: None

The best way to understand a biome is to build (a model) one! A biome is a large zone on Earth characterized by its climate, soil, vegetation, and organisms with special adaptations for the unique environment. In modeling biomes, students will learn how they are different than similar ecological concepts like habitats and ecosystems. Students will discover how human activities, such as deforestation and habitat destruction, are transforming biomes.
In this science-themed diorama class, students will be exposed to concepts such as trophic levels, the water cycle, biological competition, geographic isolation, convergent evolution, species diversification, natural vs unnatural climate change, food webs, habitat loss, and ecological niches, while they are working on their models.

Tropical rainforest biomes are equatorial regions that are warm and wet with diverse vegetation that forms a canopy. Humidity and a covering of leaf litter create a layer of nutrients which supports a wide variety of vegetation. Tropical rainforests are famous for terrestrial biodiversity, including insects, birds, and mammals.

Each student will create an individual diorama. Students will craft and hand-shape their scene on a 10 x 14 inch foam board using artistic, model-making techniques. They will customize their dioramas with landforms, waterways, plant life, and paint. Once individual projects are constructed, students will populate them with miniature figures and combine their dioramas alongside those of their classmates to create a larger terrain. Students will then compete in a zoology-based survival strategy game. Each student will create one board and receive a set of miniatures to take home with them. Course documents such as maps, game rules and all other instructional media will be available via a Google Drive link which will be emailed to parents. There is a $25.00 materials fee payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

Topics in this series include: Tropics (The Rainforest)- Quarter 1; Tundra (The Arctic)- Quarter 2; Arid (The Desert)- Quarter 3; and Grasslands (The Savanna)- Quarter 4.

Prerequisites: None

Fencing is the clashing of steel and competitive spirit combined with the battle of the wits. Apply the rules of Olympic fencing, and you have a physically and mentally challenging game of strategy, often called, "physical chess."

In Beginning Fencing, students will learn the rules of the sport as well as footwork, attacks, parries, responses, and how to judge matches. Beginning students will use the epee, a thin, lightweight sword with broad hand guard and will wear a wireless electronic scoring sensor over layers of protective gear. Returning students will work with both the epee and foil.

The physical benefits of fencing are an increase in agility, balance and coordination. Fencing also provides mental benefits such as improved focus, strategy and confidence. Fencing is safety-oriented with blunt tip weapons, chest protectors, chest/sleeve pads, fencing jacket, gloves, and face mask.

Students may enroll any quarter. All equipment is provided by the instructor. Students are asked to wear full length, comfortable athletic pants such as running pants or sweatpants (no jeans, no shorts, no dresses or skirts), and low-heeled athletic shoes.

Prerequisites: None

You've dreamed about going to Hogwarts, and now is your chance to experience a year of magical classes! In this maker class, students will create projects inspired by their core classes at Hogwarts (Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Herbology, Potions, and Transfiguration) and a Hogwarts guest professor. Students learn to work with a variety of materials and learn a broad range of crafting skills such as hand-sewing, painting, papercrafting (including precision cutting, folding, and stenciling) sculpting, and wireworking to create magical pieces inspired by the World of Harry Potter.

Welcome to the first term at Hogwarts! This term, we welcome Professor Dumbledore to inspire us as we create a Pensieve along with crafts related to your core classes such as a magic wand (Charms), Repelling Dementors (Defense Against the Dark Arts), and more!

This is a great class for Harry Potter fans who love the magical world, even for those who have not read all of the books or watched all of the movies. Projects and class discussions are geared to not reveal significant series spoilers. Note: A few classes may include a Harry Potter-inspired food creation or personal care product. The ingredients will be identified in advance, and students with food or ingredient allergies or dietary restrictions will need to check before handling/consuming. Substitute ingredients cannot be provided for those with food allergies or restrictions. Note: Project themes or materials are subject to change due to availability or sourcing at the time of the class.

Topics in this Series: Guest Prof. Dumbledore (Quarter 1); Guest Prof. Sprout (Quarter 2); Guest Profs. Snape & Slughorn (Quarter 3), and Guest Profs. Hagrid & Hooch (Quarter 4).

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $40.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

What to Bring: Students should bring good scissors for cutting paper/fabric, a ruler, and a low temp, mini hot glue gun to class each week.

Prerequisites: None

Toffee. Taffy. Truffles... End the day on a sweet note! Kids will enjoy making and eating delicious confections. Each week they will prepare a fresh, handmade dessert or sweet such as: pies, cakes, cookies, tarts, trifles, mousses, puddings, candies, fudge, brittle, or chocolates. The class will include some icing, decorating, and garnishing techniques for completed desserts. This quarter, the Compass bakers' culinary adventures will include:

-Vanilla Buttercream Cake
-Swedish Chocolate Cake
-Peach Upside Down Cake
-Sweet Potato Pound Cake
-Caramel Cinnamon Crepe Cake
-Cookie Butter Dream Cake
-Buttercream, basic frosting skills

Students will be eating what they make each week and bringing home the recipes and leftovers. This engaging sweets class will get students excited about helping in the kitchen and entertaining. They will learn important baking skills such as safety, sanitation, measuring, knife skills, and other tricks of the trade. Culinary vocabulary is introduced each week.

Notes: Students with allergies to food ingredients or dietary restrictions cannot be accommodated in this class. Recipes may contain nuts, dairy, wheat, gluten, and eggs. All food supplies will be conventional, mass market ingredients. Specialty food preparations/certifications such as halal, kosher, and organic will not be used due to cost and sourcing logistics.

Topics in this Series: Piece of Cake (Quarter 1); Easy as Pie (Quarter 2), Choco Loco (Quarter 3), and Paddington's Pasteries (Quarter 4).

Lab/Supply Fee: A class fee of $45.00 is due payable to the instructor on the first day of class.

What to Bring: None- Disposable aprons and take-home containers provided.

What to Wear: Students should wear clean clothes and have long hair tied back, braided, or secured under a bandana (male and female).

Cooking Class Requirements: For more information and FAQs, see the Compass Cooking Classes webpage.

Prerequisites: None

Kids love real-life measurements and intuitively have a lot of questions about them: How high did I jump? How far did I run? How many gallons of water are in the bathtub? Measuring and estimating units of measure are practical, real life skills that can't be learned from pictures in a textbook! Measurement skills are best learned hands-on using real tools and common objects.

In this class, students will practice- and play- with different modes of measurement each week. Students will be able to visualize units of measure for length, weight, area, volume, and temperature. Students will work with everyday objects to be able to answer, which is greater- a pound or a kilogram- and approximately how much more, or which is smaller- a liter or a quart? Students can practice linear measurements with a ruler, yardstick, or tape measure, but how can they measure the length of a curved wall? They can learn length x width x height to find the volume of a shoebox, but how can they find the volume of a lump of playdoh? Kids will learn techniques for measuring non-standard objects along with strategies for converting measurements and shortcuts for estimating measures. Do you know which body part approximates a centimeter and what common sports toy is close to one cup? All work with measurements will be performed in both the English and metric systems so children will improve their fluency going back and forth between the two scales. Students will practice problem solving skills, reasoning, and basic math in this class.

Topics in this Series: Measurement Madness (Quarter 1); Fun with Fractions (Quarter 2); Geometry Games (Quarter 3); and Simple Statistics (Quarter 4)

Prerequisites: None

Mindful Mosaics is run as a studio art class where students create unique compositions and work at their own pace under the guidance of an experienced mosaic artist. Each quarter, students are taught new design, cutting, layout, and finishing techniques and are introduced to new mosaic materials which they can incorporate into inspired, original pieces. The instructor can suggest possible themes for projects based on the featured materials, but most students work on individual projects that reflect their own interests, hobbies, or decor.

Students who are new to mosaics will complete a quick checkerboard project (complete with wooden checkers) to teach pattern, layout, and lines before starting an individual projects. For each project, students will choose from a variety of substrates- rectangular, square, shaped, or circular backboards (typically first-year students), or special forms or 3D objects (experienced students). Each project will expand a student's understanding of color, pattern, rhythm, texture, and spacing as they complete rich, dimensioned compositions. Students will be able to incorporate other glass, ceramic, and porcelain tiles into their projects and may select feature elements such as beautiful glass gems, millefiori, sliced stone, metallic ornaments, mirrored bits, or shells, to serve as focal points in their mosaic piece. The mosaic can be monochromatic, complimentary, or contrasting colors. A broad pallet of colors is always available, and new colors are added each quarter to reflect the season.

Students will develop a skillset for mosaic artistry over multiple quarters or years. As each student demonstrates mastery of basic skills, safety, and artistic expression, that student will be taught advanced techniques, materials, tools, composition, and color theory. A typical progression in mosaics is: (1) Whole tiles in symmetric design on a flat, rectangular substrate with emphasis on proper spacing and adhesion; (2) Tile cut with nippers in themed design and individual color choices on a flat wood substrate; (3) Sheet glass cut with pistol grip, breaking, and/or running pliers with emphasis on composition, color, and design on a flat or curved substrate; (4) Progress to 3D substrate and advanced adhesives; (5) Learn porcelain and ceramic cutting, special adhesives, and advanced design.

Note:There is no prerequisite for this class. The number of projects completed each quarter depends on the student's work speed and attendance in class. Compass parents are welcome to register for the class to work alongside their teens, or to work on their own, while their teen is in another Compass class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 0-1 hours per week outside of class.

Assessments: will not be given.

Materials Fees: All material fees are due payable to the instructor on or before the first day of class by cash, check or electronic payment. Materials used vary depending on a student's experience with mosaic.
Beginner Material Fee: $50.00 for a selection of Beginner Materials, including: vitreous glass, ceramic, mini, eco recycled glass, beach glass, glitter glass, glass gems, ceramic pebble, shells, metallic crystal, subway glass
Adhesive: weld bond
Grout: bone or charcoal color
Cutters: wheeled tile nippers
Substrate: 2D/Flat 12" x 12",10" x 10", 8" X 8", 4" X 4", framed mirrors, ornament shapes

Advanced Material Fee: $60.00 for a selection of Advanced Materials including: All Beginner Materials plus, iridized glass, cathedral sheet glass, opaque sheet glass, color fusion, millefiori, Van Gogh glass, natural stone and minerals, special effects glass, water glass, colored mirror, illumination glass, china plates, rhinestone, ball chain
Adhesives: weld bond, thin-set mortar, silicone
Grout: Custom colors (purple, rose, green, blue, earth, orange)
Cutters: wheeled tile nippers, porcelain hand tool, hand file, pistol grip, beetle bits cutting system
Substrates: All flat shapes plus, 3D forms (egg, sphere, cone, pyramid, etc.), cut out sentiments, trays, glass bottle, mini sleds, flower pot, picture frame, sun catcher.

Additional Fee: There may be additional fees for premium materials such as tesserae (by request and consultation with instructor), mother of pearl, 24 kt gold tiles (market rate), or specially cut substrates.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a component (partial) credit in Fine Arts for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: None

The odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292 million. 77% of teens ages 12-17 have cell phones. One out of every two youth voters cast a ballot in 2020. From election polls to stock market data and weather reports to medical test results, statistics and probability are all around us. They are quoted in the podcasts we listen to, the news we watch, and the textbooks and articles we read. Statistics and probability are used in almost every field of study and career for forecasting, decision making, and tracking progress. In 2021-22, the government will release a tsunami of 2020 census statistics about our country's population. (Coincidentally, the odds of a tsunami hitting the east coast- less than the Powerball win.) But statistics and probability are also often misused, misquoted or incorrectly applied, so having a solid understanding of what these numbers represent will help make teens informed consumers and decision-makers.

This course will explore the collection and analysis of data, inferences and conclusions, and the use of this information. Themes include relationships between variables, gathering data, interpreting categorical versus quantitative data. The class will also cover sample surveys, experiments, and observational studies and evaluate randomness and probability. Finally, students will learn about making inferences, justifying conclusions, and using probability to make decisions.

Prerequisite: Students should have a solid foundation in Algebra I and Geometry in order to take this class. It is an ideal class for a student who needs an additional credit in high school math, but who may not wish to pursue more advanced mathematics courses such as Algebra II and Pre-Calculus.

Levels: The course provides a substantive, full-credit experience on either an Honors or On-Level track. All class members share core material and participate in the same class lectures. Honors students will receive additional, more challenging problems. Students register online for the same course but must indicate which level they wish to follow by the first day of class. Students may move down a level (from Honors to On-Level) at any time.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-1.5 hours per day on reading, review, and homework on most non-class days. Homework assignments will run on a 7-day cycle, with assignments posted on Thursdays and due the following Thursday. Students are advised to start homework once it is assigned (i.e., not wait until the night before it is due). Weekly homework assignments will be of a length that a student should be able to complete them in two or three at-home work sessions. Solutions will be provided for some homework problems, but students are expected to show all steps of their work.

Assignments: The Canvas online class management system will be used to post assignments and scores. Students should have their own e-mail address in order to be set up as users of the Canvas system. Parents can also be set up as Canvas guests/observers for purposes of tracking the student's progress and workload.

Assessments: Student progress will be assessed by: (1) The instructor checking that weekly homework sets are attempted and complete and (2) detailed grading of periodic take-home tests. Parents will be able to view accumulated points awarded in the class for the purpose of determining a parent-awarded course grade. See the instructor's webpage for detailed homework and test policy, including late work and re-work.

Textbook: The required textbook for this class is "Stats In Your World" 1st edition by David E. Bock (ISBN-13: 978-0131384897).

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a complete credit in Probability & Statistics for purposes of a high school transcript.

Prerequisites: Algebra I

Step into a world of imagination, strategy, and storytelling! In this club, teens will work together to create characters, explore fantasy worlds, and go on epic adventures using the popular tabletop roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons. Through creative problem-solving, teamwork, and storytelling, members will learn the basics of the game while building friendships and having fun. No experience is needed-just a sense of adventure! All games and scenarios will be moderated and facilitated by an experienced Compass instructor and Dungeon Master.

Prerequisites: None

Reading and writing affect a student's achievement in all aspects of schoolwork, so strong language arts skills are fundamental to success in homeschooling and beyond. This weekly class is a small group of 3-6 students* who read and write at a similar level. Students follow a comprehensive language arts curriculum under the guidance of an experienced reading specialist. Each class meeting will include a short story with select vocabulary words, a graphic organizer, main themes, and embedded learning objectives. Students will continue to practice language arts skills at home with easy-to-implement "page a day" workbook activities assigned by the instructor and implemented by the parents. For most early elementary learners, enrollment in Reading Rally can serve as a complete, self-contained language arts curriculum where families will not need additional resources in reading, comprehension, composition, spelling, and grammar.

Weekly readings are organized around thematic units. The instructor will teach students how to approach a new story as a fun reading puzzle. For example, before reading aloud in class, students will conduct a "picture walk" to overview and predict elements of the story from the illustrations, review a graphic organizer to assist in writing sentences, define vocabulary words, and preview summary questions. Then, the instructor will read the story aloud, model good reading practices, and encourage students to read. Students will only be asked to read aloud when they feel comfortable and have built trust in their group. All follow-up activities are designed around learning objectives such as decoding, comprehension, prediction, visualization, and verbalization.

READINESS: As a comprehensive language arts curriculum, a student must be at a similar grade level ability in reading, comprehension, and writing. Early readers who have not learned to write, for example, or emerging readers who struggle with comprehenion, may not be a good fit for this class. In addition, students must have the hand-eye coordination and basic handwriting skills to be able to copy the instructor's many notes, examples, and definitions from the classroom white board into their own notebook.

Grade level references in Reading Rally are based on scope, sequence and pacing that correlate to the Grade Level Equivalent (GLE) standards of learning. Students who are more than one year behind in GLE in language arts or who have a difference in skill level between their reading and writing may be recommended for 1-on-1 private instruction to make up ground in reading or writing skills. Additional class meetings or private instruction will be an additional cost.

ATTENTION! (1) Parents should not register for a Reading Rally class until they have had a Language Arts Skills Inventory (i.e. brief assessment) and placement determination by the reading specialist. This must be scheduled separately through Compass at a cost of $125.00. The fee is due prior to the assessment and is not refundable in the event the child is not recommended for a reading group. (2) Parents should not assume a specific reading section until the student has been evaluated. Reading skill levels are not interchangeable, and refunds will not be issued if you do not "get" the level you prefer. It is recommended you get your reading group assignment before scheduling other classes. (3) The instructor has experience working with reluctant and fearful readers, those who are late bloomers, neurodivergent, dyslexic, and ESOL students. However, she might recommend a more complete evaluation by another professional if she suspects other learning differences are impacting the student's langauge arts learning. (4) Pricing is based a minimum 3 students in a level. In the event only 2 students are assigned to one level, the family will be asked to pay the upcharge to a 2-person semi-private class. (3) Students will work from a spiral bound copy of reading textbook and workbook by Pearson. A class fee of $60-$120 (varies by reading level) is due payable to Compass for the required books.

Students continuing from one semester to the next will receive priority registration to remain with their reading group.

Prerequisites: Language Arts Skills Inventory for new students

Sign up for the 2024-25 Checkmate Champs Chess Club. This is an afternoon club for homeschooled students in 2nd-8th grade that meets each Thursday from 3:00 pm- 4:00 pm for chess play. Compass students are asked to enroll and pay a $20.00 for club dues including for a club t-shirt. This is a one-time fee for the 2024-25 year. For more information, see the club webpage. Activity fees are non-refundable.

Crafty Kids Club is a weekly afternoon meet-up for kids in grades 2-5. Kids gather and socialize while completing a craft around a monthly theme. An experienced Compass art instructor facilitates the crafting each week. Projects are selected to showcase a variety of materials and crafting techniques and to promote creativity and imagination. Each quarter, students will complete projects organized around two themes from among eight craft categories: wooden, wearables, simple sewing, painting, sculpting, paper, beading, and mixed media.

Kids will enjoy the camaraderie of working alongside a group of friends in Crafty Kids Club, and parents will appreciate the break!

Parent Notes:
- All the supplies are provided: No need to search high and low for the needed materials.
- Reduce waste and clutter: No need to buy large quantities of specialty supplies for a one-time project.
- Reduce clean-up: Leave the glue, paint, and glitter mess at Compass.
- Kids get to experiment with a variety of materials and techniques, even if YOU are not crafty.
- Crafting improves dexterity and fine motor skills, and an afterschool club makes a great social outlet.

Prerequisites: None

Sign up for a proctored session of the BASI Survey standardized test to be used for the Virginia annual Evidence of Progress. All test sessions will begin at 3:00 pm and will last approximately 75 minutes. For more information on Evidence of Progress, see our webpage.

Embark on a magical afternoon journey with "Magical Creatures' Quest: A Familiar Problem!" This enchanting club is for middle school students who adore whimsical tales, creative adventures, and the magic of tabletop role-playing games. During each club meeting, the group will weave a captivating story where each participant takes on the role of a magical animal on a quest to reunite with its owner. Are you more like a daring dragon, mysterious mermaid, playful Pegasus, or a fearless fairy? Each meeting presents a new chapter, filled with challenges, mysteries, and opportunities for magical mischief. Tweens will unleash their creativity and collaborate with others to shape the adventure, solve puzzles, and make decisions to advance the story.

The club is facilitated by an experienced Game Master who will guide students through the art of role-playing. Tweens will connect and form friendships with other middle schoolers who share a love of magical stories and imaginative play- in person! Previous role-playing experience is not required, but this club serves as a great introduction for tweens and teens who might be interested in embarking on Dungeons and Dragons.

Prerequisites: None

Objections. Impeachments. Accusations. Contempt. Courtrooms can be filled with drama, though not always as seen on popular television portrayals. Trial advocacy is an engaging introduction to the legal world for high school students. Teens will step into the dynamic and thrilling world of trial advocacy, portraying the roles of witnesses and attorneys for the prosecution and defense in a mock criminal case. Throughout the semester, they will be instructed on how to analyze, strategize, and prepare a legal case.

First semester, students will learn the challenging art of crafting opening statements, closing arguments, and eliciting witness testimony through direct and cross-examinations in a persuasive, winsome, and compelling manner. The class will be taught federal rules of evidence by real attorneys and coaches who have collectively over 15 years of experience in mock trials at the high school and collegiate levels. Students will learn courtroom etiquette and strategize with their classmates to construct a clear, organized, and passionate argument for their client. Students will also have the opportunity to hone their acting skills and creativity, stepping into vital roles as witnesses, and testifying in support of either the prosecution or defense. Throughout the semester, they will develop and sharpen their critical thinking and public speaking skills.

This class will bolster a student's confidence to advocate for themselves, introduce and deepen their knowledge of trial advocacy and procedures, and so much more. Students do not need prior experience in trial advocacy, mock trials, or interest in law school to participate: no matter what career path a student is on, Trial Advocacy will provide students with enhanced written and oral communication, teamwork, leadership, and professionalism that will last a lifetime.

High School Mock Trial Team: Selection of mock trial competition team members is by audition in the spring. Enrollment in this course is required of all members of Compass's mock trial competition team. Those who are curious about high school mock trial, higher education in law, or a career in the criminal justice system are welcome and encouraged to enroll. Students who are enrolled in the class only may be invited to meet with the competition team as an alternate, scrimmage partner, or full member, if recommended by the Instructors.

Class Format: This class will meet at a virtual, synchronous lecture. Students are expected to be seated at a desk or table and have their cameras and microphones on to participate in class.

Workload: Students who are enrolled in the class only should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class working on writing, collaborating with other students, and memorizing their presentations. Students who are enrolled in the class and are competing members of the mock trial team have an additional, 2-hour in-person weekly team meeting, partner work, scrimmages, rehearsals, and regional and state competitions, for an estimated 5-6 additional hours of work outside of class.

Assignments and Assessments: Students will receive feedback on all assignments. There are no exams in this course, but there will be pop quizzes and points assigned for completed assignments, presentations, and participation.

Textbook/Materials: The case packet and course documents will be posted to an online classroom management system by the instructors.

Credit: For a student who is enrolled in the class only, the homeschool family may wish to count this course as a component (partial) credit in Humanities, Civics, or Career Exploration for purposes of a high school transcript. For a student who is enrolled in the class and a member of the competing mock trial team, the homeschool family may wish to count this course as a full credit at the honors level.

Prerequisites: None