Olive Tree Academy

Olive Tree Academy was founded in April 2004. Its former name is the Kim Family Training Institute. The new school name is taken from Psalm 128:3 - "Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your sons will be like olive shoots around your table."

We hope to nurture and grow our young olive shoots into strong and fruitful trees! It's our joy and our pleasure!



Not accepting new students at this time. Our present student body consists of J, V, and H.




Notice our school uniforms. We encourage freedom of expression and easy access for potty needs.

Both our kindergartner and our pre-k'er are using Handwriting Without Tears. We also do shapes, the date, weather, numbers, and memory verses/songs together.





We are focusing alot on life skills with our pre-k'er, including making bread and cleaning up the bedroom. Life skills photos will be posted in the near future.






This is our toddler; please pardon the hair-do (or hair-undone, in this case). We are currently learning first-time obedience and potty training.







Our classroom supplies and books are kept here near our workstation (aka the kitchen table). We have a binder where we keep all the verses we are memorizing; our math curriculum (Right Start Math); Phonics Pathways; a listening skills book; an Usborne animals book and Eric Carle's Animals, Animals. We also have coloring books and a lined-pages workbook for copywork.

Moon sand, it was discovered by this teacher, is horrendous to clean up and has therefore been relegated to the babylocked part of the cabinet until students gain maturity or the teacher gains confidence.






The play area includes a kitchen put together in 2 hours by this teacher BY HERSELF while the students were making impossible-to-clean-up "snow" with the styrofoam from the packaging, baby furniture and babies, a table and pretty, shiny, spray-painted purple stools.










The school library is stocked with quality literature on easy-to-access shelves for the little students. Story time takes place daily in the one-on-one tutoring center (aka the couch).










Our kindergartner loves his abacus. In this photo J is learning how to make numbers on the abacus. We also enjoy tally sticks and singing "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe".












Physical education is an important part of our curriculum and encouraged in a variety of ways. Besides climbing on, jumping off, and walking between couches, we go to the park, play with the water table on the deck, dance to John Waller, and jump on the spare bed.

We hope you enjoyed this first tour of the Olive Tree Academy, located in lovely TN!

J's Diagnosis

(I picked this picture in spite of the dirt that he enjoyed throwing all over his head, not because of it :) )
It's official - Asperger's, a mild form of autism characterized by social awkwardness and obsessive interests (sea creatures, in J's case). It's a relief to know, on many levels.

We need to see the developmental pediatrician on post to get enrolled in EFMP (Exceptional Family Members Program). We need to call the local school system about a full evaluation, though I don't know how that all works with homeschooling.

I talked with a long-time friend of mine who is a pediatric occupational therapist. She works mostly with autistic children and reminded me of several things:

1. God knows what He's doing and has great plans for J.
2. Hubby and I are Judah's best teachers and therapists since we know him best and love him most.
3. Good therapists will be a great help in showing us issues we don't see and giving us strategies to help him overcome obstacles.

It's not hard or overwhelming to think about these things, just different. We're ready and willing to do whatever it takes to give J a good education (spiritually, academically, socially, etc) and the same shot in life we're going to give his younger sisters. It's not going to be bad or burdensome, this new journey, just different...and very, very rewarding, I have the feeling.

Sooooo....here we go!