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About Us

A Message From Ms. Isabella:
Welcome to Creative Explorers! I am so glad to have you join us. Whether you just found us or have been thinking about joining in for a while, you are a welcome and wonderful part of our community. How do I know?  That's easy. Every single family, adult, parent, child, and member of our community comes from a different, unique background and has wonderful, awesome, incredible thoughts, ideas, knowledge, creativity, and passions. I know because I've been building this community for over a year now and not one person I've met has proven me wrong. I truly believe in the power of diversity and that meeting new people, hearing new ideas, and learning from each other is the best and most awesome way to learn. That being said, this is first and foremost a safe space for everyone. While we respect and welcome new ideas and thoughts, the same is expected of all our members and the way they interact with each other. We are all a part of creating something here that has the chance to make a big impact in a lot of kids' lives. I take that very seriously, and I expect you to as well. We welcome everyone who wants to join a community that makes everyone feel safe, welcome, and included.

Why Creative Explorers?

Creative Explorers was created to fill a need for inclusive & secular spaces in the homeschooling community. We found ourselves in a minefield of religious and conservative co-ops and social groups that didn’t fit our family’s values or interests. We created this space to give other homeschooling families a sense of community that comes from a co-op while understanding that neurodiversities, (dis)abilities, and all the other wonderful differences we celebrate here mean that many families need a community that’s unique, inclusive, and understanding. We know that not everyone is able to make it out to a physical location for many reasons to attend in-person social events. Many families are stretched on time, energy – even spoons – that makes it difficult to give what traditional co-ops ask of member families.

That’s where Creative Explorers fills in the gaps that we’ve found hundreds of homeschooling families are experiencing out there. We offer an inclusive, safe, secular space for children and their families to connect and find community in a way that works for their unique needs.

How We Differ:

  • Neuroaffirming: We understand neurodiversity because we also live with that neurospicy chaos every day. We try to be transparent about our class expectations using our Silly Goose-o-Meter to help you choose the best classes for your learners. Some classes may have a more “serious” or academic feel, but all of our classes are led by teachers who share our values for inclusivity and diversity. What does that mean? It means we’re happy to hop down a little rabbit trail with your learner who wants to share some facts or a story during a live class, we understand that interruptions happen and will handle a rare issue with this carefully so as to not hurt a learners’ feelings. We love looking at your art, checking out a plant in your backyard. We know that kids need an outlet, and we are here to affirm and support them all.
  • LGBTQIA2+ inclusive: We ask for your learners’ pronouns, we encourage you to list them on your Zoom names, and we will use them. We expect other learners to use them. More than that, though, we choose books with diverse characters, we share about the LGBTQIA2+ community and how issues impact them even outside of Pride month, we encourage students to be themselves and express themselves in a variety of ways. We have zero tolerance for anything that
  • Secular: We go out of our way to choose secular resources, discuss secular curriculum options, and respect that our learners come from a variety of backgrounds. We teach real science, we decolonize our history, we choose diverse books with varied perspectives. This doesn’t mean we never speak of religion, but it means that when we do, we don’t treat any one religion as “right” and treat all religions as cultural practices that “some” (not all) people might choose to believe in.
  • Liberal: We do not shy away from politics. We are raising inclusive, open-minded, passionate kiddos who already have a ton of feelings on so many subjects. We give them spaces to express those things, learn more about them, and share their incredible ideas for changing the world. Activism not your jam? That’s okay. You pick and choose your classes based on what’s right for your learner, but this is the worldview that we create all our classes from. You may choose not to participate in a Virtual Protest or Creative Activists class, but you’ll find our progressive & liberal values in the way we teach most everything. It’s not expressly required to share these liberal values, but we do not invite alternatives to be shared in our spaces. There are plenty of homeschooling spaces for other ideas. To keep this space safe, inviting, welcoming, and inclusive for all our students, these values are pretty much as firm as they come around here – and we’re usually pretty flexible!

What We Offer:

For the Kids

ZOOM: Most of our classes, events, clubs, parties, etc. are offered on Zoom. Each month, we post a new link to our course catalogue and registration pages for the following month. Each month has an overarching theme that connects many of our classes together to create more connections across disciplines and subject areas. From Underwater Adventures to Outer Space, we create a variety of themes to help keep things interesting for our learners. Some of our meetings are recurring each month, some are part of a shorter series of monthly classes, and some are completely new each month!

EXTENSION CLASSES: We currently offer an online asynchronous self-paced extension class on our LMS, Moodle, but we are working to convert this over to Google Classroom and expand our offerings in this space. Keep an eye out for news on upcoming asynchronous extension classes!

EXTRAS: We work hard to help our students build connections not only with the content they learn in class through things like art and other in-class projects and activities, at-home projects and packets, extension classes, book recommendations, and more, but we also like to give our students other creative outlets and opportunities to build friendships and connections with our students. From moderated discussion forums to comic creations and spaces to share stories and blog posts with their fellow students, we are always innovating and looking for ways to help us build a wider wealth of resources and offerings for our families and kiddos.

DISCORD: There are a few clubs that meet through Discord voice channels. These clubs are optional and will use parents’ Discord accounts. These are used for things like read alouds and story time for an easier way to add a few extra offerings each month.

For the Adults

DISCORD: Our Discord is for the adults in the family to find community, ask questions, stay up-to-date on what we have going on, and serves as our membership application.

FACEBOOK: We have a Facebook page and a Facebook group to help promote and share our offerings and build our community of like-minded families and homeschoolers.

CAREGIVER MEETINGS: We want this space to be more than just a place for homeschool kids. When there’s interest in a topic, we host book clubs, documentary watch parties, movie nights, planning meetings, information sessions, and more with parents and caregivers in mind.

FAMILY EVENTS: While the majority of our events, classes, clubs, and meetings cater to our homeschool kiddos, we do also make an effort to have family events that bring the whole household unit together to enjoy things like Drag Story Hour, Virtual Pride Fests, Virtual Science Fairs, and more.