A Homeschool Enrichment Program Serving the Ithaca, N.Y. community.
Now enrolling 8-12 year olds for the 2020-2021 school year!
We are excited to offer Fall Finnstitute Outdoor Classroom with Sophia Hutnik, our new teacher! Learn more about Sophia here.
We will begin this year in an outdoor setting in response to the Pandemic.
Please contact us for more details.
For the past 12 years home schoolers joined together one, two or three days a week to study, play and be inspired by Mike Finn, a well-known and much appreciated teacher, artist, author, poet, carpenter and ringmaster. The children studied atelier drawing, botany, creative writing, current events, games, geometric drawing, geography, history, ornithology, poetry, physics, and woodwork among many other subjects. They built suspension bridge models, windmills and forts; visited countless natural areas and museums, created friendships.
Our enrichment program runs Monday and Tuesday 9 AM- 3PM, with Friday option dependent on enrollment. We will augment and supplement Homeschooling work through an exciting and varied curriculum that meets the many interests and creatively challenges the many capacities of the school age students.
Please visit our “Class Notes” page to see what we’ve been studying at the Finnstitute this year and in the past.
Some of the curriculum we have studied in recent years includes:
- Age of Discovery and Exploration
- American History through Folk Music
- Animal Athletes, Intelligence in Animals
- Botany/Nature Studies
- Composition, Grammar, Usage and Mechanics
- Creative Writing
- Creative Writing, Poetry, Short Story, Essay, Dramatic Dialogue
- Fine Art-Woodcuts, Lino-cuts, Atelier Drawing Methods
- Geology, Mineralogy, Elements
- Geometry
- Geography
- History and Evolution of Mathematics, Past to Present and Beyond
- Mayan, Aztec, and Inca cultures, their rise and fall in the Americas
- Middle Ages, Castles and Calligraphy
- N.Y. State Exploration/History Trips
- Physics
- Platonic Solids through drawing, geometry and number
- Poetry, Past and Present
- Renaissance/Art History
- Science Experiments
- Shelters
- Speech and Drama
- The Human Face in Art and Cultural History
