Spring River Homeschool High School

10/10/2026

🌊 History Through Art: Exploring Japan, One Piece at a Time

What happens when history, art, and craftsmanship come together?

In Spring River High School’s History Through Art class, students are exploring 19th-century Japan through the work of renowned Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai.

Drawing inspiration from two of his celebrated woodblock prints, The Great Wave off Kanagawa and Amida Falls on the Kiso Road (pictured here), students are creating their own interpretations using colorful glass mosaics.

Created in the early 1830s, these remarkable works emerged during Japan’s Edo period, when the country maintained strict restrictions on foreign travel and international contact under a policy known as Sakoku.

Despite these restrictions, Japan developed a rich and distinctive artistic culture. Hokusai’s extraordinary depictions of water, movement, and the natural world continue to inspire artists nearly two centuries later.

As students explore the historical and cultural context of these works, they are also experiencing the patience and precision of mosaic making—cutting glass, selecting colors, arranging shapes, and gradually bringing their interpretations to life, piece by piece.

This is what makes History Through Art such a meaningful part of our high school curriculum. Rather than studying history and art as separate subjects, students discover the connections between culture, geography, politics, and creative expression.

And through the work of their own hands, history becomes something they can experience, interpret, and remember.

🌿 At Spring River, art is not simply an addition to academic learning. It is another way of understanding the world.

A special thank you to Ms. Amy Jaskiewicz, whose History Through Art class brings together historical inquiry, artistic exploration, and hands-on learning. Her thoughtful approach invites students to experience history in ways that go far beyond the pages of a textbook.

Original artwork pictured: Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave off Kanagawa (c. 1830–1832) and Amida Falls on the Kiso Road (c. 1832–1833).

10/06/2026

🧠 When Your Brain Says One Thing and Your Eyes Say Another

Our High School Psychology students put their brains to the test with the Stroop Effect—a classic psychological phenomenon that demonstrates what happens when competing information interferes with our ability to respond quickly.

Try saying the ink color of a word when the word itself spells the name of a different color. It sounds simple…until your brain automatically wants to read the word instead!

The activity gave students a hands-on look at selective attention, automatic processing, and cognitive interference—and, of course, a little friendly competition emerged. ⏱️

🏆 Fastest time: Oliver — 17.75 seconds
🥈 Close behind: Liam and Gaia — 18.50 seconds

Sometimes the best way to understand psychology is to catch your own brain in the act.

10/06/2026

🌯🌙 CHIPOTLE FOR THE MIDNIGHT GARDEN BALL!

Tomorrow night, dinner can help support Spring River High School’s Midnight Garden Ball!

Join us at Chipotle in Neptune Beach tomorrow, Wednesday, October 7, from 4–8 PM. 25% of event sales will be donated to help cover expenses for our High School Prom.

📍 628 Atlantic Blvd., Suite 1, Neptune Beach
⏰ 4–8 PM

Ordering in person? Tell them you’re there to support Spring River when you order, or show them a picture of this flyer.

Ordering online? Choose Pickup from the Neptune Beach location and enter fundraiser code L48AG4P. Be sure to hit “Apply.” Online orders must be placed during the fundraiser hours; delivery orders do not count.

Grab dinner, support our high school students, and help us bring the Midnight Garden Ball to life. 🌿✨

PLEASE SHARE! Every order helps us get closer to our fundraising goal.

10/03/2026

What could high school look like for your student?

Middle school is often when families begin asking bigger questions about what comes next. What kind of academic experience will be the right fit? How much flexibility is possible? What opportunities exist beyond traditional high school pathways?

We invite all middle school students and their parents to join us for an evening at Spring River High School and explore those questions together.

📅 Thursday, October 22 | 6:00–7:00 PM
📍 51 Pine Street, 2nd Floor | Atlantic Beach

Parents will have an opportunity to meet members of our high school faculty and learn more about academics, electives, student life, flexibility, and the possibilities of a community-supported homeschool high school experience.

Joining us will be:

• Amy Jaskiewicz — English & History Through Art
• Rosie Eddy — Math, Physics & Administrative Coordinator
• Lanie Berlin — History
• Special Guest Rebecca Crumbie — Sunshine Individualized Learning

And we’ve planned something specifically for the students, too.

While parents have their own conversation, our instructors will guide a separate discussion between visiting middle school students and several current Spring River High School students. Middle schoolers will have the opportunity to ask questions, hear directly from students about their experiences, and talk about classes, friendships, activities, and the transition to high school.

Whether your family is already part of the Spring River community or you’re just beginning to discover us, you are welcome.

Come meet us, ask questions, explore the possibilities—and see what high school can look like.

09/26/2026

09/26/2026

🏀 Physics in Motion

How do you know whether something is moving?

It sounds like a simple question, but this week our high school Physics students discovered that the answer depends on where you are when you observe it.

Through a hands-on activity exploring relative motion and frames of reference, students changed the position and motion of the observer and watched how the apparent motion of an object changed along with it.

The activity connects to a famous thought experiment proposed by Galileo Galilei more than 400 years ago. Galileo asked us to imagine being inside a windowless ship traveling smoothly at a constant speed across a calm sea. From inside the ship, could you tell that you were moving? And how would that same motion appear to someone standing on the shore?

It all depends on your frame of reference.

Rather than simply reading about the concept, our students became part of the experiment—moving, observing, testing, and experiencing the physics for themselves.

It’s one of the things we value about learning at Spring River: giving students opportunities to encounter an idea through experience and then connect that experience to the deeper concepts behind it.

More than 400 years later, Galileo’s thought experiment still leaves us with a wonderfully simple question:

What changes when we change our point of view?

Sometimes understanding physics means doing exactly that—quite literally. 🏀

09/25/2026

History Through Art 🎨

What can one painting tell us about a moment in history?

This week, our high school History Through Art students studied Franz Marc’s Blue Horse I, painted in 1911.

Marc was part of Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a group of artists exploring new ways to use color and form to express ideas and emotion rather than simply represent the world realistically. In Blue Horse I, color carries meaning—Marc associated blue with the spiritual, transforming the horse into something expressive and symbolic.

The painting also sits within a poignant moment in history. Marc created it just three years before the outbreak of World War I. He later served in the German army and was killed near Verdun in 1916 at just 36 years old.

After studying and discussing the work, our students created their own renditions—and we love seeing how differently each student interpreted the original.

Recreating a work of art asks students to slow down and really look: at color, shape, proportion, movement, composition, and the choices an artist made more than a century ago.

That’s the heart of History Through Art at Spring River. History isn’t only something students read about. They encounter it through the people who lived it, explore the ideas and cultural shifts expressed through their work, and then respond creatively themselves.

History becomes something to observe, question, interpret—and make. 🎨

Original artwork: Franz Marc, Blue Horse I (Blaues Pferd I), 1911, oil on canvas. Collection of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Bernhard and Elly Koehler Foundation 1965. Digital image made available by the Lenbachhaus under CC0 1.0.

09/23/2026

🎨 Inside Art + Design at Spring River High School

What happens before a student learns to draw something beautifully?

They learn to really see it.

Our high school Art + Design students began the year with blind contour drawing—drawing without looking at the paper. It can feel awkward at first, but that’s part of the point: it shifts the focus away from making something “good” and toward careful observation.

From there, students moved into pencil fundamentals and a still-life study of an apple, learning to translate light and shadow into value.

Most recently, they’ve been working with charcoal and studying the six areas of value. An ordinary egg becomes an exercise in noticing just how much is happening when light meets form.

Charcoal-covered hands, intense concentration, experiments that don’t always work the first time—this is the part of art education we love to see.

And they’re just getting started.

Art + Design at Spring River High School is about developing technique, but also observation, patience, creative confidence, and the willingness to keep looking a little more closely.

✨ There are still a few spots open in this class for high school students who would like to join us. Students can participate in individual Spring River High School courses without enrolling in a full schedule.

Interested in learning more or trying a class? Reach out to us—we’d love to introduce you to what we’re building at Spring River High School.

09/22/2026

Algebra I took to the sidewalk this morning! ☀️📐

Our high school students headed outside with sidewalk chalk to create a giant number line and explore absolute value together.

There’s something powerful about taking an idea that can feel abstract on paper and making it visible—and big enough to walk alongside. Students marked values, explored their distance from zero, worked through problems together, and experienced the concept in a completely different way.

At Spring River High School, academics can move beyond the desk. Sometimes the sidewalk becomes the classroom. 💛

Learning can be rigorous, collaborative, hands-on—and even happen in the Florida sunshine.