Why Name Your Homeschool?
Many homeschoolers may not think about creating a unique name for their homeschool, but there are many reasons why having a name is not only a good idea, but sometimes even necessary.
- Some homeschool accountability groups/umbrella programs may require your homeschool to be identified by a name.
- An official name is often requested when signing up for reading incentive programs, such as Pizza Hut's Book It! program, or for education discounts at various stores and online suppliers.
- Having a homeschool name may also help your children have a sense of identity with their school.
- If you create student ID cards, you'll need a school name.
- A school name will be required for your children's high school transcripts that you prepare upon their graduation.
How to Name your Homeschool
So how do you go about actually choosing a name? Since there is no right or wrong way to do it, I can only make suggestions. When creating a unique homeschool name, consider including words related to the following:
- Your family's last name, such as…
- Jefferson Homeschool
- Anderson Academy
- Simpson Preparatory School
- Your street or city, such as…
- Cherry Street School for Boys
- Austin Academy for Excellence (yes, this might be a little pretentious…)
- Words or themes from a favorite verse, poem, character trait, famous person, author, etc. , such as…
- Live Oak Academy, based on Psalms 1:1-3
- Raven Homeschool
- George Washington Preparatory School
- J. Austen Academy
- Words related to your faith, such as…
- Faith Evangelical School
- First Christian School of Christ
- Terms related to your homeschooling style, such as…
- Mason Academy
- Classical Foundations Homeschool
- Northward Eclectic School
Going Beyond the Name
Once you've chosen a name for your school, you might even like to make up a logo, motto, mascot, etc. and purchase some custom apparel for your children, such as sweatshirts, T-shirts, or caps.
CafePress.com is an easy way to create and purchase customized apparel and non-apparel items. Just create your logo and upload it to the CafePress site. You can then put the logo on dozens of different items.
(Just imagine being able to give your parents a bumper sticker that says something like "My Grandson is an Honors Student at Rolling Hills Academy"!)
How We Named Our Homeschool
Our homeschool is called Olórin Academy, and the name holds a lot of meaning for us, even though much of that is not blatantly obvious.
Olórin, which means "wisdom," was coined by J.R.R. Tolkien. (If that name sounds familiar to LOTR fans, it's because Olórin is the once-upon-a-time name of Gandalf.) So not only is our homeschool name a tribute to Tolkien, it also reflects the fact that our family has an intense love for books.
The meaning of Olórin also relates to the foundation verse we chose for our homeschool: "My son, give attention to my wisdom, incline your ear to my understanding." Proverbs 5:1.
So in the end, our choice of a school name reflects multiple aspects of our family and homeschool.
We also chose a mascot for our school. This one was pretty easy to decide on once we had a name. Since Olórin was the original name of Gandalf, our mascot is a horse. A white horse.
So do you have a school name already? If so, I'd love to hear it. Leave a comment and share why you chose your particular name.
In NC, we are required to name our homeschool. Ours is Cornerstone Classical Academy. Cornerstone because Christ is the Cornerstone and Classical because of our educational style.
Ours is names St. Scholastica Academy
The state required we have a name. I've since added school colors (red, blue and purple from Exodus) and a mascot (a Mighty Warrior because I want to raise children who fight for the important things and will do battle with the worldly).
Thanks for the input that Cafepress can do that.
Ours is Ambleside Liberal Arts Academy. Although I'm starting to feel it sounds pretentious. I picked it because I've been loosely following Charlotte Mason for the last (mumble-mumble) years.
"Liberal Arts" is because, once upon a time, a liberal arts education meant you were well rounded in your studies. Not just science, math and history but also in music and the arts. My goal is to give my children a broader understanding of the world around them, and that in life subjects aren't neatly compartmentalized into little boxes.
Our school is "Kings Landing Academy." Kings Landing is where we live. I have been contemplating for some time a logo and school colors. Thanks for the input for Cafepress. Now I'm really inspired to formalize a logo/colors!
I have just been saying "Williams Academy."
We call our school Freedom Academy and our mascot is an eagle. We haven't designed a logo yet, though I really like the idea of putting it on t-shirts. Thanks for the inspiration!
This is a great idea. We've toyed with some names this year but now I want to get down to business! Thanks for the inspiration to do so. 🙂
Our school is Entheos Academy. Entheos means "God within" in Greek and is the root word for enthusiasm .
We named ours Sunrise Academy, cuz they wake with the sun rises. 🙂 Litterally.
We're called Firelight Academy. It's inspired by the William Butler Yeats quote "Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire."
Oooooh, I love that one!
I really like the idea of naming our homeschool. I thought about it years ago, but never got around to it. You brought up some great points though and I really like the idea of being able to make a logo and create some "school spirit"! I have enjoyed reading the names other people use as it helps to give me ideas.
We named our homeschool Quetzal Bilingual Academy. Quetzal because our family is 50% Guatemalan, and Bilingual because we are striving to be completely bilingual – English/Spanish – both in spoken conversation and in literacy. Our mascot is the quetzal, of course, and our colors are red, green, and white (which also includes the Italian side of the family!)
We named our school Fami-Lee School of Excellence.
Truth be told I did a "Help Name Our School" contest, we wanted to name our school so bad but were coming up blank. LOL 🙂 One friend came up with the Fami-Lee (our last name is Lee) part and another friend added in the "School of Excellence" part. . . . Together it had a nice ring to it.
Our school colors are Green and Purple, my kids favorite colors.
Our mascots are Caterpillars and Butterflies. 🙂
My boys and I had a family meeting and decided on Padden Academic Academy. They picked a white tiger for our mascot. Black and White for our colors. And our motto is 'Changing the world, One student at a time!' LOL…this is our first year to home school and I am going full force to make this the best life changing decision of all our lives!!! Thank you for sharing all our your information with us.
Our homeschool is "Narrow Path Academy". We've not gone so far as to pick colors and a mascot, but I see it in our future. 🙂 My husband chose the name, and we love it.
We call our homeschool: Spirit of Learning Academy, we needed a name last year when our oldest was graduating and we ordered a beautiful diploma. We also needed it for her transcript. We chose the colors for her graduation party (blue and silver). We are now homeschooling two in middle school, who really LOVED getting an official name and colors. I just love the idea of a mascot and love the t-shirt logo idea too. I know they wil get a kck out of it too. Thanks for sharing : )
I just started homeschooling this year, and we chose Adlai Stevenson Prep (mascot- the Egghead) because we are Unitarian Universalists, and Adlai Stevenson is one of my heroes. He was an honest, decent guy who wasn't ashamed to be intelligent. Plus, he's so quotable. I'm still debating whether our official motto should be "In Quiet Places, Reason Abounds," or "Via ovum cranium difficilus est," (translation: The way of the egghead is hard).
🙂
We chose Lakeview Learning Center as the name of our home school because we live about 2 blocks from Lake Michigan! We are surrounded by lighthouses and beaches so it seemed the right name for us. (It doesn't hurt to think about the beach during our winter sessions in the house either lol!)
Avondale Prep is our name..Panthers is our mascot as we have two black cats. The colors have gone back and forth between red and white, red and yellow, blue and silver, etc. We will nail it down this year. The kids have had fun with it too. We are creating a year book documenting our activities. We are adopting our outside sports to be on our athletics page, art class for our arts program, music, etc. You create a photo book on Costco.com or Snapfish, or another service of your choice. Print two and voila! A year book that the kids created and a photo album to boot. Don't forget to include field trips, outings with friends, etc.
I wanted to do Willis Academy for Talented Young Ladies, since we only have girls. My husband said it sounded a little too Xmen (Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters). So we went with Willis Academy for Young Ladies, or just Willis Academy for short. We also have the motto: Learning begins at home.
Our first year homeschooling our 5 children and the name we came up with is The Advanced Leadership Training Academy. Since this is all new I'm trying to think of a way to shorten it a bit for kids like ALT academy and I would love to pick a mascot and colors etc… Great ideas. Any ideas? 😉
We are Bergman Institute for Personalized Education 🙂
At one point, we were thinking of "Urban Achiever Academy" as nod to one of our favorite movies, but given where we live the other connotations didn't align, so we were afraid it could be misconstrued. Similarly with "Bat Country Academy." We weren't required but since we were following the unschooling idea, more or less, we had also toyed with the idea of "Academiae Dura Pulsanti."
We named ours Circle K Academy for Girls. Circle K because we live in the country, have horses on our land and after old western movie ranches. Academy for Girls because I'm a single mom with three daughters.
Our Home school name is Crann na Beatha Acadamh which in English translates to Tree of Life Academy. Both my husband and myself are Irish and we are raising our family in a traditional Irish home.