Home-schooler Connor Aberle takes the stage Saturday at regional contest
By Jennifer Anderson
The Portland Tribune, Mar 12, 2010
Connor Aberle received his prize in the 2009 Regional Spelling Bee from Rebecca Brown of Comcast. Aberle won by correctly spelling “Olivaceous” and “Erythromycin.” Tribune file photo Local spelling bee champ Connor Aberle will fight to defend his title on Saturday at the eighth annual Portland Tribune/Comcast Regional Spelling Bee. After winning the regional contest last year, Connor – who represents the Village Home Education Center – advanced to the Scripps National Spelling Bee last May. He made it to the semifinals and has been training to do no less than win at the national level this year, which is his last year of eligibility since he’s 14, according to his mother, Shelley. “He’s been studying spelling about three hours a day ever since he finished nationals last year,” Shelley Aberle says. “He’s learned an incredible amount, and is so much better prepared now than he was last year at the same time.” Some of his tricks beyond the standard word lists: he’s been studying language families and tricky word patterns, and has also competed in some of the weekly kids’ and adult spelling bees at Mississippi Pizza, to practice his crowd presence.

HIllsboro Argus
On April 10th, Village Home student, Denna Good-Mojab held a concert benefiting Mercy Corps' work in Haiti. She raised over $1800 dollars through ticket sales and donations. The concert program included operatic, classical, and other works in English, Italian, German, and Farsi. See the Hillsboro Argus article below for more details.

Portland Mercury
by Sarah Mirk
February 04, 2010
It's Sunday morning. I'm in Hillsboro. I'm surrounded by Legos. These are not the Legos you grew up with. At least, they're not the Legos I grew up with. These Legos have brains. And so do the kids who are building them into robots, with grand plans to save the world......

By Special to The Oregonian
January 21, 2010, 4:17PM
Beaverton's Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies and Portland's Nanites took home top prizes last weekend at the ninth annual Intel Oregon FIRST LEGO League 2009 Championship held at Liberty High School in Hillsboro.
The competition theme, "Smart Moves," asked participants to transform the way we look at transportation.
The all-girl Rubber Duckies, from Village Home Education Resource Center, tackled the project of solving the germ problem within a busy hospital environment by conducting research at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Portland. The team presented a two-step solution composed of a unique air-purification system and an artificial-intelligence-driven cleaning robot......

December 15, 4:03 PM
By Ute Mitchell
Although most homeschoolers hate the dreaded socialization question, it is a subject they're all too familiar with, when they choose the path of homeschooling. After all, homeschooling means that it is now up to parents to make sure their offspring gets socialized. Portland is an extremely homeschool-friendly city and offers various coops, field trips, and even recreation center classes geared especially toward homeschooling families. See attachment for full article, or ONLINE

By Allan Brettman, The Oregonian
October 24, 2009, 7:47PM
Tyley Fitzgerald, 10, of Tigard (center) watches over her team’s Lego robot at the FIRST Robotics Competition held today at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. Lauren Mickelsen, 10, of Hillsboro (left) helped put together the robot for the Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies team. The wigs, tropical hats and imitation leis worn by Tyley and Lauren were in keeping with their team’s theme of goofiness.

By Kristi Turnquist, The Oregonian, Monday August 24, 2009
Listening to Isaaiah Ruby Jean Baltzell play her fiddle, it's easy to lose track of time. Isaaiah is practicing waltzes, hoedowns and rags, of the sort that families used to entertain themselves with in the days before television, radio or iPods. It takes work to be a champion, which Isaaisah is. In July, she won the Small Fry division at the National Oldtime Fiddlers' Contest and Festival, in Weiser, Idaho. Isaaiah also is fresh off a win in the Pee Wee (8 and under) category of the Oregon Old Time Fiddlers Association Willamette Valley Contest. Her brother, Gabriel, won the Junior-Junior (9-12) category.

Raleigh Hills home-schooler Connor Aberle used his full “bee” mode Wednesday to make it to the semifinals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

by Jenn Director Knudsen, Special to The Oregonian
Thursday May 14, 2009, 9:11 AM

BEAVERTON -- Village Home Education Resource Center is a home-away-from-home for nearly 300 families who have selected an educational world without grades or tests. And interest in its approach is growing.

The nonprofit center provides more than 100 classes Tuesdays through Thursdays, plus opportunities for socializing, for home-schooled students. Since opening its Beaverton center in 2003, it has recently added a Northeast Portland site. Preschool through high school students, from across the metro area, attend both locations.

Amid school districts' projected budget cuts, parents of children in public school are inquiring in greater numbers about Village Home, said Lori Walker, the center's founder and executive director.

"It's causing them to evaluate the whole approach" to their kids' education, Walker said. "They're looking at options."

A small resource center serving homeschooled learners in Beaverton, Oregon, Village Home Education Resource Center, has achieved top honors in state competitions and earned the right to represent Oregon in THREE national and global competitions. This year, THREE teams from Village Home will compete in the national and international contests: Lego Robotics, Destination Imagination, and Toy Challenge by the Sally Ride Foundation. This is quite a remarkable

By Sara Sugarman At the FIRST Robotics Competition, three all-female teams are helping to rewire a male-dominated profession. Team: The Fire-Breathing Rubber Duckies Hometown: Portland, OR Tesca Fitzgerald, age 12: "I wasn't very interested in technology before, but FIRST has inspired me to become a computer software engineer. I already know four different computer programs. Last year I found a way to enable the robot to read and write text files." Taytlyn Fitzgerald, age 14: "When I was only one of two girls on a team, it was hard. I spent that entire year sitting on a radiator watching the boys program the robot. Our coach said, 'Boys are the surgeons and girls are the nurses: You hand the boys the pieces to build the robot.' I knew better." (NOTE: Taytlyn's experience she is referring to was NOT on a team at Village Home.) VIEW ONLINE STORY

by Christina Lent
The Village Home Education Resource Center in Beaverton is turning out academic champions left and right. Three teams of students and one ace speller from the learning community for families who home educate their children will represent Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in national and international competitions in the coming weeks. Village Home’s Lego robotics “Team Um” traveled Tuesday to Atlanta as one of only 15 teams invited to the FIRST Lego League World Festival.