History in the making

Mission Statement

Ignite Institute for Early Learning is a warm and loving private preschool and kindergarten, operating in coordination with Torch Community Church. It is our mission to provide a supportive and nurturing learning environment where children are lovingly guided to grow physically, cognitively, emotionally, and spiritually. Our carefully crafted program is designed to provide the children in attendance with a superb framework for a successful transition to elementary school while also building a personal, meaningful, Christ-centered worldview.

Values and Approach

At Ignite, we desire to honor Christ in all aspects of our program, including our educational approach. To educate not just the mind, the entire person as a whole, we utilize the Charlotte Mason method. Charlotte Mason was a British author, teacher, and lecturer in the late 1800s. Her philosophy of education has persisted for over a century and has regained popularity recently, especially among a subset of private and homeschooling families. The Charlotte Mason educational model seeks to help students create positive habits that affect not just their schooling, but their lives. In her words, "Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life."

Atmosphere...

The importance of parent-teacher cooperation & support!

By "atmosphere," Charlotte meant the surroundings in which the child grows up. While we are in a school setting and focus on the atmosphere in the classroom, we know that a child absorbs a significant amount of their ideas and values from their home environment. Charlotte believed that "the ideas that rule your life as the parent make up one-third of your child’s education."

Statistically, research supports this ideology. So we will gladly endeavor to get to know each of our students and their families so we can work cooperatively together in your child's education.

Discipline...

Lays an educational feast.

Charlotte said, "We spread an abundant and delicate feast, and each small guest assimilates what he can."

Presenting a plethora of learning subjects is the only way to ensure a child is well versed in just as many topics.

By "discipline," Charlotte also meant the discipline of good habits—specifically, habits of character. Cultivating good habits in a child’s life makes up another third of the child’s education. Therefore, we endeavor to instill good habits and routines for actions and attitudes that are grounded in Christian ethics and values.

Life...

Charlotte Mason said, "Never be within doors when you can rightly be without."

Charlotte believed that children should be given living thoughts and ideas, not just dry facts. So her methods for teaching the various school subjects are built around that concept. Therefore, we endeavor to turn academics into playful and fun learning experiences that are fully alive.

This approach uses short, intentionally focused lessons and time-frames to keep learning fun throughout the day! Learning stays alive when children move seamlessly from one activity to the next (guided by their teacher), continuously engaged in a dynamic atmosphere!

Founder and Director

Brittany Bush and her husband, Dr. Daniel Bush, are the founders of the Ignite Institute for Early Learning. They recognized the need for an excellent, nurturing, efficient, and Christ-centered early learning school during the COVID-19 pandemic, and founded Ignite in 2022. Brittany set out to create a preschool and kindergarten where both children and teachers could thrive under the guidance of Christ-centered leadership, using modern methodologies, state standards, and Christian values as a three-legged guide.

Brittany is a trained youth director and early learning instructor. She obtained a BA in youth ministry from Bluffton University. She has served as a youth minister and worship director for multiple churches and has taught in several private schools and early learning centers. She is excited to direct Ignite and is proud of the stellar educational opportunities and spiritual enrichment it offers.

3’s Teacher-Ms. Marti Kuhn

Monday/Wednesday/Friday Class

(Tuesday/Thursday Substitute)

I am a widow, but I was blessed with a wonderful husband of 42 years. I have two grown children and three beautiful grandchildren. My hobbies are gardening and tennis. I am excited to share my experience of 17 years as a preschool teacher as well as my love for the Lord with the little ones at Ignite. I look forward to getting to know you and each of my students this year.

3’s Teacher-Ms. Barbara Aaron

Tuesday/Thursday Class

(Monday/Wednesday/Friday Substitute)

Ms. Barb is excited to join the team at Ignite! She has been teaching and nurturing young children for over 18 years. She has worked as a lead teacher for the past 11 years, enjoyed being a teaching aide before that, working in Children’s Ministry, and raising her 3 children, two college students and a junior in high school. She likes to spend her free time with her family and serving at the food pantry with her church. She looks forward to being part of your child’s preschool adventure.

4’s-5's Teacher-Ms. Kaci Westerkamm

Monday/Wednesday/Friday Class

(Tuesday/Thursday Substitute)

Ms. Kaci is a proud mom of 2 girls and a loving wife to her high school sweetheart. She loves the Lord and was raised in church. She has been around children her entire life, between working at a daycare, being a nanny, spending time with her 10 nieces and nephews, coaching youth volleyball and being a stay at home mom. She loves playing volleyball, spending time with her family, playing with her 2 dogs and 2 cats, and watching crime dramas. She looks forward to getting to know each of the children she is blessed to teach this year at Ignite!

4’s-5's Teacher-Ms. Tyra O'Hara 

Tuesday/Thursday Class

(Monday/Wednesday/Friday Substitute)

Ms. Tyra has been married to her husband for 30 years. She is a veteran to raising boys, having successfully reared three of her own while also working as a registered nurse at St. Elizabeth hospital in Cincinnati. Ms. Tyra is new to preschool teaching this year, but not new to children and their educational needs. In her free time, she loves reading, ATV trail riding, and cooking new dishes. We are delighted to have Ms. Tyra on our staff and consider her medical experience a blessing to the children attending Ignite!

Educational Methodology

Ignite believes in a dynamic, experiential, and intentional approach to teaching and learning. This approach fosters children's intellectual development as they are encouraged to explore their environment and express themselves through words, movement, drawing, painting, playing, and other natural modes of expression. We promote an environment where children can develop the critical thinking and problem-solving skills necessary for a successful and meaningful life.

Ignite teachers engage children in activities focused on relationships and inquiry using "Living Methods." "Living Methods" mean...

  • The environment has been designed to support rich learning experiences and holistic growth.
  • We don't use dry textbooks, but books and materials written in story or narrative form that make subjects come alive. Children learn to tell back, or narrate in their own words, what they are learning as they practice using rich language, pointing out ideas they are gleaning from the materials, projects, and books, and demonstrating the mental connections they make between them and other ideas already residing in their growing minds and hearts.
  • We encourage spending time outdoors, interacting with God’s creation firsthand, and learning the living ways of nature (weather permitting).
  • We spread before the students a feast of ideas from a wide variety of sources—from art, to the Bible, to tramping through fields, to counting and math, to singing, to foreign languages, to handwriting, and much more for the purposes of helping them find the subjects they gravitate towards and posses strengths in, to gain knowledge and broader understanding in subjects they may be as yet under exposed to, and to gain a broad and well-rounded education.
  • Throughout it all, we emphasize the habits of full attention, best effort, and learning for the sake of learning. It's all designed to help the child grow—for when we learn, we grow.

Yes! I am interested in learning more about Ignite Institute for Early Learning. Please contact me.

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