Friend Friday Cohort 2026

Register for the Friend Friday Cohort Here

Our Friend Friday Learning experiences are a chance to hang out with friends and make new ones and learn at the same time. Each Friday of the month will have a different Learning experiences.

Below you will find an overview of what Friend Friday will look like this school year.

First Friday Game Night: Come and enjoy a night of games, fun, friends, and snacks! The First Friday of every month we will be playing games from 5:00pm to 8:00pm. Some times the games will be group table games like Uno or Apples to Apples and sometimes they will be more active games like dodgeball or nine square in the air.

Adventuring Arrows: Adventuring Arrows is a unique learning experience designed to teach kids about how to enjoy being outside and having adventures with friends and making memories students will also learn about the benefits of being active outdoors and will enjoy seeing God amazing world as we hike together each month at various nature centers.

Ice Skating: Come learn how to skate. This is a beginning level learning experience for students wanting to learn to skate. We will meet at the St. Louis Park rec center. You can register for a single month or the entire school year. We encourage families to come consistently to build on their learning. We will be learning through games and fun activities on the ice.

Homeschool Hot Lunch/Game School: Take a day off from packing lunches and join us for HomeSchool Hot Lunch! We have not yet finalized our menu, because we want families we are attending to have a say in. Students will be given the budget for the month and will help decide what we can afford each week. Occasionally we will be ordering in lunches from you've been getting better and better now. Once the students have finished lunch we will have organized activities for students.  

Kinder-GARDEN cohort: This a unique learning experience for kids under 7 to get to learn outside at the arboretum. And enjoy learning with friends their own age.

The learning objectives we have for this cohort are:

Building friendships and learning to pray together.

Learning how to both win and lose as well and treat each other kindly.

General~ Build observation skills, learning to ask good questions .

Disciple making friendships~ building friendships with students, both younger and older than yourself and learning how to see a value in other people and put each other first.

October 16th, November 27th, and February 19th we will not meet. These dates are part of our rest week, you can learn more about why we plan regular rest time in our schedule in this blog post.

To participate in our Friend Friday Cohort, please fill out the cohort application. After the application is completed, we will schedule an interview. The purpose of the interview is to discuss the track that your student(s) participate in and to make sure that the cohort will be a good fit for your family.

This cohort is a full school year commitment. Families can choose the track that works best for them. The 2 track options are participant track who will attend every learning experience at the post time or teaching team track which means 30 minutes before the post start time of experience to go over the plan for that learning experience and prepare for future ones. The cost to participate in the Wonder Wednesday cohort is $125/per student for half day or $200/per student for full day + the $25/family cohort application fee. Families who are Arrow Kids Members can register for $10/per student. You can learn more about our memberships here.

Register for the Friend Friday Cohort Here

Friend Friday Cohort Frequently Asked Questions: Why do we ask for an application fee? Over the years we have had a large number of families register for learning experiences and cohorts, but for one reason or another they don't follow through. We spend a lot of time chasing down those who register, buy supplies and prepare for these families who may have never intended to commit to learning with us. The application fee is our way of asking families to commit to joining us by applying for our cohorts. If you are applying for more than one cohort, you only need to pay for 1 application fee. This is a one time fee for the 2026-27 school year.

What does the cost of the cohort cover?

Admission to the Arboretum, entrance fees and ice time for skating are covered with your registration. This also helps to cover cost of snacks, website and other supplies used throughout the year.

Can we join the Friend Friday Cohort just for the fall or spring semester? No, the cohort commitment is a full year commitment. One of our main goals is to help the students create friendships and this is difficult if families are not consistent in their attendance. Our learning objectives are covered over the course of the entire school year and it is difficult to have families join mid-year or leave part way through. We ask families to commit to joining our cohorts for the entire 26-27 school year.

Do I need to attend with my student? Our Arrow Kids Academy learning experiences and cohorts are interactive and we ask parents to stay and be involved with their child's learning. I have a younger child who will be attending with me,

do I need to register them as a student? We ask that you register everyone who will be attending. If you have a younger student who will attend with you, we ask that you register them as a toddler so that we have enough supplies for them to join us with the activities we do. Our goal is to learn together so we work to make activities successful for all ages. Are there scholarships available to help lower the cost of participating in the cohorts? We never want finances to keep families from joining us. We know that it can be a burden on families especially those with multiple children so we want to work with you to help make it possible. We offer 50% off or more for all our learning experiences and cohorts to Arrow Kids Family members. You can learn more about our memberships here. If you are in need of financial support beyond the membership discount, please complete this request form and we will be in contact to see how we can help make it possible for your family to be a part of the Friend Friday Cohort.