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Executive Functioning Skills

Executive Functioning Skills

by | Mar 16, 2026 | Director's Blog

Executive Functioning Skills

Introduction to Executive Functioning

Hi, my name is Susie Fahrer, and I am the Executive Director of Rainbow Community School and Omega Middle School. One of the topics that is often discussed with our teachers and families is supporting a concept called “executive functioning skills” in the classroom. This is a term that has come to light to really embrace a set of skills or habits of learning that support a young person and their capacity for long-term planning, flexible thinking, motivation, task organization, prioritization, all of the tools that really end up being life skills, regardless of their choice of career path. They’re the tools that help us all move through the world, particularly a world now with such a high-paced level of information, to process and attend to with a level of confidence and capacity.

Classroom Structures that Support Executive Functioning

So what does that look like in the classrooms at Rainbow? Well, for many of our students, all the way starting in preschool up through our middle school, the structure of their classroom is designed for clarity of time management, scheduling, and expectations. So that looks like having some type of daily schedule visible for the students, typically one that they often engage with and dialog about with their teachers. This step alone helps our students anticipate the flow of their day, prepares them for times when a change in their typical schedule is coming and helps them understand, the general first, then nature of their school experience and helps us move through both really desirable tasks with a level of anticipation and challenging tasks with a level of capacity that we understand they are a period in time throughout a more global experience of our day.

Using Timers and Visual Tools

Equally, many teachers use timers and visual tools like a sand timer or a timer that might show a countdown of a block of time. Now, again, this is not to build a sense of urgency, but quite the opposite: to help students recognize and plan for the amount of time they have for a particular task.

For a child who is facing something that they are struggling to be motivated to participate in, maybe because it’s a challenging task or one that requires particular skills that they’re still developing, a timer can be a real relief. We might suggest, “Okay, all I need you to do is work on this task for the next five minutes, and then I’m going to check in with you and see how you’re doing.” That alone creates a relationship with the teacher and a response that offers a level of support, recognition, and affirmation that, yes, this task is hard, but “I also believe that you are capable and can do it.”

Equally for our students that sometimes get lost in a project, seeing that there is a timer that is counting down the amount of time can help prepare them for that transition that’s coming. Most likely, when we are deep in learning, it might mean that we aren’t going to completely finish a project, and understanding how to pause in the midst of something, close it out, and prepare it for the next time you have the ability to drop deeply into that work is another skill that we grow in our students.

Building Planning and Organization Skills

Equally, we use things like calendars and planners, and as students get older, this might even be, engagement with digital platforms that help them see the scope of a week, the scope of a month, both with, due dates that they’re in charge of, as well as, the amount of time they might be given both in school and expectations outside of school for completing large projects.

This type of planning is a critical skill that they’re going to need far beyond our doors.

Equally, students spend time in conversations about prioritizing tasks. A highlighter can be a student’s best friend, a very simple tool, but it can help note which aspects of a larger project are necessary right now. Or how many problems of this math activity are critical for you to finish in “this amount of time that we have together.”

Those kinds of tools, again, can help students prioritize where they’re putting their energy and learn that skill, where initially it’s coming with the facilitation of a teacher or an adult in the classroom. Eventually that tool, those tools are being taken with the students so that they can apply them on their own as they engage in tasks with a little bit more autonomy in the future.

Technology, AI, and Executive Functioning

It goes without saying that the skills of executive functioning are also ever-evolving, particularly with the inventions of AI and the capacity to start to engage technology as a tool. At Rainbow, we are conscious consumers of technology and recognize that the role of AI in supporting students with efficacy in breaking tasks down and chunking their larger project-based learning activities is a real asset.

Yet at the same time, we want to ensure that the heart of what they’re learning, the sensation of pushing through the capacities for rigor, the thought process it takes to prioritize and plan, that those tools are still being built in them, regardless of the aids that are available and continue to become available in the future.

Supporting Executive Functioning at Home

If you have questions about executive functioning, that’s something that our teachers are experts on, and we look forward to talking with you.

Also attached are some suggestions on how to support your child at home with executive functioning skills. As always, we welcome you to our campus and look forward to connecting with you soon. Be well.

The Value of An Electives Program in the Adolescent Experience

The Value of An Electives Program in the Adolescent Experience

by | Mar 16, 2026 | Director's Blog

Why Electives Matter in Middle School

Hi, my name is Susie Fahrer, and I am the Executive Director of Rainbow Community School and Omega Middle School. One of the privileges we’ve had at Rainbow is the time to really consider what the development of a middle school program should look like, when you are taking into consideration the critical needs of the adolescent experience. 

The reality is, we have a program at this point that ensures that as our sixth graders are welcomed into the community, they have the level of support and attention to building things like executive functioning skills, habits for learning, and a connection to the level of rigor that increases as students matriculate in the schooling system in ways that helps really develop a strong movement into the 7th/8th program where we see that foundation resulting in students having much more independence in how they manage their time, how they, coordinate their learning, the ways in which they approach project based learning, which is the primary component of how we learn in our middle school years, and ultimately really build out the skills needed for thriving in high school and beyond.

Supporting Adolescent Autonomy and Independence

You know, recently, one of the things that we’ve seen in research is that our adolescents really need ways, places and spaces where they can be given the opportunity to be trusted with their own learning, to have some autonomy, to practice exploring what aspects of learning really light them up, to be given a little bit of space, to be in charge of their own learning environment. In Omega Middle School, one of the primary ways that comes into play, when we think about the expansive nature of learning, is through our electives program. 

A Three-Year Electives Program

Our electives program is a three-year set of courses designed to really give our students space in all of the domains: physical, creative, natural, mental, and really support a dynamic set of classes and experiences that the students themselves get to elect, with, naturally, some guidelines held by the institution. Again, that guided ability to have some independence with some support systems. 

So, you know, really determining that over three years, they have a certain number of courses that they have to engage with in the mental domain or courses they have to engage with in the natural domain, in the physical, and in the creative, but also maintaining a significant amount of personal choice, and when that happens, how that happens.

Discovering Interests and Building Confidence

Then of course, courses that are just ones that are designed to really uplift them and allow them to see skill sets that are areas of particular interest. What we see in offering that level of partnership in their learning experience is that by the time our students are graduating eighth grade, they see their teachers as learning partners.

They’ve built the skills to really articulate areas of expertise, areas of opportunity as learners, they have a better sense of how to choose a high school that will fit their needs because they’ve had such a diverse level of experiences as middle schoolers, and they’ve been supported along the way, but they haven’t been, told exactly how to do it.

Preparing Adolescents for Lifelong Thriving

What we find is that’s really the sweet spot in helping our adolescents build those core experiences that ensure lifelong thriving. If you’re interested, and I hope you are, come and check out our Omega Middle School program. Come and look at our coursework and our electives. It’s really dynamic. It’s a place where learning is joyful and fun.

And we are so excited to welcome you and your adolescent to our school community. Hope to see you soon.

Mistakes in the Math Classroom

Mistakes in the Math Classroom

by | Mar 9, 2026 | Director's Blog

Mistakes in the Math Classroom

Many students grow up believing that being good at math means being fast and always getting the right answer. In reality, research shows that making mistakes is one of the most powerful ways students build deep mathematical understanding and confidence as problem solvers.

Hi, my name is Susie Fahrer, and I am the Executive Director of Rainbow Community School and Omega Middle School. Today, we’re going to drop into the concept of successful mathematical instruction and self-concept.

Rethinking What Success in Math Looks Like

One of the things that I recall when I was younger in elementary school, and like many students I see today, I was under the impression that successful mathematics, and successful students, and successful mathematicians were folks who were fast, always accurate, and really picked things up quickly. They were the ones who finished their pages of mathematics first.

As I matriculated, that sometimes prevented me from feeling particularly successful as a mathematician because I was slower. I often had to write out my thinking, and I sometimes made mistakes.

So what I’ve learned over the years, particularly as I became a math educator, is that I could fall in love with mathematics when I let go of the idea that math is only about speed, accuracy, and efficiency.

Building Deep Mathematical Thinkers

When we really think about what we want to build within our mathematicians, we actually want students who understand concepts with depth and understand how to problem-solve when they don’t get an accurate answer.

Efficiency and speed are often something that can be built over time and can be helpful, but that is not how we want to define success. We want students to be deep mathematical thinkers and problem solvers.

How Rainbow Supports Mathematical Understanding

Here at Rainbow, one of the ways we support that is through some of the programs that we use for mathematics instruction.

For our students in kindergarten through fifth grade, we use a program called Singapore Math. While it is designed typically to be used for schools that have significant periods of time for mathematical instruction, we adopted it because we recognize that the use of this program, with its approach that begins with building concepts, concrete representations of mathematical concepts, moving to pictures, understanding the representations of the concept, and then moving to abstract, with the use of number and algorithm, is really profound in building the types of mathematicians that are effective problem solvers and can attend to more complex computations in their future years of instruction.

Applying Math to Real-Life Situations

Equally, we find that as our students matriculate to middle school and engage in a program called Connected Math, they’re taking these really deep, foundational skills as mathematicians and being asked to apply them to real-life context situations.

This supports a deeper understanding of how mathematical concepts apply to everyday life, whether that means understanding how to calculate a percentage on a restaurant bill for tax purposes, creating budgets for groceries, or understanding measurement and time.

These are hands-on, everyday mathematical concepts that can increase in complexity. Our students are understanding why they are important and how they will be used.

Supporting Advanced Math Learners

For students who have a really high level of math proficiency and achievement, they are able to move to a program that is efficient and maybe even a little bit quicker with their math instruction.

However, they are also able to face those complexities and those mistakes with a sense of rigor and curiosity.

Learning Through Mistakes

Recent research suggests that, as mathematical instructors, we want to be able to provide environments for our students to learn through mistakes.

Not only does this give students the opportunity to analyze a mathematical problem and really understand the stages and steps and find places of typical error, but it also debunks the myth that a strong mathematician is always going to be accurate.

A strong mathematician understands that when a mistake is made, they have the tools and the capacity to unpack it and find out how to fix it for the future.

Supporting Mathematical Thinking at Home

I hope this inspires some different ways to think about what successful mathematics can look like for your child. Attached, you’ll find some ideas on how to build mathematical engagement with young people.

As always, we invite you to come and visit our school and see our mathematics classrooms in real time. If you’re already here, talk to your teachers about how mathematical instruction is being crafted for your child and build a partnership with them so you can support those conversations at home.

We’re excited to partner with you around mathematics and all types of instruction here at Rainbow.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

The Importance of Relationships in Schools – Warm Demanders

The Importance of Relationships in Schools – Warm Demanders

by | Mar 2, 2026 | Director's Blog

Introduction: The Importance of Relationships – Warm Demanders – in Schools

Hi, my name is Susie Fahrer, and I am the Executive Director of Rainbow Community School and Omega Middle School. This morning, I am thinking about the concept of building relationships with students in schools with families.

As you can imagine, a relationship is one of the most critical elements in determining a young person’s success throughout their educational experience. Those are relationships that they develop with their teachers, with their administrators, and the ways in which the school staff is able to partner with families. Seeing those partnerships and understanding, for students, that they have many adults within a community to build trust and connection with, is an inherent part of creating a really powerful, long-term matriculation for a child.

One of the reasons it’s so critical is because we’re finding more and more that the science of building relationships is connected to the capacity of all of us to be our best selves, to achieve at our highest levels. This is in direct correlation to being able to learn, grow, develop, and meet your potential.

Understanding the “Warm Demander”

One of the ways that we talk about this here at Rainbow is a term that is relatively new to me, but one that, when I describe it, I imagine many of us will think of a person that fits this description. And it’s – the term is called a “warm demander.”

What it really describes is a person in your life who is able to build a relationship that creates clarity, structure, resources, and support to meet extremely high expectations. To understand what your potential is, to believe in yourself, to be reflected back that you can do incredibly challenging things, that you are resilient, and you are capable. Then, to be the coach on the sidelines, providing the resources to help you get there, and eventually to help you internalize those strategies.

My Experience with a Warm Demander

When I think back on my school experience, I was privileged to have many wonderful teachers. But the one that stands out for me, as a warm demander, was my sixth-grade teacher.

For me at that time, schooling was kindergarten through sixth grade in an elementary setting. At the same time, sixth grade became a time in our lives when we were really sort of being ushered into preparations for middle school.

My teacher at first surprised me in the ways in which I moved into that classroom and felt a sense of business, felt a sense of purpose, felt a sense of challenge. It was intimidating a little bit at first. But because this teacher was so skilled in building relationships with me and my peers and cultivating experiences where we could try something that felt really difficult, eventually, over time, we built out our endurance to achieve it. It’s something that I attribute highly to my capacity to have moved into middle school with success.

Encouraging Your Child with Warm Demanders

I encourage you to think through experiences that you’ve had where someone has been that really clear, consistent, supportive message to you and helped you succeed.

Then think about what it would be like to put your child in an environment where they are surrounded by warm demanders – folks who see their potential. Folks who reflect that back to them. People who recognize that our young people need to be challenged to do things for themselves.

We are here as a resource and a facilitator, but there’s so much that our children can do. When we give them the space to attempt, have positive risks, sometimes fail, but have the people around them that will be there to provide all of the necessary encouragement and affirmation to try again.

Learn More About Warm Demanders

If you’re interested in learning more about warm demanders, there are resources attached. And of course, always come visit us. Come chat with me if you’re already a member of the community and want to learn more about being a warm demander, but we welcome you to join us here at Rainbow.

Understand the power of relationships as it relates to your child’s education. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve our community. Be well.

Play Based Learning: Why Play Is the Foundation of Education

Play Based Learning: Why Play Is the Foundation of Education

by | Feb 16, 2026 | Director's Blog

Play in Childhood

Hi, my name is Susie Fahrer, and I’m the Executive Director of Rainbow Community School and Omega Middle School.

One of the things that we often associate with childhood is play. As a school, we recognize that play is something that is critical to children’s learning. In our Early Childhood Program, our students spend time outdoors and in their classrooms that are designed for imagination, creativity, and autonomy, to come out and develop through play-based learning.

What does play-based learning look like?

So what does that really look like? Well, on the playground, our children often engage the spaces around them and their peers in storytelling, in creative use of the materials.

A mud kitchen becomes a restaurant. The sandbox becomes a place of building community and castles. The structures for climbing might be mountaintops, or we might even see children transform themselves, imagining that they are animals, exploring the world around them – engaging with the trees, the rocks, and the grass.

Problem Solving Through Play

All of this is showcasing a child’s natural ability to see themselves as problem solvers, to think curiously about the spaces around them. In the classroom, this is the time when Play-Doh becomes an engagement of number, shape, size, and all of those pre-mathematical concepts. Block-building explores scientific knowledge of balance, structure, physics, and movement.

Students see story and language all around them. The creative play area might become a bank or a store. They start to explore these ideas of community, which they’re making meaning out of, every day in their daily lives.

Teachable Moments

Our teachers are trained to take these moments and really use strategies of questioning, dialogue, and play as a way to engage our students in deeper learning, but also as a way for them to be leaders and thinkers on their own.

Think about a time when you were learning something, and someone simply told you how to do it. That can be really efficient and sometimes necessary. But now imagine a time when you struggled through something. You were doing it on your own, you were exploring it, or perhaps it was an activity. Maybe it was your first time skiing or learning how to drive a car.

These were all things that took your ability to engage and “try.”

Play as a foundation of learning

Play-based learning is the beginning of those dispositions. As students matriculate, the imagination continues. But it’s built into project-based learning, their ability to explore literacy through creating projects that showcase the critical elements of a story, or the idea that they can create games that help practice mathematical skills.

It increases their social relationships through learning, but it also continues to build their confidence in recognizing that learning is about taking positive and playful risks.

Teachers and Staff Engage in Play

Equally, we create spaces for our staff here to engage playfully with one another. On Wednesdays, we have professional development, and part of that process is creating spaces for open-ended thinking, collaboration on lesson planning, and, really, at the heart of it, using the disposition of play to bring joy to the work we do with ourselves and with our children.

I hope that part of what you connect to out of this video is an opportunity to think about how you can bring more play not only into your engagement with your child, but also into your own life.

An Invitation

We all have those experiences where play has uplifted something about what we’ve learned, what we do, and how we engage with the world around us. It’s a powerful tool for supporting creativity, joy, and the capacity for each of us to recognize the ownership of our own learning. If you want to learn more, look at the attached file.

You can engage in a tour with us. Come and visit. Or if you’re already here, as always, my door is open. Let’s have a conversation about how you can use play in engaging your child in their learning journey here at Rainbow. Have a wonderful day!

Brain Breaks: A Technique for Meeting Student Potential

Brain Breaks: A Technique for Meeting Student Potential

by | Feb 2, 2026 | Director's Blog

What Are Brain Breaks?

Hi, my name is Susie Fahrer, and I am the executive director of Rainbow Community School and Omega Middle School. One of the things you’ve probably heard people talking about when they’re discussing a powerful learning environment is this concept that has been termed “brain breaks,” and what’s interesting about that is brain breaks are often described as moments in time when a learner maybe moves into a physical activation, steps away from a task, moves their body, maybe changes their breathing pattern, perhaps, does something that elevates their heart rate, or maybe just something that creates laughter or a different train of thought.

Brain Breaks as Brain Energizers and Optimizers

While these are essentially called brain breaks, maybe they should really be called brain energizers or optimizers, because the reality is, while the brain is shifting its focus from the task at hand, it is designed to really support learners in synthesizing information and creating deeper neuro pathways.

Supporting Sustained Mental Focus

You know, there are different reasons and different places, as you can imagine, for needing a shift in how our brains are working. So perhaps it’s about the sustaining of a mental task. For students as they matriculate, one of the things we work on is growing their capacity for longer periods of stimulation. So for some, that might be longer rigor around focusing on a writing task, or for some, that might be sustaining the mental energy to really work all the way through a multi-step mathematics problem.

How Brain Breaks Help Students Reintegrate and Learn

What a brain break can do is allow a student a strategy for stepping back from the energy of sustained mental acuity, give their brain a different focus, and then reintegrate, ready and more optimized for learning. Equally, we might think about these strategies using support for creativity. I’m sure many of you have had that experience where you’re working on a creative task, possibly in the brainstorming phase, and maybe just feeling really stuck.

Brain Breaks and Creativity

Well, the reality is, when we uproot ourselves and don’t force that creativity to come through and find a slightly different way of moving our bodies, breathing through a few exercises, talking to a friend, having a social stimulation, and then returning to that creative task, maybe even taking a walk. Those things will help our bodies and brains process and move out of that stuck period.

Optimizing Learning and Full Potential

So now we’re talking about optimization not only of sustained mental energy, but also of our creative energy and our ability to really bloom our full potential. We use brain breaks here at Rainbow – brain energizers, brain optimizers – in all of our classrooms in developmentally appropriate ways. Eventually, our students learn to engage these strategies for themselves as needed within their learning spaces.

Using Brain Breaks at Home

If you’re interested in learning more about strategies you can use at home, please check the attached document. Again, we always welcome you. Come on in. Take a look at our classrooms. If you’re already here, come and have a conversation about how you can use brain breaks at home to support your child, particularly when they’re in a mental task that might be a little bit of a stretch for them. Our door is always open. Look forward to chatting with you. Take care.