Director's Blog
Susie Fahrer publishes the Kaleidoscope periodically throughout the year that illustrates and summarizes what has been happening at our vibrant school. Read to find out more.
Got Elk?
I just spent two days with teachers in the Great Smoky Mountains on an Elk Trek. It was stunning! I can't wait to take a group of Rainbow students to some of the same spots! We saw the head bull with his "harem." We saw males sparring, heard bulls bugling, and watched...
Our Storyteller
Oral storytelling is a rich tradition in the human race, and an important aspect of the curriculum at Rainbow Mountain. Reading stories from books is valuable, but when a someone tells a story orally something magical happens. They storyteller has no book between her...
Social Intelligence
Research within schools has shown that the time spent on social curriculum – on team building activities, class meetings, character studies, and the like, which promote social skills—is not time taken away from academics. By training children how to get along with one...
Roughhousing – a developmental necessity
Remember tumbling around on the floor with your dad or having a pillow fight with your cousins? Fun, right? Well, it's also developmentally essential, especially for boys. To read all the fascinating reasons why you WANT your son to roughhouse, click on the following...
"It’s about Spirit"
There were over 20 people from Rainbow Mountain Children's School at the Sir Ken Robinson lecture last night, and we were all inspired -- actually, validated, is a better word for it. Validated to know that the style of education we have been doing for 34 years at...
Vision: The Future of Education
Are you passionate about education? Would you like to see the whole educational paradigm changed in America? Despite the seriousness of this topic, do you love to laugh? Then I highly recommend you take advantage of a great opportunity: At 6pm this...
IQ tests for Preschoolers???
The following link is a well-written blog that explains how we build self-esteem at Rainbow Mountain. Although the author doesn't refer to Positive Discipline or The Responsive Classroom (two of the classroom management/behavior models we draw from at Rainbow), his...
PIP-ING at Rainbow
Educational Research has revealed that children learn best when the material is relevant to them. That is one reason why the "PIP: Personal Interest Project" has been a long tradition at Rainbow Mountain. Students are allowed to chose ANY topic of their interest. ...
Heart of the Matter: How Rainbow’s Calendar Supports Our Mission
Heart of the Matter: How Rainbow's Calendar Supports Our Mission Rainbow is adopting a unique school calendar for the 2011-12 school year. We will have an early release at 1pm every Wednesday for K-8 students to allow teachers time for collaboration, training, and...
Decisions, Decisions
When is your child old enough to make decisions on her own? At restaurants, it's not uncommon to see a parent asking a very young child to decide what she wants to eat. What amazes me more, is when I see parents asking their child what they want to eat for dinner at...
What does HOLISTIC education actually mean?
"Holistic" is becoming a buzzword, but we have used it to describe the education at Rainbow Mountain Children's School since 1977. From Wikipedia: The concept of holism refers to the idea that all the properties of a given system in any field of study cannot be...
The most important component
As you may know, Rainbow's educational philosophy is wonderful. But it takes much, much more than a great philosophy to have a great school. What is that makes the difference between a classroom where kids REALLY learn, and one where they just do okay? The...
The Spiritual Domain
The Five Domains are the pillars of an education at Rainbow Mountain Children's School: 1. Academic/mental 2. Spiritual 3. Emotional 4. Social/moral 5. Physical When we speak of a child's development, we always refer to every domain to be sure we are seeing each child...
Play IS work
Remember playing as a child? Most of us had a lot more freedom as children to run through backyards, wade in a creek, or form a neighborhood baseball game than kids do today. It turns out, all that "play" time helped us develop the most important skill for success...
Creativity Crisis
There is IQ, EQ (or EI for Emotional Intelligence), SI (Social Intelligence), but did you know there is a CQ for creativity?  What's remarkable, is that researchers who have done longitudinal studies, have found that children who have high CQ's, are exceptionally...
Measuring Success
Some of America's top schools no longer require SAT or ACT test scores for admission, because the correlation between test scores/IQ and success in college is very poor. (Grades are a much better indicator.) Some suggest a new measure called the EF Index, for...
Is Santa Claus Real?
"If you want Santa Claus to be real, then you have to be like Santa Claus." Many of you who have told the Santa Claus story to your children, have been concerned about how to handle their disappointment when they realize the myth isn't real. Although it sounds very...
Congratulations, You Have Been Nominated!
"I'm totally surprised and have never been more honored in my entire life..." Those were my words as I proudly accepted the PEACE PRIZE. The Fourth/Fifth grade "Fantastics" are studying twelve different Peace Prize Laureates from all parts of the world through the...