project based learning Archives - Rainbow Community School

The Value of An Electives Program in the Adolescent Experience

by Susie Fahrer | Mar 16, 2026 | Director's Blog

The Director’s Kaleidoscope: Exploring the many colorful aspects of learning
at Rainbow Community School

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 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.

Explore further and download or print our free resource, Ideas to Support Guided Choice in Adolescence.

Ideas to Support Guided Choice in Adolescence

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Continue exploring ideas from our Director’s Kaleidoscope series, including topics like executive functioning, student autonomy, and project-based learning.

Play Based Learning: Why Play Is the Foundation of Education

by Susie Fahrer | Feb 16, 2026 | Director's Blog

The Director’s Kaleidoscope: Exploring the many colorful aspects of learning
at Rainbow Community School

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!

Play is Learning

Learn More

Continue exploring ideas from our Director’s Kaleidoscope series, including topics like executive functioning, student autonomy, and project-based learning.