A Typical Day
Hands-on learning and real life experiences are important parts of our curriculum. We often have parents and volunteers from the community teach a special unit. We take lots of field trips to the beach, local theater presentations, area museums, environmental centers, or we may simply go for a walk around the neighborhood. At SunFlower we are able to modify our schedule to accommodate these wonderful opportunities, so that our first priority is an exciting and learning filled day for each child.
Students gather in the morning meeting room for conversational Spanish.
After Spanish, the students and teachers make announcements and discuss the day ahead. This is a forum for the children, with the guidance of the teachers, to respectfully and seriously identify and solve problems, make suggestions, and plan new activities.
Students almost always begin their day writing in their journals. Teachers introduce new concepts and reinforce skills during this time.
Children take turns bringing in a healthy snack for the whole school. The children eat snack and play outdoors together.
This is a time for independent reading or children reading to each other.
Children may work on special projects that may include art, cooking, science or social studies research and observations. Individual students can receive academic coaching from their teacher while the rest of the class works independently on an activities.
The children bring their own lunches. Each week they are given the options to buy pizza (Wednesdays) and/or Chick-Fil-A (Thursdays). After eating at outdoor picnic tables, the children play.
During this time, children have a choice of activities. They may play chess, put on an impromptu play, use the classroom computers for educational games, do an art project, or build with Legos. In the afternoons we also schedule events such as recorder lessons, music circle, and presentations by visiting resource people. Yoga is offered each week for a small fee.
At SunFlower School, children are encouraged to take responsibility for their own environment, beginning with their classrooms. They help with a variety of chores to get school ready for the next day.
