Founding Pedagogy
Necessity to Opportunity…
Cherries School began as a response to the Covid19 Pandemic, an opportunity to create a small independent school that safely gave students inspiring and developmentally appropriate education.
Working with three families and five students (grades K-2), I created and taught a full school year. What began as a response to a tragedy became an transformative year of leaning for each child, their families, and myself.
Pedagogy of Curiosity
The opportunity and challenge to create a small independent school was unique and exciting. Using my M.S.Ed., and my experience working with children, I wanted to create a school where learning was empowering and joyful.
While play-based and exploratory learning has been emphasized in child development research, it is not easy to do. As a teacher, my challenge was to listen to students’ interests and design activities that would satisfy their queries while also following CCSS for three different grades. Developing Cherries School required creative planning in order to facilitate (rather than instruct) learning.
Translated into literacy & mathematics…
A K-2 class of students represent every stage in the process of learning-to-read moving to reading-to-learn. All students received leveled phonics (based on Wilson Fundations) and guided reading lessons, combined with opportunities to read together, and use books to answer questions. In mathematics we used skills developed in Eureka Math to satisfy our mathematic queries, and grow our understanding of math around us.
Notably, Cherries’ School is quite possibly the only school in the history of the world named in honor of a hamster.
Educational Goals
Goal 1: Community Stewardship
Through student-led approaches to instruction, students are empowered and confident in their own learning. As students lead their learning, they learn to care for our classroom, nurturing themselves and others.
Goal 2: Depth of Learning
Our educational philosophy focused on learning the “why.” Through dynamic student driven and hands on activities students explored, rather than compute.