Time to Play

D&D at Fairhaven School: Playing Online

April 28, 2020April 28, 2020

This pandemic we’re in has made us adapt nearly everything in Fairhaven School as we transition to Virtual Fairhaven. Our democratic meetings have been easy to transition online, but some forms of play have been a bit more tricky. One

Dungeons & Dragons at Fairhaven School: An Introduction

January 22, 2020January 6, 2020

A few weeks ago I was in the Old Building cleaning up from room to room at the end of a long school day. As is typical, the building was mostly empty with a couple students needing to be reminded

5 Best Toys: Less is More

January 7, 2020December 24, 2019

In this older, yet timeless, article from Wired, they list the 5 best toys of all time. Take a look at all the amazing creativity that happens here daily using the 5 best toys. Luckily, all of it is plentiful

Twenty Year Celebration!

August 31, 2018June 26, 2018

On Saturday, June 9th, we celebrated twenty years of Fairhaven School. In addition to joining our annual Capture the Flag game, about two hundred current students, alumni, founders, and friends of the school visited, shared stories, played music, ate brick oven pizza, and dug up the time capsule we buried in 1998. Founder and staff member Mark McCaig shared these remarks in the backyard at the time capsule ceremony.

A Trip to the Stream – An Intern’s Tale

August 31, 2018May 17, 2018

Although I can’t believe it now, looking out at all this rain, a couple of days ago the weather was very hot and humid. One of the younger girls invited me to go to the stream with her, so we walked together down the winding, forest stairs. The leaves on the trees are now toughened up, and the sun is almost completely covered, except for the occasional diamond of light shining down. She got in the water, I stayed on the shore.

Fair Ball

August 26, 2018May 8, 2018

Since we first opened our doors, we have spent hundreds of hours playing kickball. This year, however, tension caused by players trash-talking, disagreements about rules, and a general malaise descending on the game threatened its existence. How the players addressed these issues exemplifies problem solving at Sudbury schools, and might concretize how our community functions.

Free-Range Parenting Redux

September 7, 2018April 10, 2018

In the news recently, Utah state legislators passed a “free-range parenting” bill. Here’s an excerpt from the story in the Washington Post: The measure, sponsored by Utah state Sen. Lincoln Fillmore (R), exempts from the definition of child neglect various

Shoeless at Fairhaven

August 26, 2018March 7, 2018

“Play’s awesome. If you’re not going to play when you’re young, when can you?” Cormac Finn, 2015 alumnus. Yesterday, the termite man came to inspect the school. He walked around the buildings with our building clerk, checked the corners of

September 6, 2018April 4, 2017

A recent article in the Washington Post typifies common attitudes about playing at school these days. Apparently, five-year-old Caitlin Miller, of Raeford, North Carolina, was pretending to guard an imaginary king and queen at recess, and in her game, she picked up

Now Showing: Adaptability and Problem-Solving

March 24, 2020January 17, 2015

Another winter, another theatre production (or two). As students and I were striking the set and packing up the costumes, sound equipment, light board, and props, the student who played both Dr. Horrible and Brenda the fairy ballerina said to me, “Problem solving skills, adaptability, abilities needed to function independently—I think I just went through all of those things in the past two months!” He was referring to the thesis statement he will soon be defending in order to graduate. The exact language each diploma candidate must defend is the following: “My experiences while at Fairhaven School have enabled me to develop the problem-solving skills, the adaptability, and the abilities needed to function independently and responsibly in the world that I am about to enter.”

Sports at Fairhaven

May 16, 2018December 2, 2014

Our students spend a lot of their time outdoors. Although many of these hours involve exploration and imaginaitive play, I often see them playing more organized, pickup games of ultimate frisbee, basketball, and soccer. It never ceases to amaze me that our students play in all sorts of weather (notice football in the snow, below). Games at Fairhaven can be like the weather, in a way: they materialize instantly like summer storms often do, out of nowhere, then at some point they scatter, only to return another day.

Becka Miller, Staff

NPR Video on the Vital Role of Play in Brain Development

May 16, 2018August 27, 2014

As we prepare to begin another school year on the cutting edge of education, here is more affirmation regarding why Fairhaven School works. From National Public Radio, then, this piece identifies the vital role of one of the central activities

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