Welcome
Rainbow Chasers is a part-time educational enrichment program for preschool aged and elementary aged homeschooled children ages 3 - 8. The program is Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:30 to 1:30 on our creek side property on beautiful Johnson Creek. Our time together begins outside, while also coming together inside for science, read - alouds, nature study, math and number exploration, drawing, painting, crafting, sculpting, artist studies, baking, singing, building, dancing, and free play! We will use numerous homeschooling curricula to focus on folktales and fairytales, hands-on science exploration of weather, rock identification, fossils, and clouds that will get us outside, and a gentle introduction and practice of counting and place value, patterns, addition and subtraction, and measurement. Our art, crafting, and baking projects will follow the changing of the seasons and reflect what we observe happening around us.
How It Began
The start of my family’s homeschooling adventure coincided with the beginning of the pandemic and the birth of our youngest child. Our dreams of homeschooling were always filled with outdoor adventures with new friends, dance, art, and martial arts classes, science at OMSI, and exploring the seemingly countless opportunities Portland has to offer its homeschooling families. As the summer of 2020 turned into fall, I held my newborn close and came to realize we would have a much different first experience with homeschooling than we had thought. Our days were cozy, filled with good books, poetry tea time, and learning together but always at home, and always just us. We navigated our challenging new world and schooling with grace but always knowing that it could be so much more.
Before COVID, I had a licensed in-home preschool or play garden as we called it. It was a Waldorf influenced, play based program created for toddlers and preschoolers. Our days passed joyfully baking, crafting, painting, and endless playing and creating both inside and out. I had always planned to continue with the play garden while we homeschooled, but after the experience I gained from 2 years of homeschooling, and after feeling ready to open our home to new friends again, I realized that my family’s needs had shifted and our vision of how we would share our days with other children had shifted; we wanted to continue our time at home together, but we also wanted to be out in the world! Now, our summers are spent adventuring; exploring creeks, swimming in rivers, playing in splash pads, and climbing new playgrounds. Because of our van, lovingly named Aunt Susan, we're able to share our adventures though offering summer camps to friends. As a parent, nothing brings me more joy than observing my kids plunge into a creek turning over rocks looking for crawdads or running full speed to a new play structure they’ve never before explored, being deeply immersed in imaginative play, or carefully crafting a treasured object. The delight we all experience as they challenge themselves to figure out a way to catch a darting minnow or finally make it all the way across the monkey bars makes for some of our most joyful and fulfilling days. In the fall we return home, still eager to explore, but also ready for cozy learning, good books, exciting experiments, and creative art projects. My children are older now, and they are ready to explore in a deeper way. They want to learn about the world around them and understand it through science and experimentation. Their skills are developing and they can sketch what they observe, write words to match their observations and feelings, and create in a more detailed way. It's an exciting time. My children long for meaningful, sustained connections with peers, and they wanted to do it at home playing and learning, exploring nature and having new adventures, and they want to do it with friends.
Rainbow Chasers has been created to meet an emerging need I sensed in my children and others around us. It is a new program and because of its newness and its purpose, to meet children where they are, it is a living breathing creation. Our daily schedule, although planned and following several nature based curricula, are wholly dependent on the participants and what is working for them. If something isn’t working, we can let it go. If something new is needed, we can add it. Interests and passions can drive us forward!
Who we are
We are a family of 6 with 4 children ages 15, 13, 9, and 6. Dad is an architect who spends his week days working at the office. While mom, Abbie, is home with the wildlings homeschooling, adventuring, and exploring. The kids love to read, or be read to, listen to audio books, build with Legos, play outside at home, and explore new and well-loved nature spots. They love the water and love to swim, they’re all makers and doers and they constantly make huge, disastrous messes. They engage in imaginative play through their Lego building, cooking in their mud kitchen, putting on home performances, and creating elaborate games and worlds, and they engage with the world through soccer, roller derby, theater, and a variety of elective classes and social groups. I have worked with kids all through my youth and adulthood. I attended a Waldorf school kindergarten through high school, and I worked as an infant and toddler teacher in a Montessori program. I have a masters degree in elementary education from Lewis and Clark and began my Waldorf teacher training. I’ve been a nanny and a babysitter, taught English to adults and kids in Nicaragua, worked with kids impacted by trauma in a group home and a facility, had an in-home preschool, and I’ve had 15 plus years of around the clock training as mom.
