The covenant family of God is diverse by God’s design. Enrichment Days (E-Days) are intended to enrich the students by allowing them to benefit from this diversity of gifts, interests, and associations among all the parents of the students in their various classes.
Why E-Days?
A required form of involvement at Redeemer School for parents of Kindergarten through Fifth Grade students, E-Days provide many benefits for children:
- To give the children a broader view of the world God has made and to provide new experiences as parents in the class share their interests, knowledge, passions, and connections.
- To demonstrate the amazing diversity of humanity to the children with the purpose of inspiring in them an appreciation that the source of our differences is God, and that all the various gifts we have are therefore honorable.
- To make possible more relationships between our children and adults, thus providing them with the opportunity to develop relationships in which they will hear about how God works in the lives of His people.
- To enhance the curriculum by having the children practice the skills they have learned in class with other adults and in other settings.
Because they are the child’s first years in school, there are two additional purposes for E-Days in Kindergarten through Second Grade:
- To provide a transition as the child moves from being at home where the parents are the primary teachers to being at school where other adults come alongside the parents in providing for the education and growth of the child.
- To provide a strong foundation for the development of relationships within this classroom family.
What Do I Need to Do?
The duties of each family are:
- Attend E-day training or watch the recorded E-day training below if you are new to Redeemer School. Review the E-day Tip Sheet to help make your experience positive and a blessing to our students.
- Plan and implement two 1½ hour E-Days (K-2nd grades) or one 1½ hour E-Day (3rd-5th grades) per year, for each child enrolled in the school with both parents present for each of the E-Days. The maximum number of E-Days required for a family with two or more children enrolled is four (or 6 hours). If there is only one parent in the household, that parent is responsible for the family quota and must have another adult participate with him/her in the E-Days.
- Complete the Enrichment Day (E-Day) Planner. These will help others as we develop our E-Day files. The completed forms already on file are available for your use.
- Share your Enrichment Day plans. These should be given to the classroom teacher one week prior to the Enrichment Day.
- Accept the responsibility as the authority in the class when with the children, lovingly disciplining them and shepherding their hearts as if they were your own children.
- Be responsible for costs of any materials you purchase for the E-Day.
Our teachers provide a list of suggested E-Day topics, suggested dates, and possible alternative E-Day ideas. Typically, the topics and dates correspond to the sequence and timing in which the topics will be presented during the year. Parents may request and turn in preferred E-day topics and dates. Any scheduling conflicts after that are resolved by the teacher working with parents. A final calendar with dates and topics is provided by the first parent meeting.
Enrichment day training is offered each fall on campus. All K-5 parents new to the school are expected to attend this training.