Who We Are
We implement a co-authored, play-based and inquiry-based approach, which means that we thoughtfully design “yes” spaces for children in which they can take the lead on what they want to make or discover, and then we watch, listen, and respond. Children and their capabilities are deeply respected as we simultaneously nourish the land on our two-acre farm site.
We support families seeking alternative education where children’s need for movement, play, and freedom to explore are revered as the foundation upon which lifelong learning dispositions are built.
A working farm and a living lab school: We fight climate change through regenerative agricultural practices and spend our days working and playing outdoors in all weather (with a few rare exceptions!).
We cultivate an edible school garden and steward animals as part of our daily rhythm, weaving these experiences and responsibilities into meaningful, hands-on learning.
We host a cooperative playgroup for children ages 2–4, alongside a morning program for homeschoolers. We also offer afternoon classes and seasonal camps for ages 4-11.
We also support grown-ups in learning and growing alongside their children. We aim to cultivate a community of shared discovery, reflective practice, and collective care.
Our Curricular Pillars
Physical Play
We give big open spaces and a variety of loose parts and movable materials (mats, hay bales, crawl-through tubes, tires, pvc pipes) so that children are encouraged to move their bodies in many different ways. Physical development—which requires some risk taking—is a crucial foundation for brain development and self regulation as well as self confidence and personal resilience.
Our loose parts also lend themselves well to physics studies through ramp making and rolling courses or moving water through child constructed channels. We often climb our big hill to engage different muscles in tree climbing, seeing long distance, and foraging wild greens.
Multi Sensory Play
The Mud Kitchen is the heart of our play yard: children of all ages busy themselves with mixing, grating, sprinkling, and pouring. They stay focused and in flow as they stir their mud and water mixtures just right. They are pretending, negotiating, turn taking, measuring and testing volume relationships, and developing methodologies of creating (for instance, one child, for multiple seasons, often revisited and refined his process of making coffee using a strainer, a funnel, and a tube to make a beautiful cup of artisanal drip “coffee”!).
The mud kitchen richly satisfies many play schemas all at once!
In addition to the mud kitchen, we offer children a variety of other sensory activities and textures, such as paint, water play, sand, clay, play dough, soil, and the gathering of natural materials such as flowers, dirt, rocks, grass.
Creative Projects
We invite children to express themselves creatively through a variety of art materials. Creative projects are often teacher-guided and intentionally chosen as a way to expand a discovery the children have presented; for instance, during a study of the swallows in June who have returned to their mud nest in our barn, the watercolor portraits were an opportunity to study the bird’s features and to ponder their migration journey as the children used books and images to further their understandings. Some children made their own nest representations with mud and natural materials.
Other frequently offered materials include blocks, wood and wood working materials, recycled materials for inventions and sculptures; tempera paint, chalk; mark making utensils such as pens and markers; journals for playing with marks or recording ideas; clay, yarn, wire, collage materials, paper, and of course leaves and flowers, dirt, rocks, bark chips and sticks.
Farm Stand
A project particularly beloved by our 7 and ups, children harvest ripe and ready greens, herbs, veggies, eggs, and fruits to sell to their community via a farm stand weekly. Currently, as of fall 2026, our Wednesday afternoon kids take this on.
All of the children involved find jobs to take on that they feel passionate about. They themselves cut and bundle their produce, arrange small bouquets, set their own pricing and make their own signage. Some work on a beautiful display on the farm stand table.
Many of them love to interact with their customers and exchange the produce for cash.
The farm stand proceeds are re-invested into our garden and animal programs through the purchase of gardening supplies or animal feed.
Days at Sunbeam follow the gentle pace of nature, guided by biorhythms, land stewardship, and these intentionally chosen pillars.
Garden
We have an organic vegetable and flower garden that children are guided to use with care. Through practice and protocols, children come to appreciate the life cycles they are tending—from seed to sprout to harvestable food, and back to the soil as compostable food scraps.
We engage in a garden-inspired cooking project 1–2 times per week, allowing children to transform what they’ve grown into shared meals and snacks.
These experiences nurture a deep connection to the earth, foster healthy eating habits, and encourage collaboration, responsibility, and pride in meaningful work.
Animals
Animals are cherished members of the Sunbeam learning community. Children help care for chickens, guinea pigs, sheep and lambs. Animals use nonverbal cues that invite us to attune to their needs and sensitivities. In this exchange, children can build mindfulness and self regulation.
The children love searching for worms and bugs in the earth and pollinators in the garden. They share space with lizards and salamanders. They observe the nesting behaviors of birds and delight in the cheeps of newborn birds.
These experiences with living animals foster emotional connection, support social-skills development, and invite rich conversations about needs, life and death, interdependence, and the ethics of care.
“The children who regularly attend our program are self-directed learners, excellent collaborators and skilled problem solvers. They are resilient. They let their guard down and feel safe to be themselves. We experience easy transitions from their parents at arrival. This is the magic of our outdoors, child-centered space.”
-Shawna Thompson, Director
Come see the magic of Sunbeam
A tapestry of textures, smells, sights, temperatures: learning in all four seasons provides an amazing array of rich sensory experiences.
Encountering the changes of the season can feel exciting and novel, and yet familiar and friendly too, such as when we remember that when the sun gets a little longer and the weather turns hot, it’s just about time to welcome the sweet purple grapes growing heavy on the vine. And after we pick most for us and leave some for the birds, the grape leaves change from their brilliant green to a beautiful bright red.
The days get colder and crisper, and then the rain comes. For cold and wet weather, we have a specific way of dressing at Sunbeam. We wear wool or poly base layers with durable waterproof layers on top. We wear hats and mittens. Changes of socks are essential. All of these clothings provide wonderful practice with our own zippers and buttons while we learn to listen and respond to the cues of our bodies!
The rain forms streams for jumping or boat floating, and mud and mud puddles become the dominant play texture on campus. Just when we are starting to grow weary of all the wet days and have found ourselves retreating into the shelter of the little barn more frequently, the signs of spring come pushing through, and we grow excited over new delicate flowers and tiny blades of green grass that start to blanket our play yard and hill. The skies are a cinematic show each day as we feel the breeze on our skin and play with silks in the wind.
Dive deeper into our teaching philosophy to understand how we learn.
Seasons & Weather
Each season and every kind of weather can elicit gratitude. Few conditions keep us fully indoors: smoky air days over 90, winds over 35mph, thunder & lightning.
Our Leadership Team
Shawna Thompson (she/her)
Founding Director
Shawna Thompson founded Sunbeam Nature School in 2020 with a clear and courageous vision: to offer children and families a safe, healing, and joyful outdoor learning experience during a time of cultural uncertainty and disconnection. What began as a response to crisis has since grown into a thriving, interconnected community rooted in environmental and social justice.
A mother of two and a lifelong educator, Shawna brings over 25 years of experience working with children in a wide range of learning environments. She was a founding teacher at a few of San Francisco’s most innovative and respected independent schools, where she cultivated her passion for nature education with hands-on, inquiry-based learning.
Shawna’s pedagogical approach is heavily influenced by the Reggio Emilia philosophy, which has its origins in post-WW2 antifascism and community activism. She holds an unwavering belief in children’s rights to play, make choices, and go deeply into their work without interruption.
Shawna holds space for young learners to be seen, heard, and empowered. Through her own self-discovery, her observations of her students and conversations with their parents, and through the attendance of IEP meetings, Shawna has become deeply knowledgeable and passionate about inclusion for neurodivergent learners. She believes in the power of mixed-age, nature-based learning spaces as a model for inclusion.
In addition to her classroom leadership, Shawna has led workshops for parents and educators, contributed to two published books on early childhood education, and co-authored a forest preschool startup handbook and training manual.
At her daughters’ public elementary school she expands her advocacy for the rights and wellbeing of all children and families. She expresses a vision for educational systems that are liberatory, identity-affirming, and grounded in the wisdom of children’s natural instincts as learners, movers, and change-makers.
The Story of Our Name
It began many years ago with a child bravely sharing her drawing with her teacher. What unfolded for her and her peers was a collective group identity as “artist-scientists”.
Our founder, Shawna was inspired to name our school “Sunbeam” from a very fond and impactful memory from the spring of 2011, when she was teaching in the foggy Presidio of San Francisco.
A five-year-old student had drawn an image of an idea in her journal, a dreamcatcher-like design she called a “Sun Trap.” It was like a mandala, showing an instinctive understanding of radial symmetry. Her idea was to attract sunshine into the sun porch adjacent to their classroom to make it brighter and warmer. It was such an amazing idea that the class formed a “Sun Trap Committee.” Their goal was to find the friendliest materials for the sun.
Together, they built a sculpture from a transformed umbrella frame, decorating it with shimmering, translucent treasures: a collaborative gift for their school, an amazing product after months of discovery, intention, discussions both analytical and whimsical, a museum field trip, and painstaking hours of gluing, attaching and wire-wrapping.
Years later, when Shawna began envisioning a learning community that centered children’s rights, joy, wellbeing, creativity, and possibility, Sunbeam felt like the perfect name, in hopes of illuminating the importance of play, where big ideas are welcome and children are free to shine.