Our Thinking
Orchard Friends School educates children with learning differences through a non-sectarian, research-based, multi-sensory program in a safe and nurturing community.
Our People
Passionate, certified special education teachers and support staff tailor lessons for the individual student.
Our Programs
We believe that students learn best in a positive environment, one in which each student is valued as an individual.
Our Community
Parents are a key part of our learning process and so we try to engage our whole community inside and outside of the classroom.OFS Recent News
ESY is halfway over. Summer is flying by!
July 18-July 22, 2016 We have hit our half way mark! Week 3 was Art Week. Who doesn’t love to get messy?? A few projects included making liquid sidewalk chalk, and painting on canvas. The students concocted liquid chalk by measuring and mixing corn starch, water, and food coloring. They poured the mixture into squeeze bottles, and painted our sidewalks and parking lot. For the canvas, the kids used tape to form the first letter of his or her name. They then used their creativity to paint the canvas. We all loved seeing each other’s idea for how to fill the canvas. After it dried we pulled the tape off and viola, they each had a personal masterpiece! Coach Alex and Coach Stephanie from Playtime Sports were back this week to teach us more about tennis and team work! We broke up into two teams and competed in relays, balancing the tennis ball on the “sweet spot” of the racket. There was also time for the students to work on their racket skills. Cathedral Kitchen was so impressed with what the students were able to accomplish for them last week that they asked for more help. The students have loved being able to give back and jumped at the chance to do more. This week, the kids bagged plastic utensils and napkins for Cathedral Kitchen to use as place settings at meal time. This week’s field trip was in honor of our summer read at Orchard Friends. We went to Regal Cinema to watch “The BFG.” We are currently reading Roald Dahl’s book, The BFG as a school and we couldn’t... read more
2nd Week of ESY was a Multisensory, Roaring Success!
July 11-July 15, 2016 Week 2 – Animal Week – of ESY has come to an end. We started with learning about all different types of animals. One topic studied was bears. We played a multisensory game where students had to collect “food.” A typical black bear needs to eat between 11-18 pounds of food daily to stay healthy – it’s no easy task! Students also made blue jell-o cups to look like fish bowls and collected things from nature to make animal art. As part of our summer program, Orchard is partnering with Cathedral Kitchen in Camden. The students are learning the importance of service and giving back to those less fortunate. This week, they bagged hundreds of cookies and we sent them off to the Cathedral Kitchen community. The students were very excited about giving back. Coach Alex and Coach Stephanie from Playtime Sports are also a new addition to our summer program. Each Wednesday Alex and Stephanie will teach our students the fundamentals of tennis. This week, students participated in agility exercises, learned the fundamentals of tennis including volley and forehand shots and of course played fun teamwork games. To top off our Animal Week we visited the Philadelphia Zoo. It was a scorcher, but we learned a lot and had fun while doing so! Our favorite part was the new “Big Cat Crossing,” a mesh-engineered overhead passageway that encourages lions, tigers, pumas and jaguars to explore above us. Another big hit was the new children’s section of the zoo called the “KidZooU.” There were plenty of hands on activities that taught about different animal habitats... read more
