CHARACTER EDUCATION:
Starfinder Foundation delivers the "Character of CHAMPIONS" character education program that uses team sport and competition to provide real life situations to identify character issues like conflict resolution, overcoming obstacles and team building, and provides strategies for growth in these important child development areas. Interactive classroom presentations and activities reinforce the lessons revealed on the field.
LEADERSHIP THROUGH SERVICE:
With more than a decade of experience developing and providing community service and service learning programs, the Starfinder staff has created a service module designed to supplement existing after-school program models and teach children the theory and practice of service. Uniting Students to Engage in Regular Volunteer Enterprise (USERVE) is an "institution of high learning" that empowers children to become leaders in community service and civic engagement. The USERVE curriculum brings elementary and middle school age children through the entire program planning process, from needs assessment to program implementation. At the end of each program students conduct community service projects that they have created, designed and evaluated entirely on their own.
ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT :
At each after-school site Starfinder staff, work-study students, and trained volunteers will deliver the "Learning to Play, Playing to Learn" soccerized academic curriculum. This curriculum uses the soccer field, soccer drills and classroom activities to reinforce standards-based math and literacy lessons taught around the angles and shapes of the soccer field to help kids appreciate that the world is their "classroom". The Starfinder Reader series will provide age appropriate children's books that feature lessons in character, culture, service and soccer. This series will help children with incremental progress in reading while also providing discussion questions and writing topics.
SOCIAL & CULTURAL ENRICHMENT:
In all of our programs, Starfinder Foundation encourages children to get their “Passport to Excellence”. With this passport, children can go wherever their dreams will take them. As students “travel” from one character and academic lesson to the next during the after-school program, they do so through the vehicle of cultural enrichment lessons. These lessons provide students with exposure to different cultures using PowerPoint presentations, games and activities from other cultures, ethnic food tasting, and visits from “special guests” from various world cultures. The program is reinforced by diversity appreciation lessons in the Character of CHAMPIONS curriculum.
SOCCER INSTRUCTION:
Established by professional soccer players and coaches, Starfinder Foundation has the passion and expertise to help kids develop the skills and desire to use soccer as a vehicle to greater educational opportunities. In addition to opening doors of learning, soccer addresses the fastest growing concern among health care professionals in urban America : childhood obesity.
Through the development of “school teams”, the Starfinder program also provides a positive peer group of students, as well as an additional incentive for student involvement. Finally, by introducing inter-school competition between the participating Starfinder programs, students develop a greater sense of “school pride”, while having fun representing their team.
