Our holistic, emergent curriculum educates the whole child while following the interests of the child. Holistic learning focuses on all areas of child development including: physical, academic, social, emotional, critical thinking, and the arts.

Physical:

By playing in nature, children are developing their gross motor and fine motor skills, balance, and coordination. Children will have opportunities to balance on logs, climb trees, jump in puddles, and more.

Academic:

Science: Science is all around us in nature. When the children have a question we follow the scientific method: we observe, make predictions, gather and analyze data, then come up with a conclusion. We also incorporate fun science experiments into our forest school program. Some topics we may cover include animal and plant life cycles, weather, identifying birds and plants, and gardening.

Mathematics: Children are naturally drawn to math which can be seen when they sort objects, create patterns, and count items. A five-year old may sort leaves by shape, color, or size while a 9-year old may sort leaves by type of tree then research types of trees to name them.

Language: Speech and language skills can flourish in a forest school setting. In contract to traditional schools where children must sit at a desk all day and can only socialize during recess or lunch, our forest school program gives children the freedom to socialize and interact with their peers during the entire program if they choose. Daily nature journaling will also develop handwriting and expressive language development

Culture: Place-based learning is an important component of forest school. Children will learn about their community, local history, indigenous cultures and more.

Sensorial: the 7 senses

Practical life: how to care for animals,

The arts: process art using materials found in nature

Social: work as a team

Emotional: daily yoga to develop flexibility, relaxation and mindfulness.