On October 24, 2011 we had a wonderful field trip with the second & third grade classes of The Children’s School of Berwyn, Illinois. The students had elected to study dunes ecology so we were charged with the responsibility of finding a site and developing a program to meet their desires. We chose Rainbow Beach, [...]

In early January we were scheduled to spend a half day in a local forest preserve with the kindergartners & first graders of The Children’s School. However, the weather forecast predicted high temperatures of only 15-17 degrees, a bit nippy for 5-7 year-olds to be out for hours without shelter. So we modified our program, [...]

We just completed a great weekend workshop with 11 enthused, motivated, & good-humored students; 10 adults and master ridge pole-breaker* and bowl-maker, 11 year-old Noah. The facilities, food, and staff at Camp Minikani in Wisconsin couldn’t have been better.  The weather felt as if it had been transplanted from early October to early November.  And [...]

In late October we designed and presented a workshop for The Latin School of Chicago.   The sixth-graders are studying early humans and 67 of them, along with 7 chaperonse,  joined us on a beautiful fall day to get a sampling of primitive skills. Though we had only 3 hours Tom, Ellen, Tim, & I exposed [...]

This is a weekend adult class designed to reconnect our students to the skills practiced by indigenous folks for millenia.  It is not “Rambo” training.  Rather you will learn survival skills grounded in a respect for and appreciation of the Natural World.  The workshop runs from Friday afternoon, November 5th through Sunday afternoon, November 7th.  [...]

Our What 2 Know B4 You Go! program was a very big hit with the three home-school groups who came out to hear us in May and early June.  Though some of the younger children (under age 10) got a bit “antsy” during our stories, most participants found these true-life accounts, the demonstrations, and the [...]

We just completed a very successful, 3-season–fall, winter, spring–outdoor ed program for The Children’s School in Illinois.  For a half day during every season of the school year we reconnected children ages 6-12 to the Natural World. The weather was sometimes “iffy”, but it never dampened the wonder and enthusiasm of the children.  They learned to [...]

We continue to work with home-school educators to present unique, high-quality, outdoor education programs for their children. In recent months we specifically designed and presented a program for a northside home-school book club to coincide with lessons  learned from their reading of Gary Paulsen’s “Hatchet”. On each of three days in May and early June at [...]

On April 30, 2010 Tim and Ron presented a “Wilderness Survival Skills” workshop to approximately 50 adult leaders enrolled in the Northeast Illinois Council, Boy Scouts of America High Adventure Resource Course.  The program called “2010 Powder Horn”  was held at Illinois Beach State Park in northern Illinois, and the participants went home with a [...]

The Children’s School, a school of progressive education located in Berwyn, Illlinois, has asked us to help develop an outdoor awareness curriculum for its students, kindergarten through 5th grade.  Once the curriculum is in place, Nature Education instructors along with The Children’s School faculty will engage the stuents in half-day outdoor experiences emphasizing the “Wonders [...]