Educating Children Outdoors Launch

It has taken me many years to find my calling, but I believe I have finally found it. When I began homeschooling in 2011 I never thought in a million years I'd find joy in teaching other people's children too. But over the last year I have begun doing it more and more and couldn't be happier. My favorite thing to teach children about is nature's wonders. Over the last several years I began noticing a trend. Despite having the entire world at their fingertips many homeschool moms are not taking advantage of all that mother nature has to offer, and I wanted to find a way to help and encourage them to get outdoors more. So I began a monthly nature journal club, which sometimes has as many as 30 kids attending. And I began educating myself and finding resources that would help me enhance my nature journal clubs. Fast forward to 2 weeks ago....I was taking a teacher conservation workshop and was struck with an amazing idea (well I think it's amazing). I have been reading a lot about the forest school ideology (which currently targets PreK-1st graders) lately, and love the idea of emersing children in the outdoors to learn. I wondered could I implement something like that for homeschoolers and higher grade levels? After some research and polling other homeschool moms the answer was yes. So I'm off on a new venture, but I need some help.

Ground work has been laid and in Spring or Fall 2017 Educating Children Outdoors will be open to homeschool families in the Metro Atlanta area. The yearly program will be divided up into 2, 16 week semesters. Children will meet once a week in an outdoor learning environment, in all weather conditions. Here they will learn about and explore nature's wonders through cross curricular, hands on, experiential experiences. There will be 2 teachers myself and my friend Sarah. We have already purchased a website url, created social media accounts and are starting to work on the lesson planning. And we are super excited.

So here is where we need your help. We are seeking donations to help provide us with additional training (master naturalist, Audubon master birder, treekeeper, first aid, etc) and to help off set some start up costs for our first year (t-shirts for Eco Explorer children and teachers, materials, facility donation, etc). The start up donations will also help keep the fees lower for particapating homeschool families.

We thank you for your support. Let us know if you have any questions about our venture.