Summer Adventures
June - August
Give your child the gift of a joyful, nature-filled summer with friends.
All 2024 Summer Adventures Camps are now full.
Registration is open now until March 15, 2024 for families who are currently or previously enrolled in our Nature School, Summer Adventures, or Play for a Day programs.
In 2024, all Summer Adventures camps will:
be held Monday - Thursday (4 days per session),
from 9 am to 1 pm,
for ages 4-9,
cost $200 per session (10% discount for siblings)
and include a balance of time for nature connection, imagination, teamwork, and PLAY! Every day, children can look forward to circle times full of story and song; experiential, hands-on small group work; a nature walk throughout the property and garden; and most important of all… time to play in nature with friends.
Registration Process
Current or previously enrolled students:
To register, visit https://bookwhen.com/wanderandroot. A 50% deposit is required to register. The remaining tuition is due May 1st. ($100 per weekly session due upon registration; remaining $100 per weekly session due May 1st.)
New students:
Registration will open to the community on March 15, 2024. To be considered for enrollment, please submit an interest form. The Director will contact you after March 15 with registration information.
*Limited scholarships are available. Please indicate in your interest form that you would like to be considered for a tuition scholarship. All information provided is confidential.
Dates
June 10 - 13, 2024: Camping FULL
It's ALWAYS the season for campfires, fireside snacks, and spending time in nature. Join us for a fun week of setting up tents, building and cooking over a fire, hanging up trash, telling tall tales, singing camp songs, and learning the unwritten “rules” of camping. All gear will be provided. No matter your experience level with camping, this week will prepare and inspire all of us to prioritize and ENJOY sleeping under the stars.
June 24 - 27, 2024: Magnificent, Marvelous Mini Beasts FULL
Magnificent, marvelous mini beasts are stomping, flying, crawling, and maneuvering their way all around us. Spiders, praying mantises, cockroaches, ants, slugs, moths, maggots, and hundreds of invertebrates are constantly on the move, manipulating our environment and affecting our lives in ways you cannot imagine! Together, we will dive deep into their lives, learning about their incredible superpowers, habitats, and habits and the ways in which these tiny beasts rule our world. Prepare yourself for a week of both beauty and “ick;” sweet smells and rot; gentle floaters and creepy crawlers. Perfect for the lover of all things great and small!
July 8 - 11, 2024: Super Heroes and Villains of the Plant World FULL
Mysterious Moss, a hero of disguise and pollution-fighting greatness. Terrific Tree, a keeper of the ozone and fresh air. Willful Wisteria, a wily, violent, invader. Join us for a fantasy- and story-filled week of plant examination, gardening and foraging for medicine, identifying and protecting native plants, and destroying villainous invaders. With great power comes great responsibility; together, we must choose a life of great adventures and quests, tackling the good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly. What role will we play in the great fight to save plant life? How will plant life save us?
July 22 - 25, 2024: We Are Captain Planet! FULL
Earth, fire, wind, water, heart. With our powers combined, we are Captain Planet! Take a journey through the elements of our world. Soil beneath our feet, fire in the forest, wind-riding pollen, water-loving creatures, and human hearts full of strength and love; all play a role in the natural world and ALL need our help to survive. Together, we will learn about each of these elements while working on the skills MOST likely to set us up for success conserving the natural world - questioning, problem solving, creativity, collaboration, persistence, and a sense of awe and wonder. The power is yours. Let’s go!
August 5 - 8, 2024: Find Your Way FULL
“There comes a time in every child’s life when they have a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.” - Mark Twain. Treasure is here… but can you find it? Spend a week preparing for a grand adventure, limited only by our own abilities and imagination. Together, we will use cardinal directions, coordinates, geocaching software, and our sense of adventure to seek and find treasure and complete the adventurer’s greatest challenge - the lost test. Perfect for children that love adventure, intrigue, teamwork, and FUN!
Our Model
Learning will take place on a 50-acre private homestead in rural Jackson Springs, NC. Learning has never been so fun! Through exploration, adventure and free play in nature, children learn together in small groups gaining knowledge of plants, animals, gardening, sustainability, friendship, and themselves.
When you arrive, you will see our basecamp and outdoor classroom, a place for us to store our personal items, fill our water bottles, and prepare for the day’s adventures. Beyond basecamp, lies the forested cove, with splashing creek, mud kitchen, trail system, nature ninja course, fort-building area, rolling hill, campfire circle, and more. Every day, our nature walks take us even further throughout the property to enjoy fields of young longleaf pines, the orchard, the garden, chicken coop, makerspace, and our renovated antique one-room school house turned process art studio. This, and more, is our classroom.
All Wander & Root programs occur outside, in all safe weather, rain or shine. During severe weather, we take shelter inside our basecamp or in our art studio barn.
Our program follows the principles of the forest kindergarten movement, and is heavily influenced by The Cedarsong Way methodology:
Low teacher to student ratios: We maintain a 1:7 (or lower) ratio of staff to students. This is 1/3 the number of children in a typical classroom and summer camp.
All-weather nature immersion time every day: We find joy and opportunities for learning in all (safe) weather conditions.
Child-inspired emergent curriculum: Deep learning takes place when children are engaged in something that interests them and is relevant to them. There is no whole-room, one-size-fits-all instruction here!
Inquiry-based teaching: Educators support and guide learners to make conclusions on their own. As a result, children build their resilience, confidence, and problem-solving skills.
Place-based education: We foster learning in a natural environment that connects children to local flora, fauna, people, places, and culture.
Compassion-scaffolding: Educators guide and coach children toward being respectful, mindful, aware of and empathetic towards all of nature’s living beings.
