A forest school in southeast Manitoba is swapping traditional classrooms for outdoor learning.
Kara Peters Parkinson and Deanna Kazina started the Forest and Nature School through the Gerhard E. Dekker Regenerative Education Center (GEDREC), for kids who nearly six years old to 12-year-olds.
"I just have really positive and wonderful memories being on the land... and I just want other children to experience that too," Kazina says.
Peters Parkinson feels similarly, saying, "Spending time outdoors has been when I felt the most alive and happy."
The school operates in two class cohorts. One on Tuesdays at Tetrault Park in La Broquerie, and the other on Thursdays at the Weston Family Tall Grass Prairie Interpretive Centre in Stuartburn. Both run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
“The inspiration to actually start the school kind of grew out of the community work we've been doing with GEDREC, and also just community need. Our program participants a few summers ago said in our feedback forms there wasn't enough nature-based education in the region," says Peters Parkinson.
She says the school is deeply rooted in respect for learners, acknowledging their entire self and their unique needs.
"I think one of the biggest things is just developing techniques for self-regulation, and co-regulation with the land. That's a big benefit I hope the kids will be able to carry with them, and just emotional intelligence, physical literacy, learning self-care, and also caring for other living beings," she says.
The classes themselves are child-led, Kazina says, adding that helps them build up their self-confidence.
She's still there to help them, she clarifies, just in a different way.
"The first part of our day looks like playing on the land, and then we gather and we discuss what sorts of things that we might want to do for the day," she explains. "That (could be) going for a really long hike or kind of staying closer to home base. Every day looks a little bit different."
Some classes may include using tools, or various activities depending on the weather, and match registrant's needs and desires.
"We might be inspired to hang out with tadpoles if it's a spring day, and then that could lead to nature journaling... and some others might want to paint that underwater world, and we get to support them in that," Peters Parkinson says.
While the program is for older kids right now, there may be a preschool program coming this spring, Peters Parkinson says, with thanks to funding from the Steinbach Credit Union and help from the Steinbach Family Resource Centre.
Bringing the program to southeast Manitoba has mostly gone without a hitch, the coordinators say, and has been immensely rewarding.
For Peters Parkinson it's "seeing those smiles (and) seeing the kids enjoying themselves, seeing them playing, (and) the freedom, imagination, and creativity."
"With my own children I've seen how beneficial it is for them to be outside, and I've watched their confidence and their independence grow," Kazina says. "They come home and they've been outside, and that feels good for them too."
She says her kids come home much calmer after a day outside, and are tuckered out in a happy and meaningful way.
It feels like a solution to some parents' worries about screen-time, she says.
Registrations for spring programming are filling up, the pair say, but there's still some spaces left.
Find more details and register at gerhardcentre.org.
Written with files from Carly Koop