Flying Deer Nature Center - FOREST Homeschool Program (Ages 7-13)

Outdoors · East Chatham, NY · Ages 7–13

By Flying Deer Nature Center

Schedule

Fall Session 2026: Sep 23 – Dec 17, 2026 · Full Year 2026-2027: Sep 23, 2026 – May 27, 2027

About

FOREST (Friends Outdoors Relishing Earth Skills Together) is an outdoor education adventure exploring curriculum areas such as Naturalist Identification, Survival and Primitive Craft Skills, Wildlife Tracking, Awareness Exercises, Community Building, and much more!

Students are welcome to attend on both days or choose either Wednesdays and Thursdays. Enrollment is either for the full year (12-week fall semester, 4-week winter semester, and 12-week spring semester) at a discounted tuition, or per semester as space allows.

Students get the chance to run off into the woods and get an outdoor education in the following:

• Shelter building

• Safe and effective knife, saw and hatchet use

• Fire building

• Outdoor cooking

• Crafting with natural materials

• Naturalist knowledge of local flora and fauna and ethnobotany

• Games and challenging adventures

• Teamwork and life skills

Our curriculum blends with the seasons. In the Fall, we learn about the trees and use their leaves to build warm shelters, harvest the acorns to make our own flour, and note the changes in animal behavior as they prepare for the winter. The first snows draw us deeper into the forest as we follow animal tracks. In the depth of Winter, we embrace the deep cold and learn to become comfortable with it.

We venture out to track animals and build snow shelters, then return to our cozy camp to brew warm tea, cook delicious food, and recount our stories. The Spring has us watching the emergence of plants and eating wild edibles, catching salamanders and frogs, noting the new birds as they return from their wintering grounds, and wading into swollen streams after the first warm rains.

Read about our daily Homeschool Program activities on our In the Woods blog!