Thank you...for Mayan! She comes home full of stories, triumphs and travails. This has been in equal parts challenging and enriching, I have watched her grapple with fear and uncertainty, exhaustion and resilience, deep intrigue and a sense of mystery. She is learning a ton about the natural world and herself - I am grateful to you guys for her experience and for attempting to strike that difficult balance of freedom/self-reliance and supervision. J.M mom to a budding Survivalist
"I love that we are out in nature and don't just hear about it, but get to experience it. We get to see, hear and touch what we are learning about. I want to take her class again." Savannah, age 9
"I wanted to thank you and Marisa for helping Maia have such a fantastic week at camp. I heard so many positive things about the experience from Maia and the other parents who she carpooled with. This has, hands down, been Maia's best and most memorable camp experience since she started going to camp four years ago. Not only has she had a lengthy opportunity to spend a week outdoors in nature - she actually has learned some basic outdoor skills which I think will serve her well. We would do it all over again if we had the opp because it was so worthwhile!" Mom to Maia, age 8
BEan IN NATURE Program
What we do: In a time of earth’s fragile ecology, BEan In Nature's mentors, help children connect with wonder and amazement to the natural world, growing their innate curiosity and passion for the earth and its flora and fauna. We do this through mentoring, guided creative exploration and hands-on discovery. Our caring staff use ancestral teachings and primitive technologies to build upon children’s reverence and to create lifelong stewards of the natural world.
Our philosophy: BEan In Nature mentors facilitate kids to love, care and connect to nature not by using a ‘teach at the child’ didactic model, instead we use the skillful art of questioning, creative guiding and mentoring, experiential child-led focus and facilitate learning by doing, where we share our contagious enthusiasm, our imagination, and our own love of nature.
We believe that connecting to nature with the guidance of a creative nature mentor, who skillfully facilitates nature awareness, ancestral skills and crafts, while out in nature’s classroom, allows children to develop a strong sense of self and a natural love of science. In this design children are naturally accessing their whole imaginations, incorporating their whole focus, all the while growing into amazing earth stewards. Why is this important? We believe it is through having magical experiential nature mentors that students will be inspired to have both hope and solutions in an era of climate change and global environmental uncertainty. We believe students who are taught to fall in love with science through child-led nature mentoring, will be the ones who will be the pioneers of zero-impact, cradle to cradle manufacturing, and create biomimicry designs to complex human challenges for a healthy planet. They will be the ones who inspire their own families and people in their communities, for seven generations and beyond.
What will they learn? At BEan In Nature, we fill each day building relationships and engaging with the earth.
Children become naturalists, scientists, and artists as they develop their innate curiosity and discover their passions. At the end of the day we collect our epic adventures, sharing our experiences with each other.
Jon Young, author of The Coyote mentoring guide, often calls this education system an “Invisible School” Jon says, "Invisible Schools used everyone in the village and all the elements of the landscape to draw out their student’s curiosity and inspire hands on learning."
Who can participate? Participants include ALL children, both homeschooling and traditional schooled children, interested in participating in a nature-based program that fosters respect for the earth and a deepened awareness of the interconnectedness of all life. Since a primary focus of the program is on social-emotional development and community building, we encourage parents to stay for our morning circle and come early for story of the day, at closing circle.
How We Teach: We teach through ‘coyote mentoring’, where we focus on child-directed experiential learning, acute observation and inquiry, whereby students are "learning by doing".
Small groups
Hands-on projects
Guided exploration and Inquiry based learning
Experienced educators & naturalists & artists
Stories and games
Student centered activities
Acute observation and inquiry skills
Low instructor-to-student ratios (1:9 ratio with the additional support of a Teen Assistant for the group)
Please see each program in our drop down menu, to find out about more about a general list of activities for that particular program.
