Goslings
Ages 4 -6.. An early start for grounded, resilient, and joyful kids. Programs running Monday - Friday
Our most popular program.
Goslings starts kids early for a lasting foundation for a life time of wonder, resilience, and belonging.
GOSlings runs every day of the week from 9am to 4pm.
Friday Goslings features AM & PM Sessions year round.
Wednesday Goslings features AM & PM Sessions in the Winter Season.
Families are always welcome to register for AM and PM Sessions with care for your child in between sessions.
Growing nature connected kids from a young age.
This means kids who are calmer, more aware, compassionate and joyful. Goslings sessions are filled with all the foundational elements of Guelph Outdoor School. In recognition of this younger age, Goslings instructors collaborate to share a sense of wonder and mystery in the natural world through exploration, games, free-play, songs and story.
What you and your child can expect
A nurturing, and magical atmosphere in a wild, riverside cedar forest. Responsive and experienced adult instructors supporting small groups of 10 - 20, We maintain excellent ratios of approximately 4-5 kids per adult instructor, often with volunteer support.
A seat at the fire for everyone.
Guelph Outdoor School is a leader in providing accessible, straight forward sliding scale and mutual aid options to ensure that children have access to our outdoor immersion and mentorship programs regardless of financial status.
We maintain a trust-based , user-end approach: give what you can, take what you need.
Oaks & Acorns
A Parent & Tot morning program. for parents and caregivers.. Monday - Thursdays mornings. 9:30 - 11:30am
Reconnect with Nature with the ones who know best: our children
Drop-In & By Donation | No Registration Fees
Four mornings a week. Mondays - Thursday.
9:30am to 11:30am. Fall, Winter, & Spring
Simple and rich outdoor immersion for young families
Step into wonder with your child, and other families.
Animal tracking, nature craft, stewardship projects, feeding chickadees, visiting the river, timeless wanders and slow pace mini-adventures, shelter building, getting to know the plants, games that teach and stretch awareness, story and song always,
Facilitated Parent discussions about things that matter these days.
pathways in education, community building and expanding our capacity for positive change, parenting stories, art of questioning and other mentoring techniques, decolonization, reconciliation, cultural repair, mutual aid and community repair, community service, rites of passage and child development, stewardship.
A culture for kids to be a part of.
Showing kids from a very young age that it’s good to gather together in community, around the fire, sharing ideas, singing songs. Oaks and Acorns gives an excellent opportunity to normalize nature connection and the values, feelings, behaviours, emotional states, and ways of being that go with it.
A nature connected kid is a gift to the world.
This program and your decision to be a part of it represents an important investment in change, towards health, repair, possibility. We can’t know what challenges await our children, but we feel confident that being nature connected is the place to start.. Thanks for being a part of it.
"My son has been attending the Oaks and Acorns program and it has been an exceptional experience for him. In addition to spending meaningful time outdoors, he has delighted in creative activities like making shakers, drumming and enjoying story time. Last week, we explored tracking animal footprints, a skill he now eagerly practices in the woods near our home. The program coordinators are incredibly kind and foster an environment where children can truly be themselves—whether participating in activities or freely exploring nature with their guardian. This program is a treasure for children who thrive in and connect with the natural world."
- Angel, Guelph Outdoor School Parent
Foxes
Wed, Thurs, Friday 9am - 4pm. The classic mid-week session: Adventure, Growth, Wonder and Play. Ages 7 - 9
Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, from 9am to 4pm
Tracking adventures satisfy the inquisitive and creative mind at this age, providing ample opportunity for inference, story telling, deduction, pattern recognition. Foxes delivers invisible learning and healthy growth, with the volume turned up on fun.
What you can can expect
A welcoming atmosphere, days of exploring, practicing skills, and games that teach and learning to use field guides. Foxes operates on long-term mentoring relationships, where professional facilitators work together to identify areas for growth and development: for individuals and the group. Our model seeks to support young people in becoming resilient, capable, and service minded. Our daily endeavors promote attributes such as: Quiet Mind, Common Sense, Aliveness and Agility, Inquisitive Focus, Caring and Tending, Service to Community, Awe and Reverence, and Self-Sufficiency. We foster these attributes through a set of core routines and nature based challenges. The learning experience is dynamic, emergent, multi-sensory, and exciting.
Nimble, clever, quick, fun-loving
Foxes is a celebration of child passions: climbing, running, sneaking, listening, hiding. This program is also a step into the world of competence and self-sufficiency: building skills in fire tending, shelter building and tool use.
Registration is welcome at any time, during the trimester and fees are automatically pro-rated.*
Foxes & Wolves
Mondays and Tuesdays 9am to 4pm. Self-Sufficiency & Co-Operation. Ages 7 -14
Nimble, clever, quick, fun-loving
Foxes and Wolves is a celebration of child passions: climbing, running, sneaking, listening, hiding. This program is also a step into the world of competence and self-sufficiency: building skills in fire tending, shelter building and tool use.
Every Monday and Tuesday
9am - 4pm
What you can can expect
A welcoming atmosphere, days of exploring, practicing skills, and games that teach. Foxes and Wolves offers a wider age range, affording opportunities for peer mentorship & role modelling. Professional facilitators work together to identify areas for growth and development: for individuals and the group. Our model seeks to support young people in becoming resilient, capable, and service minded. Our daily endeavours promote attributes such as: Quiet Mind, Common Sense, Aliveness and Agility, Inquisitive Focus, Caring and Tending, Service to Community, Awe and Reverence, and Self-Sufficiency. We foster these attributes through a set of core routines and nature based challenges. The learning experience is dynamic, emergent, multi-sensory, and exciting.
Wednesday Wolves
Wednesdays 9am - 4pm. Awareness. Co-Operation & Self-Suffiency. Becoming Ourselves. Ages 10-14
Service and Resilience.
The Wolves program is for experienced outdoor schoolers aged 10-14. It is a continuation & consolidation of skills engaged in previous years. Wolves fosters a balance between self-sufficiency & co-operative work by showing how individual gifts inevitably enrich community. The program engages the “hard skills” of fire-tending, shelter building, tracking, and tool use - balanced with the “soft skills” of listening and speaking with care, increasing awareness, and developing an stewardship.
Wednesdays, 9am to 4pm
What to expect
Like all GOS programs, Wolves supports young people in becoming themselves. Our model promotes the attributes of connected kids; Quiet Mind, Common Sense, Aliveness and Agility, Inquisitive Focus, Caring and Tending, Service to Community, Awe and Reverence, Co-Operative Team work & Self-Sufficiency.
Learning and development happens consistently and invisibly through story-telling and song, thrilling games and nature-based challenges, hands-on tasks, reflective moments in wild spaces, role-modelling & mentorship.
Through connection with self, others, and the natural world, Wednesday Wolves support each other in becoming Increasingly capable, compassionate, & service minded,
“I enjoy that he is surrounded by positive male mentors.”
“I can actually focus at work while he’s at outdoor school as I know he’s in good hands, is learning and having fun! ”
“this is an essential part education, so often missed”
Monday Cedar Grove: Full Year
Mondays 9am - 4pm. Our full year option designed for the home school community. Ages 7 - 14
Mondays | 9am to 4pm
Our full year Cedar Grove program is designed for (but not exclusive to) the home school community. We offer this full year program for outdoor schoolers who know they want to do outdoor school the whole school year.
Cedar Grove is full outdoor immersion throughout the year and changing seasons. The program delivers invisible learning and healthy development through responsive mentorship, sensory awareness games, primitive skills & self-sufficiency challenges, as well as timeless journeying among surrounding valleys, swamps, waterways, cedar groves, open fields, hardwood stands, and rocky outcroppings. Key moments and discoveries are integrated into group learning and culture through well placed questions, pouring over field guides, sketching, stories, mapping, and repeat visits to best locations. We field trips to local trails and landmarks to help tie the varied landscapes of Guelph together.
As with all our GOS programs, Cedar Grove is a balance. It features hands-on experiences of fire making, mapping, plant identification, storytelling, shelter building, and tracking animals, balanced with the 'soft skills' of careful listening and using best words, of co-operation and conflict resolution, thanksgiving and sharing the story of the day.
Cedar Grove Full Year features opportunity for more long term projects and reflects our commitment to sustained mentoring relationships. Professional facilitators have a heightened opportunity to identify areas for growth and development for the individual and group. Our model fosters the attributes of resilient, capable, and service minded kids. Our daily work promotes Quiet Mind, Common Sense, Aliveness and Agility, Inquisitive Focus, Caring and Tending, Service to Community, Awe and Reverence, and Self-Sufficiency. The learning experience is dynamic, emergent, multi-sensory, exciting and community-oriented.
“The science on nature connection is rolling in, showing significant benefits in the emotional, cognitive, spiritual, physical, and social lives of those who engage. Hope to see you out there.”
Tending The Wild
Tuesdays 9am to 4pm. A Caretaker program for children and future stewards. Ages 7 - 12
For young caretakers.
For kids who demonstrates an ability to work with a quiet mind on focused projects. If your child is introspective, caring, calm, and compassionate already, this may be right program for them.
Tuesdays, from 9am to 4:00pm @ Stone Rd
Tending is about having fun and being in the woods, and also about developing, from a young age, an ethic of stewardship, reciprocity, and right relationship. We practice bird language, deep listening to the plants and the land, ethical plant harvesting, folk methods for simple herbal remedies, storytelling, and song lines, and thrill-filled games that teach.
Participants are supported in understanding how they fit into the broader ecological community. Kids and Instructors practice walking with a light footprint, expanding awareness, limiting disruption, observing the habits and patterns of the natural world, and the many ways of stewardship.
What you can expect
A welcoming & inclusive program. Our experienced instructors bring a rich combination of knowledge and abilities to this session: art and nature craft, ecology & stewardship, a wealth of games and songs that deliver invisible teaching. The day is flexible and varied, with options for focused projects as well as timeless wandering and quiet reflection. Kids are offered well placed questions to help them reflect their role in caring for lands and waters, for themselves, and others.
Thursday Waxwings
Thursdays 9am-4pm | Self Expression. Creativity. Nature Connection. Ages 10-14
for the creative & the expressive.
For the artists, the thinkers and dreamers, the readers and writers, the doodlers & crafters, scraggly and fabulous. This program is designed to help kids channel their energy and creativity in a space that is safe for them to be themselves. Waxwings will gently encourage self-expression and acceptance through arts based activities, group connection and establishing a healthy co-existence with the natural world.
Together we’ll be a museum of Waxwings.
What to Expect
Waxwings offers a flexible weekly option for new and experienced outdoor schoolers. We may spend our days working with natural inks and dyes or maybe we spend the day out on the land with our favourite books, pads & field guides, and don’t forget the Waxwing Cookoffs’ which have become a hit... Generally, days are filled with awareness games, cooperative projects and creative focus time. Kids are supported through an inclusive environment where there is enough space for all voices and experiences to be heard and shared.
Nature Connection and Mentorship for a Changing World.
Friday Woodchucks
Fridays 9am to 4pm. Busy, Crafty, Making a Home in the world. Ages 10-14
A day of carving and craft.
Yes, we’re talking all kinds of carving: try-sticks, spoons, figurines, whatever we can imagine, but also a deep dive into the old wise ones that surround us in the woods: the cedars, the cottonwoods, the maples, and the buckthorns.
Woodchucks is the same old lovable outdoor school stuff, and a great option for kids who have grown up in our programs and want to keep going.
Ages 10-14 | 9am - 4pm
Walnut Exspresso Cups by GOS instroctor Matt Hamilton
Saturday Sessions
Skunks (ages 7-11), Herons (ages 12 - 15). 12 - 4pm
Skunks
ages 7 - 11
This Saturday program has a scent of it’s own! Being the weekend, we turn the volume up on fun. Skunks is about singing silly songs, being at the fire with buds, and getting out on the land for adventures.
Skunks is a great option for young people who are not willing or able to take time out of school hours. It is a half day afternoon session, allowing for a sleep in, or visit to the market before heading into the woods.
Skunks don’t take themselves too seriously, and this session is a great way to develop skills, make friends, and get on the adventure trail.
Register and Details:
Herons
Aged 12 - 16
Our co-ed Saturday program for adolescents, tweens, and teens.
Herons is great way to get out of the house and get busy being yourself out in the woods. Just like our beloved youth, Herons are at once tall and gangly and awkward, but have a characteristic grace, power, and strange wisdom.
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