Monday Cedar Grove: Full Year

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.