Homeschool Enrichment Programs

Walden, New York

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, the other, wings.”

Child-led, nature-based, heart-centered approach

We believe every child is born whole and complete with their own unique gifts to share with the world. Our desire is to keep each child’s inner spark aflame as we cultivate sacred containers for authentic self expression. We encourage each child to explore their own inner depths and find ways to connect with others and be fully expressed.

Our Philosophy

We believe learning is richest when it is experiential, nature-based, hands-on, and self-directed. We strive to prepare an environment of abundance where the children have access to a multitude of big, beautiful ideas. We draw inspiration from various progressive pedagogies, including John Holt’s vision of unschooling, the Reggio Emilia approach, Waldorf education, and the Montessori approach.

We believe the role of the educator is to prepare a safe environment for exploration and to act as a trusted facilitator and guide to the children in their care. Our days together move through moments of contraction and expansion, as we balance offering intentional containers to create and connect as a community with opportunities for unstructured, child-led, nature-based free play and exploration.

Over the last four years, we’ve continued to refine and adapt the flow of our days together as our spaces, our mentors, and our students have continued to shift, grow, and change. We believe the best learning environments become almost like living breathing organisms, which are truly adaptive through reflective, inquiry-based practice. Through all of the shifts and changes, we have been anchored by our core intentions and values.

Intentions & Values

Our anchoring intention is to nurture our relationship to self, our relationships with others, and our relationship to the Earth.

Respect

We hope to instill in each child respect for oneself and one’s community. We nurture each child’s instinctive appreciation of the natural world. Lessons of love and respect are in how we treat each other, how we treat ourselves, and how we treat our environment. We set and respect boundaries and honor each other’s autonomy and personhood.

Diversity

We value diversity in all its forms and we welcome families from all different backgrounds. Our goal is to help our children to know that they are cared for and deserving of love. They were born perfect, whole and complete.

Peace

Roots and Wings Village is built on a foundation of peace and as a community we strive to practice nonviolence. We use nonviolent communication and peaceful conflict resolution. As guests at Shanti Mandir, Temple of Peace, we abide by vegetarian-only diets while on the property (no meat or eggs, please).

Courage

We will practice courage by showing up authentically and letting ourselves be seen. We will learn how to be vulnerable ourselves and to honor vulnerability in others. We will practice self-compassion and embrace our own imperfections. We will face fear and grief together, allowing ourselves to feel pain. We will share our stories of struggle and strength. We are all lifelong learners and embrace a growth mindset.

Belonging

We believe we are all worthy of love, belonging, and joy. We will allow others to see us and strive truly, deeply see one another. As a community, we practice inclusion, consent, and anti-racism. We long to create meaningful connections and forge lasting bonds of friendship.

Gratitude

Together we will practice gratitude. We recognize that we will all make mistakes and we will work to make amends. We will choose to feel joy and be filled with the knowledge that we are enough.

Core Programs

Parent-Child Class

We offer a once weekly half-day class that is child-led, play-based designed for children ages 1-4 years old with their caregiver(s) on Wednesdays from 10am-12pm. Activities typically include music, movement, yoga, stories, crafts, sensory exploration, and nature play. Younger siblings are welcome.

Elementary Class

We offer a twice weekly drop-off enrichment program for elementary children ages 5 to 13. We meet Mondays and Wednesdays from 9:30am to 3:15pm. Activities typically include poetry, writing, creative arts, storytelling, hiking, yoga, music, movement, meditation, nature exploration, and unstructured play.

The flow of our days together is interwoven with our intention to allow our children to grow up deeply supported in who they are while being encouraged to discover and become their best selves. In putting social-emotional learning at the forefront, we see our children building empathy and connecting their inner and outer worlds through play, conversation, creative expression, movement, and shared discovery. There is so much magic happening in the small moments here.

Admissions Process

Interested to learn more about our program or ready to apply. For next steps, find our admissions process below:

  1. Fill out our questionnaire or send an email to request a link to a recording of our most recent virtual information session and our current price list.

    We also offer in-person open houses several times per year, usually in the weeks before our spring and fall sessions. Our next open house will be held on September 1st, 2023 at 1pm. RSVP

  2. When you are ready to submit a formal application, please contact our admin Stephanie by email. She will send an invoice for our non-refundable one-time application fee of $100. Once paid, Stephanie will send out a link to our formal application for your family to complete.

  3. We will review your application and let you know our admissions decision within 2 weeks of submission. We will offer rolling admissions, as long as there is space in our programs.

  4. In some cases, especially with older elementary and middle school age children, we may request your family comes for a trial day so that we can make sure that our program is a good match for your family’s needs.

Finances

We strive to offer our unique programming at an affordable rate for families, while continuing to grow our community and step into our larger vision. We see our tuition as an investment our families make in the future of Roots and Wings Village.

We are committed to welcoming families from diverse backgrounds and as such we have limited need-based scholarship opportunities. We are also pleased to offer several payment plans to make Roots and Wings Village programs within reach for our families.

Please reach out to our admin Stephanie at rootsandwingsvillage@gmail.com to receive our current price list.