Natural Connections Academy is undergoing a lot of exciting changes!
Our first and foremost accomplishment is opening a location in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho! The new office at 414 Coeur D'Alene Ave will serve as our meeting place and deployment location for all of our programs. We will still use our Worley location as our main learning area but with the addition of the office we will be able to serve more families.
Our programs now include after-school programs, camps, and outdoor treks. These activities are all aimed at getting children outside and learning.
In addition, we have changed the age/grade range for our outdoor school. With the aim of getting students started early with learning outside in nature, we will now be holding an Outdoor Kindergarten for children between the ages of 5 and 6. In our program, we will accept 6 to 8 students, maintaining a very low student to teacher ratio, while integrating math, language, and science instruction into nature play. This program runs from mid-August through mid-June, with students attending 4 days a week from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m.
Students in 3rd to 5th grades will benefit from our Outdoor After-School Program (OASP), which will keep them busy hiking after school. Currently, we will be serving three schools in the area of our Coeur D'Alene location and focusing our hiking on the local area.
Every Friday, the Outdoor Enrichment Treks (OET) will provide homeschool families with an opportunity to nurture their children's social skills and teach them about birds, trees, and animal tracks. Each trek will last two hours, with one session in the morning and one in the afternoon. We plan to hold the treks each Friday throughout the summer and they are open to mixed-age groups.
Forest and Water will be the topics of our summer camps this year. The week-long camps will be held at Heyburn State Park with offerings for kindergarten through first grade, second through fourth grade, and 5th through 8th grade for the Forest Camp. Children in grades K-5 are welcome to attend the Water Camp. Camps for grades 2nd through 8th offer reduced fees to students who mentor another age group.
As a final note, we have updated the website to include all of the information listed here as well as more! Feel free to take a peek.
We are looking forward to what the future holds for us and the children we serve.
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