Cultivating A Meaningful Learning Community
Community is the heart and soul of our homeschool enrichment program.
Peer Connections
When children have the support of a peer community, they have the opportunity to explore diverse perspectives and are inspired by other’s ideas. Social-emotional skills are learned naturally, and are constantly supported through intentional guidance by our instructors.
Family Invovement
We prioritize involving parents as positive role models in our program. Parents may choose to be involved as nature-based facilitators, by joining the occasional hike, sharing a craft or skill, reading a book to the group in the morning, or in other ways that allows the parent to be a valued mentor to our children.
Positive Role Models
By maintaining a small group size and involving parents as much as possible, we cultivate relationships between families and amongst children and positive role models in our learning community. These relationships facilitate a sense of belonging and self worth in our children.
Meet Our Instructors
Hannah
Lead Instructor, Woodland Classroom (age 7-9)
Hannah is a lifelong learner, naturalist, gardener, and homeschool mom who loves sharing the magic of the natural world with children. She values an unhurried lifestyle, and has always had a passion for being in the outdoors and finding peace in nature. Hannah’s professional background is in biology and restoration ecology.
Hannah believes that all children deserve the opportunity to experience a simple childhood filled with everyday outdoor adventures, unstructured play, and meaningful relationships with their peers. She values homeschooling in the company of other parents within the Sage House learning community, and is honored to have close connections with Sage House children and their families.
As a Sage House instructor, she strives to cultivate a loving and rich learning environment that inspires curiosity and exploration, and encourages a lifelong love of learning.
Amy
Lead Instructor, Sage House Classroom (age 5-6)
In her early years, studying child development at university, Amy was enthralled by the holistic approach found in many alternative education models. Amy has her bachelor’s in early childhood development, a certificate as a Montessori primary teacher (age 3-6), studied at a Waldorf school, Reggio model, play-based theories, and various forest and nature-based pedagogies. Amy has also completed training as a Feldenkrais movement practitioner. All of these experiences inform her personal methodology. She is not dogmatic to any particular way of instruction, but seeks to be a kind, curious, playful, and responsive teacher. Nothing moves Amy more than rediscovering the world through the eyes of a child. It brings her immense peace and hope for our world.
Amy loves teaching in an outdoor environment, and feels like it supports the holistic development of the child and fosters wonder of the natural world. She enjoys the community that is created by parents coming together to support their child's homeschool journey. This program is rooted in her belief that education should be a living and dynamic space where a child can develop into a well rounded human.
Dakota
Incoming Instructor, Woodland Classroom
Dakota is a mother to three and has been a local farmer for the past 12 years, where she thrives on managing a small, sustainable organic vegetable farm along with animal husbandry of Navajo churro sheep and pastured chickens.
Wanting to be around her children as much as possible led her and her husband to design an occupation that allowed the presence of their children, while fostering a knowledge of place, sustainability, work ethic as well as a deeply rooted care for the earth.
Dakota received a Bachelor of Science in both Chemistry and Biology from Fort Lewis College, with great interest in alternative energy, environment and sustainable design. She did multiple trips abroad with Engineers Without Borders building water tanks, schools, water filtration systems and biogas cooking systems.
Her experience over the years led her to build her own experimental earthship house out of tires and strawbales and start an organic farm.
Dakota has a passion for hands on learning through building, experiment and design, and believes it’s a wonderful way for children to learn and foster a love for learning about the natural world. She will lead a one day per week class primarily focused on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) projects, while remaining in alignment with Sage House’s philosophy in nature-based education and play.