Homeschool Program for Ages 5-14

Earthbound Skills provides a safe environment to facilitate this connection with nature. Our trained naturalist and survivalist instructors will nurture the natural curiosity and love for nature that is within every child, inspiring a long-lasting relationship with their natural world.

Your child will learn more about their natural environment, create relationships with our local plants and trees, and learn more about the animals that we share this world with. Through stories, games, and hands-on activities we will teach the basics of wilderness survival: finding and making shelter, the basics of identifying and following animal tracks, understanding bird language, identifying their local plants for food, medicine, and much more. We have a huge resource of games that will increase your child's confidence, proprioception, agility, reflexes, social skills, teamwork, awareness, and more. We make time for quiet and solitude in nature, to nurture each child's personal experience with nature.

All of our home school programs have two sessions per semester (they vary in length) with a break in between.  The programs are divided into 3 groups according to age:

Nature Ninjas - This program is for 8-12 year olds. Students taking this course will gain knowledge in all the previously mentioned topics, through a direct experience with nature and close mentorship with our instructors.  Activities and lessons flow with the seasons as the students deepen their connection to nature through constant observation and interaction. This class is offered Wednesdays and Fridays, 9:00-3:00.*

Woodland Scouts - This program is for 11-14 year olds, designed with the intention of meeting the needs of students who have been taking classes with us for a while, or for new students who already have an interest in nature and wilderness skills.  In this class we will delve more deeply into all of the skills that we teach. Expect a more in depth approach to everything - from sit spots, to games, to survival skills and crafts, to naturalist studies. Students will need to get permission to carve, which is included in their registration packet. This is a Level 2 class for kids 11-15, and is reserved for students who have been attending our programs for awhile. You must contact us first if you are interested in registering. This class is offered on Mondays from 9:00-3:00.

*Classes may be offered multiple times a week, but the costs below reflect one class per week.

Standards of Learning: Kids are natural scientists. Given the opportunity, they are constantly creating experiments, making observations, and coming to conclusions. Science is the study of the natural world, and what better place to learn about it than directly from the source - nature. Rather than learning in a classroom, where they are removed from the natural environment, in our program they are fully immersed and surrounded by it. They can observe science as it is happening through direct experience, such as the effects of seasonal change, the water moving through it’s cycles, the growth and changes of plant cycles, the steady transition of tadpoles to frogs, observing the skulls and bones of different animals, learning about the predator-prey relationship while finding “kill sites” of animals and dissecting owl pellets - the examples are endless, and they are constantly happening. Read here to learn of the different Standards of Learning in Science you can expect that your child will learn - through direct, hands-on experience - while participating in our program.

Prices are subject to change from semester to semester. Prices of each session reflect the amount of weeks per session, which will vary from 6-10 weeks.

Click through the photos above to see more of the many activities we do at Earthbound Skills!

homeschool 2023/24 schedule

• We divide each semester into two sessions, an Early and a Late session. You can register for either one session or both. There is one week off from our classes in-between the two sessions.

• *You can sign up for 1 or 2 days a week, 2 days a week per student is our maximum.

• **We consider the Woodland Scout class an advanced class. Anyone who wishes to be a Woodland Scout MUST have recently taken at least one semester of Nature Ninja classes with us, as well as contacted us personally for approval.

• To register, just click on the registration button below anytime after it opens. There will be a $25 registration fee due at the time that is separate from your tuition cost listed below. This will ensure your spot is saved.

• Our classes often fill up quickly! We recommend registering as soon as you can. If the class you want is full, please sign up on the wait list.

Early Spring Session, 2024

January 16 - March 15

This will be a 9-week session for the Forest Foxes and Nature Ninjas, and a 7-week session for the Woodland Scouts (because of holidays)

no classes during spring break, march 18-22

Late Spring Session, 2024

march 25 - may 24

This will be a 8-week session for the Forest Foxes and Nature Ninjas, and a 7-week session for the Woodland Scouts (because of holidays). No class the week of April 29-May 3.

We work with all homeschool families, and are vendors with South Sutter, Sequoia Grove, Lake View, Feather River, Winship, and Core Butte Charter Schools.

Don’t see your charter school in our list of vendors? Send us an email, we would love to apply to be a vendor for you!