On a hot summer day in mid-June, you can hear children splashing, playing and shouting with glee, and maybe witness a few cranky tears along a creek bed on one of the trails at West Sixth Farm near Frankfort.
“Got one! Got one!”
“Splash me! Watch me jump!”
It’s probably a class of 5- to 12-year-olds led by Jenn Hazzard on an educational adventure as part of Red Oaks Forest School’s summer session. Today’s lesson includes an outside nature scavenger hunt with instructions to find specific leaves and fallen feathers, follow a bug for three minutes, and listen to bird songs.
“It’s beautiful, and you get to get your hands dirty at the same time,” said Solomon, one of the students, as he showed off a bug crawling on a creek rock.
The day before, the children had been guided to find art in nature.
“We talked about the way you observe different colors, shapes and textures, introducing some low-key art terms and ideas,” Hazzard said. “Then, we collected some natural items around us, and they were able to use paint and dye not only on paper and cloth traditionally, but also the pinecones, wood chips and some of the leaves. We experimented to see if they would hold the color.”
This is just one of the learning-while-playing classes Red Oaks Forest School offers throughout the year.
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Tina Brouwer-Kraska, Red Oaks’ executive director and one of its founders, said the school reaches roughly 200 children annually, getting them outside regardless of the weather to see how Mother Nature can help children learn and mature as they grow into adulthood.
“We originally started [in the Red River Gorge region] as a small group of homeschooling parents who wanted to keep our kids and ourselves accountable to spending time in nature,” Brouwer-Kraska said. “We invited a few friends, and we were just going to commit—rain or shine, hot or cold—to this one day a month. We were going to show up and just let the kids basically have space and time to play in nature unrestricted.”
Then they noticed “cool things happening” in that unstructured playtime.
“We were seeing games develop, seeing little worlds develop,” she said. “They started getting into different kinds of trade, like finding rocks and setting up jewelry shops, just all kinds of fun things, and just really seeing their imaginations come to life.”
That was 2014. Five years later, Brouwer-Kraska and fellow founders Hannah Harris and Melissa Rudick obtained 501(c)(3) designation and began hiring more educators, staff and volunteers. They branched out beyond the homeschool community, offering after-school options and developing partnerships with local parks, universities and private landowners.
Among those partners are the University of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University’s Maywoods Environmental and Educational Laboratory, the Kentucky Waterways Alliance and Bernheim Forest and Arboretum.
“We could see that in every educational experience—whether it’s traditional, private or homeschool—kids were lacking opportunities to connect with nature in this deeply engaging way,” Brouwer-Kraska said. “We really wanted to focus on increasing access to nature-based education … creating all kinds of different opportunities.”
Lindsay Robinson began homeschooling her children during the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to this day. She said the day they go to forest school is their favorite day of the week.
“Red Oaks Forest School allows for curiosity and observation to blossom among nature and peers, for movement among nature to happen—that kind of safe play that is so good for kids’ development,” Robinson said. “Both of my kids—and I—have made some of their greatest friends at Forest School.”
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Red Oaks Forest School now offers several programming options across the Red River Gorge region, plus in Lexington, Berea and Frankfort.
In addition to the original “forest school” concept of unstructured, hands-on learning in nature, Red Oaks has Community Connections, which features classes for all ages in hiking, birding, art, nature play and wellness practices.
The Adventures program caters to those who like more adventurous activities, such as climbing, camping and extended hiking trips.
As part of its 2023-2028 strategic plan, Red Oaks Forest School is working to expand its reach to children in underserved and underrepresented communities. The Forest Friends after-school program works with Lexington Parks, Boys and Girls Club, Berea Kids Eat and Glade’s Community Garden to help children discover nature in their own neighborhoods and community parks.
Taking Flight – Next Level is a collaborative STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) project of UK and Red Oaks, inviting 12- to 18-year-olds to learn in a field setting about Kentucky’s northern cardinals and their natural habitat and behavior.
Sorrel, 10, and her sister, Fields, 8, are regular students at the forest school and its summer programming, joining Hazzard’s class at West Sixth Farm. Fields describes her time at forest school as “great,” while Sorrel enjoys the science aspect, but that’s not all.
“Another good thing I like about this place is that it can regulate your nervous system,” she said.
John and Abby Clark, who have several children in forest school, wrote in an email that they see their children’s emotional maturity grow.
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“Kids love being kids, and at Red Oaks, they actually get to do just that,” the Clarks wrote. “Their classroom interaction has a small age range, where the younger kids learn life lessons from the older ones, granting a sense of responsibility and pride. It’s a safe space where the teachers are united in their commitment to creating responsible people.
“It’s simple, unadulterated education that incorporates this massive ball of dirt we are riding into our children’s lives. They are always smiling and eager to tell us about their day, and that, to us, is a successful and impactful education.”
Brouwer-Kraska said that is what Red Oaks Forest School is all about: giving children the wonder of nature while building confidence and maturity.
“[These are] real, tangible experiences that don’t have to be in nature, but I think nature accelerates them because you’re moving your body in ways that are so much more complicated than if you’re in a kind of structured, closed environment,” she said. “There’s just so many new sensory experiences that happen ... naturally out in nature because you’re encountering sounds and smells and tactile things that you just can’t mimic in an indoor setting. The brain needs to figure out how we’re going to deal with them in the moment, instead of more structured experiences. It’s an opportunity to challenge those learning pathways in a really organic way.”
Part of the school’s mission is to foster children’s compassion for their fellow human, land and community.
“We are a secular organization, and we definitely want to bring people together across political, urban/rural, and religious divides,” Brouwer-Kraska said.