Naturalist Skills Throughout the Year
The Naturalist Curriculum focuses on having fun learning through meaningful experiences. Students engage with the entire process of various land-based skills:
Basketry – harvest willow, dry, soak, weave
Wool – sheer, clean, card, spin or felt, knit or weave
Cordage – harvest, process, spin cordage
Food – harvest, process, prepare (can, cook, bake, ferment, press), create a cookbook!
Dye – harvest, dye (using other materials we have harvested or processed, such as wool)
Medicine, soap, salve, infusions – from harvest to finish
Wild Tending – form a reciprocal relationship with the land where we care for the willow patch,
harvest and plant seeds, prune trees, etc.
Pottery – Harvest clay, process it, make pots, open pit fire
Skills By Season
| Fall Overnight Trip – Overland Reservoir – mushroom hunt Harvest cattail for weaving Harvest acorns – Dry acorns Harvest apples and pears Press, can pears and apples – fresh cider Animal Processing Hide tanning Sheep shearing Harvest wild seeds Harvest Black Walnut and sumac for dye Harvest Oak and Black Walnut- leaf prints |
Winter Trip – Cross country skiing Harvest willow for basketry Process acorns Medicine making Salve making Soap making Harvest dogbane, milkweed, and nettle for cordage Cordage making Cattail weaving |
| Spring Spring wild foods (onions, greens, spruce tips, etc) Seed starts for garden Willow basketry Sheep shearing Wool processing (cleaning, washing, carding, spinning, knitting, felting) Harvest roots (biscuits and lilies) |
Summer End of year backpacking trip |