This article first appeared in the Primitive Pursuits introductory guide “Not Your Typical Classroom.” Booklet was prepared by Melissa Mueller in November 2009. Contributors included Heidi Bardy, Beth Bannister, Tim Drake, Dave Hall, and Jed Jordan. 

In 2007-08, Primitive Pursuits got outside every week with the Urban Forest Adventures (UFA) Program. This after school program, generously funded by the More Kids in the Woods grant from the USDA Forest Service, provided five sessions of free Primitive Pursuits programs to underserved youth in the greater Ithaca Area.

Black bears are one of only 2 modern bear species that are not considered to be under threat or extinction by the IUCN.

Some people say outdoor preschool is a no-brainer. “Children cannot bounce off the walls if we take away the walls,” says Erin Kenny, founder of Cedarsong Forest Kindergarten on Vashon Island, Washington. Ithaca Forest Preschool, begun in 2013, took away the walls and added a very special culture.

At the fire, campers shared their favorite memory of the week. No one was shy, and everyone easily was able to share an original thing that was special to them, from fire making to bow making and some funny inside jokes that got everyone laughing.

Sean traces his love of the outdoors to a series of moments in his childhood starting with a day when he and his friends spotted a pair of hawks circling above a hill in the southern end of Syracuse.

Primitive Pursuits instructors Melissa Blake and Britton Dougherty recently traveled to New Hampshire to present at the “In Bloom in Keene: Promising Practices in Nature-Based Early Childhood Education” at Antioch University.

An update from the woods with the homeschoolers

It’s hard for me to walk through a nice rocky creek bed and not be in awe of the beautiful stones at my feet. Whether it’s the striations in shale, carved by moving water, or the sparkly igneous rocks that made the long journey here on the backs of giant sheets of ice.

A few weeks back, I sent Primitive Pursuits Co-Founder Jed Jordan an email asking for a few spare minutes to interview him about his work up at the Arnot Forest.

Primitive Pursuits brings magic into people’s lives by meeting them where they’re at and connecting them to the natural world in ways that push them to be their most imaginative, present, and uninhibited selves.