Our Program


Learn more about what LNCS has to offer your family. 

We've Got Skills

We are inquiry-based, and play-driven...letting the learners lead the way. And Skills is in our name! Social-emotional skills, fire-building skills, motor skills, plant-identification skills. You name it, we weave it all together. 

Devoted to children’s holistic development in relationship with the natural world.

We nurture skills that foster children’s affection towards themselves and their ecological community, important parts to becoming healthy and integrated members of it. LNCS takes place entirely outside at Distant Hill Gardens Nature Trail. Children play in their natural world, beginning to to value it deeply when they come into their own understanding of it. Because of this, LNCS programming is learner-led and focuses on free play and exploration as an important part of our daily routine and environmental instruction. To that end, we provide opportunities for children to learn skills for appropriate risk-taking, to build confidence and resiliency, amongst other quality traits that fortify development of self and connection to nature.. check them out below.

Daily Schedule

This is the rhythm our days will usually follow.

Drop-Off Window

9:15 - 9:30 a.m.

Time to say goodbye to parents for the day.

Tender-Loving-Care

9:30 a.m.

a.k.a TLC! We line-up, assign jobs, and hike out to our site. 

Opening Circle

10:00 a.m.

We say our good-mornings, do check-ins, and talk about weather. 

Play Block

10:15 a.m.

All sorts of surprises happen here! Sometimes free play, sometimes lessons.

Lunch

12:00 p.m.

Lunch time is always the same. But Snack? That happens when the tummy rumbles. 

Story-Reverie-Rest

12:30 p.m.

a.k.a SRR! A quiet time to read, rejoice in solitude, or rest.

Closing Circle

1:15 p.m.

End-of-the-day reflections, grattitudes, and goodbyes, with maybe a song or two.

Tender-Loving-Care

1:30 p.m.

TLC time again, to practice a little stewardship before we hike out. 

Pick-Up Window

2:00 - 2:15 p.m.

Time to leave the forest and head home with parents.