How Wildflower Open Classroom Forest School Is Transforming Free Public Education In California

Education is evolving and at Wildflower Open Classroom, a free public TK-8 charter school in Chico, the latest addition to its innovative curriculum embraces one of the most time-honored classrooms—nature itself. This year, Wildflower Open Classroom has introduced Forest School, a program designed to immerse students in outdoor learning experiences that foster curiosity, resilience and a deep connection to the natural world.

Bethany Slattery, Wildflower School Forest program coordinator, says the Forest School brings, “incredible laughter, spirited play, imagination and creation in action.”  Bethany is uniquely prepared to administer the Wildflower Forest School Program. She has a master’s in biology, has facilitated multiple weeklong backpacking/rafting trips for Youth for Change and is a certified Forest Therapy Guide and Forest School Teacher.

Forest School students learn physical confidence and emotional resilience through direct experience with nature. Photos provided by Wildflower Open Classroom.

TK-8th grade nature-based education develops social/emotional skills

Aligned with the school’s open classroom philosophy, which emphasizes integrated thematic learning in a flexible, student-centered environment, the Forest School model offers hands-on experiences in an outdoor setting. The program consists of two key components: a full-time Forest Transitional Kindergarten (Forest TK) and Forest Days for TK-8th grade students. The Forest TK class meets five days a week at Bidwell Park’s Five-Mile area, providing young learners with a nature-based foundation for their academic journey. The Forest Days program offers students across all grades the opportunity to step outside the conventional classroom and engage in learning experiences in a natural environment.

“By introducing Forest Schooling in early childhood, we are teaching these young people a way of being in relationship with nature and one another that positively influences how these children show up in community and who they become as they grow into adolescence and adulthood,” Bethany says. “They are exposed to song and circle, healthy risks and conflict resolution. They grow self-confidence early on that is not centered around intelligence or academic ability. They develop a healthy understanding of risk-taking and come to know their body’s abilities very well. Their senses are far more developed, their vocabulary is greater and they experience increased physical health. Children who intimately experience changes in nature that occur throughout the year have a different relationship with ‘change’ in general, understanding its natural role in life, and are commonly better adapted to struggle and change in other areas of life.”

Exploring the natural world on Forest School days helps relieve some of the negative effects of sedentary, screen-focused, indoor learning and living.

Forest School builds physical confidence, promotes early literacy

Forest School curriculum is rooted in direct experience with nature, fostering a sense of belonging among children, families and the land. With small class sizes and a high adult-to-child ratio, students receive personalized attention while developing skills such as plant identification, animal tracking and pattern recognition. Bethany notes that through activities like painting, crafting, storytelling and poetry, children strengthen their memory, vocabulary and imagination—all critical components of early literacy. These experiences help students cultivate physical confidence, emotional resilience and a deep respect for the environment.

Through play in nature, children strengthen critical components of early literacy – memory, vocabulary and imagination.

Restorative, healing, wholistic education

“For the older kids that haven’t experienced this kind of schooling or haven’t experienced nature as much, the benefits act almost as medicine,” Bethany says. “They help relieve some of the negative effects of sedentary, screen-focused, indoor learning and living. I see each day outside as a dose of medicine, an antidote to stress, anxiety, boredom, ADHD, low self-esteem. For the older kids, the more time outside they get, the more they reconnect to nature, bond with one another in unique ways, reopen and expand all their senses, restore their attention, curiosity and joy and experience awe.”

By integrating Forest School into its curriculum, Wildflower Open Classroom is giving children the opportunity to learn in nature, while fostering a holistic educational experience that is also free. Bethany mentioned that as far as she knows this may be the only free forest school program in California.

“My favorite aspect of Forest School is the ease and uniqueness by which nature touches each child,” Bethany says. “It’s watching the natural world pull in each kid individually, watching children’s curiosities carry them away into playland and just standing there as the adult, doing very little, enjoying the breeze, sunshine, beautiful sky, flowers, water and dirt. I quite enjoy seeing the gratitude in parents’ smiles when they pick up their dirty and happy child from school. And all along, I say to myself, Nature is the teacher, I am just the guide, opening the doors.”

To find out more about the Wildflower Open Classroom Forest School, visit wildflowerschool.com. For more information on Forest School in early childhood, Bethany recommends visiting The Natural Start Alliance website and reading books such as Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv, The Nature Fix by Florence Williams or any books on the subject by David Sobel.