Guardian Mountain Forest ‘School’
Fall program for homeschooled children
Thursdays, for Age 7 to 10, Sept 14- Dec 7
9:30 am – 2:30 pm, at the Starhouse
This program will offer a holistic environment where the wisdom of the wild, mythic imagination, and the expressive arts will be woven by our collective work into a nourishing, integrative journey.
Background Philosophy:
The skills we develop through study in the fine arts, wilderness awareness, and mythology cultivate a dynamic, loving and integrated self, capable of connecting deeply to life around us. Our authentic connection to life is a gift of beauty and an offering of service, at every stage of our life’s journey. These programs will follow the methods & tempo of our popular, long-running summer programs: Fairy Tale Forest & Guardian Mountain, and include our Isadora Duncan method integrative somatic work: Dance of Nature. Kindly read those pages for background.
DAILY RHYTHM:
Each day will begin with an hour of integrative dance, story, drama, music and poetry. We will have live accompaniment by master harpist and composer Margot Krimmel (boulderharp.com) and other local musicians. You can read more about this form of instruction here.
This will be followed by a sensory-awakening and wonder-nourishing time in the woods. The Starhouse is a nature sanctuary, and provides extraordinary opportunities for communing with wildlife in grass land and forest landscapes.
Returning to our ‘base-camp,’ the cozy and refined, solar-powered Starhouse Retreat Cabin, we will have snack and then choose among a variety of options like drawing, painting, recording our woodland observations, or crafting. Over the season, we may individually or collectively choose to focus on a specific skill like visual art, reciting poetry, putting on plays, crochet, nature crafting skills (like dyeing with plants or making cordage), sculpture, sewing, embroidery, identifying local plants, nature observation or many other possibilities.
Lunch time follows this 'free-choice' period, and after this is a restful storytime, during which I tell a folk or fairy tale chosen for its relevance to our group dynamic, local history, the ancestral backgrounds of our class members, and developmental issues. After this is a gentle period of poetry, songs, word games, sensory integration games, and stretching.
The final period of our day is devoted to cooperative games and finishing up our day's projects. Please read the Fairy Tale Forest page to get a sense of the tone of our program.
FESTIVAL:
The program will culminate in a festive gathering with parents and members of the community – including a sharing of dance, drama and other arts by the children, a outdoor imaginative journey and seasonal feast. These structures serve as a ‘rite of passage’ affirming the children in the beauty of their being and the community’s love and support.
LOCATION:
The program will take place on the spectacular 100 acres of the Starhouse property, with our movement lesson in the majestic Starhouse, and the remainder of our day on the land and at the exquisite Retreat Cabin, with woodstove burning on cold days. Our back-up space for the occasional day when the Starhouse is not available due to other rentals or snow, will be the lofty and inviting Kelly Barn, on 1360 Sumac Ave. in North Boulder, with outdoor space at Wonderland Lake.
ENROLLMENT:
Due to limited space, our maximum enrollment is 12 children.
Tuition for the 12 weeks: $1050
*This fee includes final festive gathering and a parent-teacher event, which will both be participatory opportunities to engage in the integrative myth & movement work at the heart of this program, along with discussion of the program’s pedagogical methods and ideas for weaving them into your home life.
Need-based scholarship funds may become available, please inquire.
Contact us at mythmovement@live.com, for enrollment materials or with questions.
ABOUT TEACHER LAURA:
Laura is a Waldorf teacher, multi-disciplinary artist, and scholar of education. She is considered by peers and mentors to be a master educator in the Duncan integrative model as well as the Waldorf method. Her methods draw upon various influences and are generally grounded in her graduate study and ongoing immersion in the Anthropology of Education which looks comparatively at pedagogical methods across times and cultures to assess the likely impact of any educational protocol. Her work has received numerous awards and is currently the subject of third-party research. More about Laura and the other program teachers can be found on the 'About' tab.