NOW ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS KINDER GARDEN & AFTER-SCHOOL CLUB
Our 24-acre regenerative learning laboratory is located at Meraki Ranch, on Dos Picos Park Rd in Ramona, CA, across the street from the Dos Picos County Park and Nature Preserve.
As a Private Membership Association, we offer sliding-scale membership fees. Applications are always welcome, as we do maintain a waiting list. Please request an application using the form at the bottom of this page.
The Kinder Garden
The Kinder Garden supports children aged 3-6 in a safe and engaging outdoor environment. We cultivate social-emotional skill-building, early literacy, resource consciousness, and creative expression.
Every day includes elements of art, music, movement, reading, writing, animal care, garden tending, and native habitat awareness. However, each day has a specific emphasis, and its own array of place-based projects:
Mondays: World Music & Creative Literacy Tuesdays: Native Wildlife Puppet-making & Story-telling Wednesdays: Earth Building & Wildcrafting Thursdays: Math & Science in the Garden Fridays: Field Journaling & Expressive Art
The After-School Club
We offer outdoor educational enrichment for grades 1-12. Participants cultivate a wide-range of real-world skills through the work of building and managing their own community farmstand, stocked with the produce and handiwork we generate on a daily basis, including organic eggs, fruits and veggies, booklets, and nature crafts.
We invite guest facilitators in permaculture, soil health, earth building, world music and dance, mindfulness, expressive art, theater, herbalism, native plants,and creative writing to share their expertise. The youth, in turn, may showcase what they learn on our outdoor stage.
Request an application via secure email.
Many thanks to the many hands who are helping to raise our nature lab! With four unique outdoor learning spaces in development, we're demonstrating the real power of community building.