Where children GROW in Mind, Body and Spirit
““The more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core. And I think the same is true of human beings.” ”
In the language of the Anishinaabe, “Aki” is Earth. “Nomaage” is to take direction from it.
“Akinomaage” is a sense of learning from the land.
Deeply connecting to the story and natural elements of the land, as those who came before teach us, is at the heart of our Place-Bonded Learning Community.
Welcome to Strong Roots Learning Community! Strong Roots is a place-bonded, project-based, story and arts rich program for children ages 3-16. We focus on community, developmentally appropriate practices and giving kids the time they need to explore, discover, and create together and individually. We know that the natural world gifts children with the richest story and song that there is. The connection between child and nature is innate. We guide them to continue to hear the song and story that nature sings and tells just as those who came long before us did when the connection was so powerful and deep. We also know that time spent in nature slows down the fast-paced world we now live in for children. The time they spend with us at Strong Roots follows the rhythm and flow of the natural world, allowing children to remain connected, unfurl, develop and grow at their own pace just as they are meant to.
Through extended time to play and explore in the outdoors, we offer children opportunities to wonder, imagine, connect and grow. Our days are also filled with rich story telling, traditional arts, primitive skill, lessons from nature, connecting circles, reverence, quiet and joy. We also strive to connect families to each other through community wide gatherings and festivals. Strong Roots is much more than a “school"—it is a rich and vibrant community offering families connection within their own family, to the natural world, and to other families.
““Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin flowers. And the frisky ones—inkberry, lamb’s quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones—rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them fields and woods and the possibility of a world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms.
Attention begins in Devotion””
““But the old Lakota was wise. He knew that man’s heart away from nature becomes hard; He knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too. So he kept his children close to nature’s softening influence.”
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