Survival Skills
Whether you’re a beginner learning and honing your skills, or a teen ready to use your survival skills for good, we have survival programs to meet the needs of students ages 8-18.
Our Survival Programs
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Survival School
A prerequisite for all of our survival programs, Survival School is an 8-week prerequisite for Survival Adventures and Wildways. Ages 8-18 will take this course and learn basic survival skills before being able to participate in our other survival courses.
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Survival Adventures
A continuation of survival school in which students ages 8-12 will hone their basic skills and practice new ones. Meeting weekly from September-May, adventurers earn badges when they show skill proficiency, work on community projects and developing character traits.
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Wildways
Catered to ages 13-18, Wildways focuses on fostering independence and real-life use of survival skills. Students can choose new skills to study and work with their teacher to budget, get supplies, and learn how to make their group projects come to life. The program includes optional camp-out experiences each semester and meets September-May.
Survival School
Learn more about
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Our survival program is an 8-week course that teaches children practical outdoor survival skills.
Designed for ages 8-18, participants will learn skills like shelter and fire building, proper knife use, navigation, first aid, knots, rope and cordage, trapping, fishing and cooking.
Our survival class is a drop-off program that meets weekly for 2-hours. All skills will be taught at safe incremental levels, adjusted to experience and progress as students excel at new skills. This class is only offered in the Fall and Spring.
All supplies, building and survival materials are included.
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Our beginner survival curriculum is meant to meet students where they are. All skills taught will start at a beginner level and as students progress, they will be given harder challenges.
If a student possesses background knowledge of a taught topic, they will be challenged to hone the skills they have in advanced projects.
Our curriculum is designed to be repeated at different skill levels as students progress in each topic.
Weather Safety & Shelter building
Fire Building
Compass and Map Reading
First Aid, Lost Prevention and Planning
Cordage and Knot Tying
Knife Skills
Fishing and Trapping
Water Safety & Cooking over a fire
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Dress for the weather, we meet outside rain or shine! Each week, your child will be immersed in nature learning practical outdoor skills.
Whether we're building shelters, or working on fire and knife skills, your child will be under the direction and supervision of one of our trained forest school teachers.
On top of building outdoor survival skills, this class will help your child build confidence, independence, problem solving skills, critical thinking and collaboration.
Many of these skills translate directly into academics and will help students excel in every task and learning subject.
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The cost for our 8-week survival school program is $300 per student. This cost covers the weekly instruction and all the supplies needed for this course.
Our spring 2025 survival school classes are offered the week of March 24th through the week of May 19th, 2025.
Choose 1 of our weekly class options:
Mondays 1:30-3:30PM
Mondays 4-6PM
Tuesdays 12:30-2:30PM
Thursdays 12:30-2:30PM
Our next survival course is March through May, 2025. Register today to hold your spot!
Survival Adventures
Learn more about
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Survival Adventures is geared towards students ages 8-12 who have satisfactorily completed Survival School. The program will focus on survival skills, our native flora and fauna, and functional life skills necessary to be good stewards of our environment.
Adventurers learn new skills, work on community projects, develop character traits, and can earn badges when they show skill proficiency
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Each class will work to develop:
Survival skill proficiency- students were introduced to basic survival skills in our foundational course, Survival School. Adventures will delve deeper into these skills to meet general proficiency in skills such as: knife skills, fire building, first aid, outdoor natural construction, knots, trapping/ fishing, orienteering, and finding and preparing food and water.
Although students will hone all skills, each student will have the opportunity to choose one or two skills to become “experts”. Throughout the course, students may choose to design a course long project in their preferred skill area.
Character Development- we can learn so much from our nature kin! Adventures will learn about native flora and fauna and their importance in their ecosystems, but also learn from them. We will identify traits in the natural world that can have positive and life-long impacts on us.
As a class we will cultivate and develop a sense of wonder and understanding with nature, as we work to become the best people we can be!
Service- students will develop relationships with other kids in the class, and work to create an environment of service at the micro and macro levels. We will create an understanding of care and trust on the micro level- among our classmates, and then extend that outward to our families, Free Haven community, and as stewards of the earth.
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Dress for the weather, we meet outside rain or shine! Each week, your child will be immersed in nature learning practical outdoor skills.
Whether we're building shelters, or working on fire and knife skills, your child will be under the direction and supervision of one of our trained forest school teachers.
On top of building outdoor survival skills, this class will help your child build confidence, independence, problem solving skills, critical thinking and collaboration.
Many of these skills translate directly into academics and will help students excel in every task and learning subject.
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Survival Adventures is a drop-off program. Parents do not need to attend class with their children.
At our Forest School, parents are asked to volunteer their time serving on committees and helping with events. Survival Adventures parents are expected to help their student volunteer during our winter nativity hike event, and on our site development work days. Parents who don’t have time to serve the school in a volunteer capacity can opt out with an additional $600 fee.
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Choose 1 of our weekly class times starting fall 2025:
Mondays 12:30-3:30PM
Mondays 4-7PM
Wednesdays 12:30-3:30PM
Thursdays 12:30-3:30PM
Survival Adventures meets for 8-months of the school-year from September-May. There are scheduled breaks including Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring break. Survival Adventures does not meet in the month of January.
Survival Adventures costs $980 per year. See our tuition sheet for payment plan options.
Students who have already completed survival school can register for Survival Adventures
Wildways
Learn more about
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Wildways is a teen survival program for students who have successfully completed survival school, or our limited 1-day teen survival workshop. Each month, students will focus on a special project of their choosing and work with their teacher to budget, get supplies, learn new skills and pull off the project. Being able to meet with the same group regularly enables this program to be student-directed and centered on STEM-based projects. Wildways will feature guest speakers/educators to help students learn additional skills of their choice. The main focus of this weekly experience will be to build students' confidence, independence, teamwork and overall life skills.
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In this 8-month class, students will participate in team-building activities, survival skill practice, and larger group projects. We provide a rich learning environment for students to explore, create, and take risks. Throughout the academic year, guest teachers may be invited to share their area of expertise with Wildways students. Each semester will feature an optional camp-out experience for participating students.
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Dress for the weather, we meet outside rain or shine! Each week, your child will be immersed in nature learning practical outdoor skills.
Whether we're building shelters, or working on fire and knife skills, your child will be under the direction and supervision of one of our trained forest school teachers.
On top of building outdoor survival skills, this class will help your child build confidence, independence, problem solving skills, critical thinking and collaboration.
Many of these skills translate directly into academics and will help students excel in every task and learning subject.
-
Wildways is a drop-off program. Parents do not need to attend class with their children.
At our Forest School, parents are asked to volunteer their time serving on committees and helping with events. Wildways parents are expected to help their student volunteer during our winter nativity hike event, and on our site development work days. Parents who don’t have time to serve the school in a volunteer capacity can opt out with an additional $600 fee.
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Choose one class time from our fall 2025 Schedule:
Wednesdays 12:30-3:30PM
Thursdays 12:30-3:30PM
Wildways meets for 8-months of the school-year from September-May. There are scheduled breaks including Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring break. Wildways does not meet in the month of January.
Wildways costs $980 per year. See our tuition sheet for payment plan options.
Teens who have already completed survival school or our teen workshop can register for Wildways
There’s no such thing as bad weather.
Our motto at forest school is: "There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes." Appropriate clothing for Forest school is CRITICAL to the success of the program. Clothing guidelines are available in the parent handbook. Our experienced teachers will be there to guide you every step of the way to ensure the safety of students in all weather situations. During periods of inclement weather, students will be gathered indoors, or class will be cancelled if necessary.
