Wonder Woods

Wonder Woods offers child-led free play with materials and playscapes set up by playworkers, along with activities like drawing, painting, and process-based art projects. Children may climb trees, sculpt and harvest clay, build stick houses, and dig in mud, dirt, and puddles. They also make rope, make up games and play them, read, tell stories, hike, watch birds, identify plants, make pretend food, and enact pretend play such as playing house, family, or cats. Older kids often join organized cooperative and competitive games, card games, board games, and skill practice such as whittling under the close supervision of playworkers.

• Ages: 3–12 years old
• Schedule: Drop-off camp Monday through Friday from 9am–2pm, with aftercare options available until 4pm if enough demand exists; Spring Break Camp runs March 23–27 and Summer 2026 runs June 8–August 14

The mission of Wonder Woods is to pave the way for children to play and learn in a living ecosystem every day, in nearly all weather, throughout all four seasons. Play is at the heart of everything the program does, and child-led free play is a core component. Playworkers bring materials and playscapes into the nature setting and are described as observing rather than leading, questioning rather than assuming, practicing patience rather than interruption, and creating opportunities rather than curriculum. The program calls the grown-ups who work there “playworkers” and states that their role is to empower children by supporting their play first and foremost.

Wonder Woods states that it encourages resilience, curiosity, confidence, and joy in children, and that it supports self-directed learning and helps children discover their own interests through games, activities, materials, skills, and child-led free play. The program describes outdoor education as broader than just ecology, including art, literature, music, poetry, chemistry, math, physics, and engineering. It supports risk-taking as crucial to helping children learn, grow, and adapt and describes itself as building a community and practicing care for all members in that community.

Wonder Woods is committed to addressing racial, social, and economic inequality that affects Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color; queer and trans people; as well as people with disabilities or significant economic barriers. The program is described as queer-affirming and future-oriented. It welcomes families and kids of all religions, races, cultures, creeds, nationalities, backgrounds, and learning differences, and it welcomes and affirms families and kids who are LGBTQIA+, gender diverse, disabled, and/or neurodivergent.

Last updated July 29, 2026.