How to Start a Nature School or Forest School | Lessons from a Founder - Part 1
Thinking about starting a nature school or forest school? Learn what most new founders get wrong, and how to build a sustainable outdoor program from the start!
If you’ve ever thought, “Could I start a nature school?”, you’re not alone.
As a college freshman (over 20 years ago, oof), I remember the moment I first heard the term forest school in my Introduction to Outdoor Education class at Western Washington University. I was fascinated by programs in Scandinavian countries where young children spent their days outside - napping in the snow, drinking warm tea around a fire, climbing trees to a hight that would make most modern American parents gasp.
The more I learned, the more I felt it: This is what childhood is supposed to look like.
I truly believed this model could change the course of modern childhood. That we could raise a more empathetic, connected, and engaged generation of global citizens who live in relationship with the natural world. But it took me years, decades really, to act on that belief.
I had the passion, that’s for sure! But I also knew that passion alone wasn’t enough to get my dream off the ground. What I really needed was clarity, direction, and someone a few steps ahead of me saying, “Yes, you can do this! And here’s what to think about first.”
After years of hesitating, I finally took the leap and started EverWild Forest School in Boise, Idaho in 2019. What began as a small, local program quickly grew into something much bigger. That momentum eventually led me to launch the National Outdoor Learning Alliance, so we could support more families, and more founders, through expanded programs and resources.
So if you’re at the beginning of this path, wondering if you can actually do this too, I’m here to help guide you forward. :-)
Start Here: Your Idea Has to Meet a Real Need
One of the biggest mistakes I see early on is building a program around passion alone. Passion matters of course, it’s what brings you here in the first place! But a sustainable nature school or forest school has to do more than reflect your dream.
It has to meet a real need in your community.
And just as importantly, it needs to be accessible to the families you want to serve.
For example:
If you’re passionate about working with little kids, but your area already has multiple outdoor preschools and a Wild + Free group, starting another toddler nature group may not actually meet a need.
But that same passion, applied differently, like offering outdoor aftercare at a local preschool, could fill a real gap for working families.
So before you build anything, pause and ask:
What already exists in my area?
Who is being served and who isn’t?
Where are the gaps?
There’s more to starting a nature school than creating something beautiful and sweet. It’s about creating something that people will actually use, and that can sustain itself over time.
Next, What Are You Actually Building?
Once you understand your community, the next step is getting clear on your model.
There are many different ways to build a nature-based program. Here are a few approaches to consider:
A community-based meetup for families
A cooperative model with shared teaching
Part-time enrichment classes
Afterschool programs or summer camps
A preschool or full school model
All of these are valid, but they are not the same, and they require very different structures to run well.
Getting clear on this early helps you avoid something I see all the time: Scope creep! That slow drift where your program starts trying to be everything for everyone, and ends up feeling unclear and unsustainable. Clarity here will guide every decision you make moving forward.
Passion Isn’t Enough - You Also Need a Plan
Most people come into this work because they deeply care about kids. They see the impact of screen time, over-structured schedules, and indoor lifestyles and they want something better for modern childhood. That’s the right place to start, but passion alone isn’t a strategy.
If you want your program to actually last, your passion needs to be paired with thoughtful planning. I’ve found that many nature school founders come into this work without a business background, and often want to avoid anything that feels too corporate or formal. I get that! But building something sustainable requires you to step into those skills, even if they don’t come naturally at first.
If this is the part that feels overwhelming, you’re not alone. It’s also exactly why I created a Business Plan Template specifically for forest and nature schools. It walks you through the key decisions and considerations I wish I had thought through when I was starting out.
No matter how you approach it, your plan should give you clarity on your market position, your unique offering, and the operational realities of your program. Think of it as a guide you can come back to again and again as you grow, not something you create once and forget.
The Piece Most People Skip: Systems
This is the part I learned the hard way. When I started EverWild Forest School, I had a strong vision, but I didn’t fully think through the systems needed to support it. So we built a lot of things in real time, and learned A LOT along the way. While that’s part of any startup, I now know how much smoother things could have been if we had created more structure before launching.
Things like:
Clear expectations for families (refunds, cancellations, behavior policies)
Defined staff roles and communication systems
Operational frameworks (hiring, compensation, safety protocols, weather thresholds)
These aren’t the exciting parts, but they’re the parts that make your program stable, consistent, and scalable.
Having these systems documented, whether in a handbook or internal guide, also removes a lot of emotion from decision-making. It gives you something to come back to when things get complicated (and they will).
Clarity and Boundaries Protect Your Program
Two of the most important lessons we learned came from times when we didn’t have clear boundaries in place.
Capacity: In the beginning, we opened our doors to every child who wanted to join. It came from a good place, but there were times when it stretched us beyond what we could safely and effectively support. We began to realize that we didn’t always have the staffing or specialized expertise needed to provide the level of support some children required. When that happened, it created an experience that wasn’t aligned with what we were trying to offer, for that child or for the group. Over time, we got clearer on the outcomes we wanted for our students and the conditions needed to support that experience. That clarity helped us recognize when a program was—or wasn’t—the right fit for a child at a given time. When it wasn’t, we developed a process for working with families to thoughtfully pause participation, with the goal of setting that child up for a more successful experience in the future.
Philosophy: As we grew, we started receiving more feedback from families, which is a good thing. But instead of filtering that feedback through our core philosophy, we tried to respond to all of it. We adjusted parts of our curriculum, shifted expectations, and made changes in an effort to make every family happy. And what we found was that the more we tried to accommodate everyone, the more diluted and unclear our program became. We realized that feedback is valuable, but not all feedback should lead to change.
Now, we return to the same questions when making decisions:
Does this align with our philosophy?
Does this support the outcomes we want for children?
Does this strengthen the integrity of the program?
Do we have the capacity to support this move?
If the answer is no, we hold the boundary instead of adjusting our program. In the end, strong programs are built by being clear about what they are, and who they are for.
Where This Leaves You
If you’re in the early stages of thinking about how to start a nature school, forest kindergarten, or outdoor education program, you don’t need to have everything figured out.
But you do need to slow down enough to:
Understand your environment
Define your approach
Build a strong foundation
Because that’s what allows your program to actually last.
If You’re Ready to Take the Next Step
If you’re reading this and thinking, “I want to do this, but I don’t want to waste time figuring it all out alone,” that’s exactly why we created support for founders like you.
At the National Outdoor Learning Alliance, we offer resources, templates, and coaching designed specifically for people in the early stages of building a nature-based program.
👉 If you want help getting clear on your next step, you can book a free 30-minute discovery call here: https://calendly.com/outdoorlearningalliance-info/30min
And if you’re not quite ready for that yet, Part 2 of this series will walk you through a simple, step-by-step path to move from idea to action.