photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Shannon Hodges, left, and Amanda Painter-Ingham are pictured on the grounds of the new Morning Song Forest School, which is at Hodges' west Lawrence home. Hodges is the director while Painter-Ingham is the lead teacher.

Shannon Hodges can envision a school day this winter where the temperatures are about 20 degrees and the big news of the school day is a fire inside a tent.

No need to call the fire department. No need to call the principal. There’s not even a need to call a repairman for the furnace. At Hodges’ new private school, a fire inside a tent isn’t a bad day. It is just another day outside.

And every day at the new Morning Song Forest School is a day outside.

Learning outside is a key concept for the growing education movement known as “forest school.” Even on days when the Kansas winters produce a cold day, Hodges expects to have upward of a dozen children between the ages of 5 and 11 at her west Lawrence home.

At her home. Not in her home. The lessons will happen on the property’s large lot or at a nearby pond or at any one of the number of public parks that are near her home in the Bob Billings Parkway and Monterey Way area.

“I think it is going to be an adventure,” Hodges said of that first 20-degree day that greets the new school.

She said plans call for the yard to be equipped with a special canvas, tent-like device that can safely house a stove. That will serve as a warming hut, but Hodges also said one of the school’s mottoes would be “there’s no bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.”

Hodges, a former case manager for Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, said the health and safety of the children, of course, would be the top priority at the school. But Hodges has become a firm believer that being outside is extremely healthy for children and their ability to learn.

“I think for younger kids it is almost a biological fact that kids are designed to learn this way,” she said. “The natural world has so much sensory input, which is what a lot of younger kids struggle with.”

For older kids, she thinks the outdoor environment creates “an ability to engage” that is easier than in a structured classroom.

So, what will an outdoor lesson look like?

It depends, Hodges said. The school day includes two 90-minute play sessions. Teachers at the school are instructed to closely watch the play for signs of what the students are interested in, which will guide the lesson plans for the rest of the day.

For example, Hodges said if children are playing along a creek and building a dam, that might lead to a lesson about beavers for the younger children and a lesson about water flow or even basic engineering concepts for older students.

Hodges received training in how to run a proper “forest school” from the Forest School Teacher Institute in Chattanooga, Tennessee. But the idea for the school came while Hodges was out for a run at the Baker Wetlands. The pandemic, though, also played a big role in the school’s creation.

For one, Hodges began running in more remote, nature-filled places during the pandemic. But more importantly, she home-schooled her daughter for two years during the pandemic. Hodges was worried that the last time her daughter had been in a structured public school classroom was when she was in second grade. She now would be in fifth grade.

Hodges said she and many other parents have concerns about whether their children will be able to easily go back to such a structured environment.

“A lot of parents say, ‘I can’t picture him sitting behind a desk for five or six hours a day,'” Hodges said.

Other parents, though, may worry about whether such an unstructured environment will prepare their students for the math, science, English and other skills that they will be expected to master if they want to get a high school diploma or more.

Hodges said the school is designed to serve as a child’s primary place of education, if parents want it to function that way. She said the school will do record-keeping for each student and will provide parents with a quarterly report that tracks a child’s progress in subject areas that are tied to Kansas Common Core educational standards.

However, Morning Song Forest School is not licensed as a traditional school with the Kansas Department of Education. Instead, the organization is registered as a nonaccredited private school, which is the same status parents who home-school their children have.

Hodges said she expects many of the school’s students will be kids who are home-schooled — students whose parents are looking for a way to increase their exposure to science and nature.

To accommodate both types of students, the school plans to offer two-day, three-day and five-day options, with each school day lasting from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuition will range from $240 to $600 a month, Hodges said. Classes will begin in mid-August.

Hodges said the school also hasn’t had to get other types of licensing to operate in the state, such as a day care license or a home-occupation license. She said her research has found that most states — with Washington state being an exception — haven’t yet developed licensing programs for forest schools.

Hodges already has hired one teacher for Morning Song Forest School. Amanda Painter-Ingham spent six years as a special education teacher for the Lawrence school district, and also has experience in coordinating outdoor programs for children, according to information provided by the school.

Forest schools aren’t a new concept — in Germany they are called Waldkindergarten — but they are less common in Middle America than on the coasts. However, a website that tracks forest schools in the U.S. does list about a half-dozen Kansas schools that have elements of forest school learning, even if they don’t have all of their classes outdoors. Lawrence’s Prairie Moon Waldorf School is on that list, as are several in the Johnson County area.

Hodges gives tours of her property to interested families, arranged through the school’s website, but doesn’t disclose the exact location of the home for security reasons. So far, she said interest has been good.

“I think the attitude on this may have changed with the pandemic,” she said. “We are seeing a lot of little kids who haven’t had any traditional school experiences, and have a lot of flexible schooling at home. Their parents just can’t see putting them in a super structured environment.”