In the 2022-2023 school year, Wonder Woods launched a pilot program for 9-12 year olds to attend on Wednesdays and Fridays and we have loved the results thus far! We believe that all kids have a right to play, and older kids are often excluded from this priority. Play is developmentally beneficial at all ages (even for grown-ups!) so we strive to give this opportunity to as many age groups as we can. We delight in providing a space in which children from age 0-12 can mingle, play together, or observe each other—the way a real world community is often made up of people of all ages. 

 

In our first year running this program, we saw the 9-12 year old kids participate in many of the same activities as the younger children (process-based art; tree climbing; fort building; hiking; sculpting or harvesting clay; reading or telling stories; making up games and playing them; bird-watching and plant identification; rope making), but they also often choose to participate in more organized cooperative/competitive games, card games, board games, or skill practicing such as fire-building or whittling (under close supervision of playworkers).  

 

In our inaugural year of the 9-12 year old pilot program, many older children from the homeschooling or unschooling community joined us in the woods and provided the proof of concept we need to keep the program going. We are continuing to shape this program and would love to hear more from you if you are a 9-12 year old, or the parent or caregiver of a 9-12 year old interested in attending. 

 

Our program rotates its location (for ecological preservation reasons) between LaBagh, Forest Glen, and Bunker Hill Forest Preserves.