Understory is a nature-based preschool and forest school for children two-and-a-half to five. We spend our days outdoors — in the woods, the garden, and the mud kitchen — following what children notice, in every season and most weathers.
We don't hand out worksheets or ask three-year-olds to sit still. A child who spends the morning building a dam in the creek is doing real work: testing ideas, negotiating with friends, and learning how water behaves. Our job is to protect that work — to notice it, name it, and give it room.
Days are child-led and unhurried. Teachers follow curiosity where it goes, then quietly weave in language, number, and story. Here's what that looks like in practice:
Instead of sorting children by birthday, we keep two overlapping groves. Children move between them as they're ready — not on a fixed date — so the jump to kindergarten feels like a natural next step.
Our youngest explorers, still learning that a morning apart can be a good one. Days are gentler and closer to home base: sensory play, short trail walks, songs, and a lot of lap time when it's needed. Separation is handled slowly and kindly — we'll talk through a settling plan with you before the first day, and we never rush a goodbye.
Confident wanderers who can carry a project across days — a fort, a bug investigation, a map of the woods. Trips range farther, tools get real (child-sized rakes, magnifiers, real cups in the mud kitchen), and storytelling, early letters, and counting show up naturally in the work. This is where kindergarten readiness quietly happens.
Extended care runs until 4:30 for working families — a slower afternoon of choice time, a second snack, and outdoor play. Our Summer Grove (June–August) keeps the same rhythm with more water, more garden, and more trail. Ask about single-day drop-in availability.
Pick a season, then walk our morning trail. Tap a moment to see the ordinary magic — and the real learning — inside it.
Every academic skill a preschooler needs is already hiding in an ordinary outdoor morning. We just make it visible. A few examples of how it actually happens:
Children measure, pour, and "sell" soup to friends — comparing more and less, counting portions, and following a recipe from memory.
Naming ferns, birds, and clouds fills a child's mouth with new words. Teachers narrate, ask, and wonder aloud — building the vocabulary that reading later stands on.
Balancing branches into a shelter is engineering by another name — testing weight, angle, and teamwork, then trying again when it topples.
Planting, watering, and waiting teaches cause and effect and patience — and there's no better vegetable than the one you grew and washed yourself.
Our teachers are early-childhood educators and naturalists. They stay with a grove across the year, so the person greeting your child in June is the same one who learned their quirks in September.
Twelve years in early childhood, the last six outdoors. Rosa is the one who can identify a bird from its call and turn a found feather into a week-long investigation.
Gentle with the youngest and unhurried with goodbyes. Daniel spent years in a play-based classroom before coming outdoors, and he's the school's calm center on a hard morning.
A former public-school science teacher who started Understory after watching her own kids come alive outdoors. Maya is on the trails most mornings and reachable to any family, any day.
"Forest school" makes some parents picture children wandering off. The opposite is true — being outdoors takes more structure, not less. Here's how we keep it safe, and how the everyday things work.
We publish our ranges because hunting for a number you can't find is a lousy way to start a relationship. Tuition depends on your child's grove and how many days you choose. Final pricing is confirmed in your enrollment agreement.
A registration fee holds your place for the year; a deposit applies to your first month. We offer a sibling discount and a limited number of sliding-scale spots each year — ask us, in confidence.
Includes morning & afternoon snacks, all outdoor materials and tools, rain gear loaners, and seasonal family conferences. Lunch packed from home. Figures are illustrative for this concept.
Now enrolling · limited fall spots"She used to cling to my leg at drop-off. Now she runs ahead to check on the caterpillar she named. The teachers actually know her — the notes home aren't a template, they're about my kid."
— Parent of a Sapling · fictional reflection
The only way to know if a school fits your family is to stand in it. Tours are small and happen during a real morning, so you'll see actual children doing actual things — not a staged showing.
Submitting the form below is an inquiry — it doesn't hold a spot. We'll be in touch within one business day.
