Because school is mandated at age 6 in the state of California, any 6-year-olds enrolled in this program must be legally considered homeschoolers, as we are an enrichment program and not an accredited school. It is your responsibility to make sure your family is in compliance with state regulations.

If your child is signed up with a homeschool charter, you may be able to use charter funds to pay for tuition (see below).

If you want to use homeschool charter funds for Little Coyotes Forest Kinder, you will need to register and pay the deposit up-front, and then make sure to sign up for the payment plan. Then, please let us know that you intend to use charter funds, which charter you are with, and how much of your tuition will be covered by your charter. Once we receive confirmation from your charter school, we will modify the payment plan accordingly, and invoice your charter monthly. It is your responsibility to submit purchase order/service voucher requests in a timely manner.

We are currently vendors with Cottonwood, South Sutter, Sutter Peak, Heritage Peak, Feather River, Visions in Education, Clarksville, Horizon, and Compass. If you are with Cottonwood, the school year officially ends on 5/28. Please reach out for more information.

Please note that tuition assistance cannot be combined with the use of charter funds.

At this point, we are able to offer tuition assistance of up to 25% off to two families per location. Assistance will be awarded on a rolling basis (please contact us in advance to apply).

For families identifying as Black and/or Indigenous to the US, we invite you to make use of the Reparations rate, which for this program (as of the 2026-27 school year) will automatically give you a 20% discount, regardless of financial need. You will find the reparations code in the session description on the registration site.

Reparations may be combined with the use of homeschool charter funds, but tuition assistance may not.

The initial deposit of $300 is non-refundable.

If you have paid in full for the year and decide to cancel, you will receive a refund, minus your deposit, until 7/31/26. After 7/31/26, we require 30 days’ notice for cancelations, meaning that you will be responsible for payment of tuition for 30 days following the date you give us notice of your plan to cancel.

If you are on a payment plan, you have an option for paying on the 1st of the month or the 16th of the month, beginning in August 2026 and continuing monthly through May 2027. Should you choose to cancel by 7/31/26, all payments will be stopped. After 7/31/26, we require 30 days’ notice for cancelations, meaning that you will be responsible for payment of tuition for 30 days following the date you give us notice of your plan to cancel. Monthly payments that have already gone through will not be refundable, but further payments will be stopped or prorated based on the tuition for 30 days following the date of your cancelation notice.

If you are using homeschool charter funds, you will still need to pay a $300 non-refundable deposit out of pocket. If you decide to cancel by 7/31/26, any purchase orders submitted by that point will be canceled and the funds returned to your account. After 7/31/26, we require 30 days’ notice for cancelations, meaning that we will still invoice your charter for 30 days following the date you give us notice of your plan to cancel. 

The short answer is, YES, both!

The longer answer is that we have developed a curriculum that honors children’s innate need to play and to be outdoors for hours every day. Nature-based learning is critical in the development of a young child, impacting everything from motor skills and academic performance to their social-emotional and holistic development. Nature immersion at this age plays a significant role in a child’s healthy development, and children learn so much being out in this ever-changing environment, throughout the seasons.

Because young children learn best through hands-on experiences, our emergent, seasonal curriculum focuses on the process of learning, rather than the end product, and is presented as an offering to children. A brief glimpse into some aspects of this:

• • In the fall: hunting for mushrooms; collecting and sorting the different leaves on the ground; animal tracking
  • In the winter: learning about the dormant plants and animals; shelter building; studying decomposed plant matter
  • In the spring: observing and learning about the more active animal world (especially birds!); foraging for edible plants

Safety is a top priority for us, since we are all outdoors!

We go over our safety agreements during each morning’s opening circle, which includes making sure the children can always see a Forest Mentor, and that the Forest Mentors can see the children. A child should never be out of a Forest Mentor’s sight unless they are changing and using the restroom, in which case they will check in with us about it. We provide a pop-up tent that children can use for privacy if they feel more comfortable.

We teach the children a coyote howl in case they ever find themselves in a situation where they don’t see a Forest Mentor, and we howl back to them to let them know we hear them and will walk towards them.

In terms of water safety, our Forest Mentors are all trained in our water safety and supervision policies, which include daily observations of variations in creek/river bed, water currents, and child/mentor ratios. DFS provides life vests for each child, and life vests are required for all water play. We don’t go into the water from November through March, because it is too cold and sometimes the water levels are slightly higher during the rainy season. 

For the 2025-26 school year:

Little Coyotes runs from September 2nd, 2025, through June 12th, 2026. We will be closed for the following holidays:

• Thanksgiving Week: 11/24/25 – 11/28/25
• Winter Break: 12/22/25 – 1/2/26
• Spring Break: 3/23/26 – 3/27/26
• Memorial Day: 5/25/26