Because school is mandated at age 6 in the state of California, any 6-year-olds enrolled in this program must be considered homeschoolers, as we are legally an enrichment program and not an accredited school. If your child is signed up with a homeschool charter, you may be able to use charter funds to pay for tuition.

If you want to use homeschool charter funds for Little Coyotes Forest Kinder, you will need to register and pay the deposit and supply fees up-front, and then sign up for the payment plan rather than paying the remaining tuition all at once. 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. We will modify the payment plan accordingly, and invoice your charter monthly (you will need to submit a purchase order/service voucher).

We are currently vendors with Cottonwood, South Sutter, Sutter Peak, Heritage Peak, Feather River, Visions in Education, and Compass.

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 North America, we invite you to make use of the Reparations rate, which for this program automatically gives you a 10% 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 (unless DFS needs to cancel the program due to low enrollment; in that case everything will be refunded). The supply fee of $300, also collected at registration, is refundable if you choose to cancel your registration by 7/31/24. Because we will need to purchase supplies in advance of the program, the supply fee will not be refundable under any circumstances after 7/31/24.

If you have paid in full for the year and decide to cancel, you will receive a refund, minus your deposit, until 7/31/24. Any cancelations after 7/31/24 will be handled on a case-by-case basis, with the amount of tuition refunded depending, in part, on how soon your spot can be filled by another child. You will be responsible for payment of tuition for one calendar month following cancelation OR until there is another registrant to take the vacated spot, whichever happens sooner, in which case we will offer you a refund pro-rated to the end of the month in which your registration is terminated.

If you are on the payment plan option, payments begin on 8/1/24 and continue monthly until the last payment is made on 5/1/25. Should you choose to cancel before 7/31/24, all payments will be stopped and your supply fee will be refunded. Any cancelations after 7/31/24 will be handled on a case-by-case basis, with the amount of tuition refunded depending, in part, on how soon your spot can be filled by another child. Monthly payments that have already gone through will not be refundable, but further payments will be stopped if we are able to fill your spot right away. If we are not, you will be responsible for paying the following month’s tuition, and further payments beyond that will be stopped.

Upon registration, you will be asked to agree to this cancelation and refund policy.

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. 

Little Coyotes runs from September 4th, 2024, through June 12th, 2025. We will be closed for the following holidays:

• Thanksgiving Week: 11/25/24 – 11/29/24
• Winter Break: 12/23/24 – 1/3/25
• Spring Break: 3/24/25 – 3/28/25
• Memorial Day: 5/26/25