Davis Forest School

We’re in the heat of summer and daydreaming about spring, when the days were still cool enough to gather around a steaming pot of tea made from foraged flowers. 🌼🍵

Pineapplew**d (also called wild chamomile) is one of our favorite plants to discover at Forest School. It’s an unassuming little w**d that, unlike the German chamomile most chamomile tea is made from, has no white petals, just a cheerful, yellow-green, dome-shaped flower head.

Children at Forest School quickly learn to spot this tiny plant, and are always amazed when they first gently crush a flower head between their fingers to release its unmistakable pineapple scent. It’s a wonderful reminder that slowing down and paying attention can reveal all kinds of delightful surprises hiding in plain sight.

After carefully harvesting, washing, and steeping the flower heads, we share a warm cup of pineapplew**d tea together for a simple seasonal ritual that connects us to the place, the plants, and one another. 

And now that it’s summer, pineapplew**d iced tea anyone? 🌿🍍

**d

Fall at Forest School just hits different. 🍂

We could have made this carousel 100 slides long, but these are a few of the reasons we count down to autumn every year.

🍁 Fall registration is now open! Join us in Davis, Sacramento, and Placer County this September through December.

We can’t wait to welcome new and returning families into the forest. 🧡

We wrapped up our second year of Little Coyotes Forest Kinder last week with closing ceremonies for both our Davis and Sacramento cohorts.

At our Sacramento location, we held a river gratitude offering. Each child and adult brought a dried strawflower to the water, closed their eyes, remembered a moment they loved from their time at the river, and sent their flower downstream — “back to the wide ocean.”

This was also the first year we had parent participants on the ground with us, supporting our classes and becoming part of the learning community. As one parent participant shared:

“I had been moving through the motions of life without appreciating all of the beauty around me. Life can be chaotic and hectic, but forest school taught me that it doesn’t have to be.

This community has helped me heal my inner child. I’m incredibly grateful to have experienced this year as a parent participant. My inner child is finally awake and seen. This year has been such a gift.”

Watching children (and adults!) deepen their relationship with the natural world is one of the greatest gifts of this work. We look forward to starting again in September and welcome a new Folsom Lake cohort into the Little Coyotes community. ❤️

We are proud to share that DFS has received a 2026 Grant from Swantz Family Foundation for our teen program, Dragonfly Teen Naturalists! Swantz Family Foundation has been an important part of our early years, and we are so grateful for the recognition and support of our work.

Our summer camps start in a week!

Summer is when our community is at its fullest, with beloved returning staff, teen assistants, and educators from across the region helping create a deeply connected and joyful experience for children.

One of the things we’re most proud of is our participant-to-leadership pathway. Our teen Forest Mentors all began as participants in our programs. They have grown up alongside this community and now return as leaders, guiding younger children across the same landscapes that helped shape their own childhoods.

Before summer begins, we also continue our stewardship of the spaces that hold our programs. Together, we walk the trails, tend the spaces, and remove many bags of trash, caring for these places as they care for us.

This season is a reflection of years of relationships, growth, and care — for children, for community, and for the land. We can’t wait to welcome everyone back. 💜

At the beginning of this school year, we asked our teens what they wanted more of.

Their answer was simple: challenge.

What we’ve learned alongside them is that young people are often capable of far more than we give them credit for. They want opportunities to discover their strengths, find their edges, contribute meaningfully, and be seen for what they can do.

This past weekend, a group of our teens gathered for a rites-of-passage camping trip as their final journey together this year. For 36 hours, each teen was invited to camp solo — like spokes extending from a central hearth — tending their own fire through day and night.

We gathered on a beautiful 60-acre property in Nevada City. Our stewardship commitment to the land was to help reduce accumulated fuel by tending and burning piles of debris throughout the weekend. Under the light of the blue moon, surrounded by oak and pine forest, we felt deeply connected to both the work and the place.

When the solo ended, families were there to welcome their teens back.

The experience was physically demanding, emotionally stretching, and deeply moving. It reminded us why rites of passage matter. In a culture that offers few meaningful thresholds into adulthood, young people are hungry for experiences that ask something of them, and that honor who they are becoming.

Growth asks us to put ourselves out there. To have courage. To risk something. To step beyond our comfort zone. To allow ourselves to be held by community while discovering our own strength.

We hope to continue creating opportunities for this kind of challenge, reflection, nature immersion, and reverence for youth. These experiences leave a lasting imprint, inviting young people to meet themselves in a new way.

May we continue to trust our youth.

And may we allow this work to change us, too.

—

Special thanks for Jason Spencer for hosting us this weekend, and to facilitators Natascha, Jenna, Kevin, and Ariana for helping make this weekend possible.

Here are some pages from Forest Mentor Becky’s nature journal. She only started nature journaling a few months ago and never considered herself an artist before this. Becky has been such an inspiration to both staff and children — a reminder that we can all start where we are, stay curious, and surprise ourselves along the way.

“Nature journaling has become one of my favorite nature connection routines because it helps me tune in to all the tiny details of the space around me and to tap in to the endless curiosities I have. I feel so much more connected to myself, the land, and the relationship between us when I have spent some time journaling.

I just want to validate that it can feel scary to start, but how powerful this routine can be!” — Becky

We took our Dragonfly Teen Naturalists backpacking to Loch Leven Lakes this past weekend — four strenuous miles in, and four miles back out.

We had no bathrooms and no comforts beyond what we could carry on our backs. Our motto was, “If we forgot it, we didn’t need it.” We had each other and alpine lakes, tired legs, smoky clothes, stunning views, and a pasta dinner that took 2.5 hours to cook over coals and a campfire.

We are so proud of these teens, of how much they’ve grown and challenged themselves over the past few years. This trip is usually the culmination of our year together, but for some of us, it’s also the beginning of the next challenge: a rites of passage camping trip next weekend.

More soon.