44 - Wild Wonders
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Christa Hein: Hey there, welcome to the Farm Educator’s Roadmap. I'm Christa Hein, former nonprofit girl turned farm education entrepreneur. I've spent the last 30 years creating hands-on programs that connect people to the land, animals, and the traditions that nourish our daily lives.
If you're listening, you probably believe what I do - that farm education is needed now more than ever. Not just on rural farms, but in suburbs, cities, and everywhere in between. In this podcast, you'll hear real stories and practical advice from farm educators all across the country, people who are creating change through their programs in creative and inspiring ways.
Whether you're dreaming about starting your first program, are already knee deep in your own farm education work or are just curious about how others are impacting their communities through farm education, you're in the right place. [00:01:00] Let's dig in.
Christa Hein: Hi, welcome back to the Farm Educator’s Roadmap. Today we're talking to someone who didn't just imagine a different kind of school, she built one from scratch. Lindsey Vose is the founder and owner of Wild Wonders, a hybrid homeschool and farm-based education program based in Belgrade, Montana. She started Wild Wonders after years as a public school teacher, realizing that the learning environment she wanted for her own kids didn't exist yet, so she created it.
What began with a small group of students has grown entirely through word of mouth into a thriving program, serving kids from early childhood all the way through middle school. Today, Lindsey and I are going to talk about how Wild Wonders got started, how she structures this alternative education model, and how farm and nature-based learning can support academics in a real way.
Lindsey, thanks so much for joining us.
Lindsey Vose: Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.[00:02:00]
Christa Hein: Absolutely. So, I want to start at the beginning. You grew up on five acres surrounded by farms, but your family wasn't farming. What was your relationship with the land like as a kid, and do you think it planted any seeds for what you're doing now?
Lindsey Vose: So, I did grow up really rural. Gardening was really huge in our family. We had a really large garden. And I have such distinct memories of that just being a big part of all of our summers when we were living on the dirt road next to the cows and all of the farms.
It's funny though, because I did not go to the public school in that area. I went to a private school that was about 45 minutes away from our house and it was not in a rural area of Ohio at all. And so, the people that I grew up with in the private school were very different than the people that I lived on the street within our rural area in Ohio.
And I remember thinking I cannot wait until I don't have to live on this dirt road anymore. And my [00:03:00] parents make me pick the weeds, and weed in between the bricks, and pick the strawberries. I don't know why anybody likes this. I'm never going to find this therapeutic. As my mom used to say, “It's such a therapeutic thing.” No. And for many years I pushed it and pushed it and pushed it.
And then, funny how it all works out, but 25 years later, here I am feeling like, “Oh, I want my kids to be raised in an environment like this. And we need to be connected to our food, and we need to know the land.”
And so, I remember that it made a really big imprint in me. And I had to push it away for a little while, but maybe always realizing I was going to come back to it in some way.
Christa Hein: Yeah, so you then were a public school teacher, and you moved into hybrid homeschool teaching. So, you've seen both sides of the education model. What were you noticing about how kids were learning or not learning in the different environments that you worked in?
Lindsey Vose: So, after finishing high school, I went to college in Ohio [00:04:00] and then I taught for one year at the private all-girls school that I went to growing up. And then I moved to California. And then I taught in early childhood for four years. And then I realized I love teaching, but I didn’t really want to teach in early childhood. I'd like to teach elementary ages.
So, I got my teaching credential and my master's there. And then. I entered into the public school world because that's the path, right? You get your teaching credentials, your master's is in education in whatever realm that looks like, and public school is just the route that you take.
And nothing about my experience is ever to bash public schools at all. I had so many wonderful years there. I taught with some of the most amazing teachers. The students were wonderful. But I think after a number of years, and at that point then I had had my first daughter, and what I was seeing in the way that we were being forced to teach, and the curriculum that we were forced to use, and testing all the time, and benchmarks, and [00:05:00] curriculum is all planned out as a way to prepare us for a test.
And just the days were long, long, long, long. And not a lot of outdoor time and the disconnect that these kids had from where they were living and any sort of nature around them and any sort of outdoors around them and understanding about food and understanding about animals and having these daily responsibilities of taking care of things. There was just a disconnect.
And I just got to the point after I had my second daughter of I just don't think this is really what I am valuing as much anymore. I saw a different type of education in my own kids' future at that point. I don't know that I necessarily believed in what I was doing as much as I had when I first started in the public school.
And so, I pulled myself out of teaching in public school. My last year was in fourth grade. And it was really, really hard because [00:06:00] again, when that's the path your schooling is taking you, there's a lot of, shame and anxiety and worry, and thinking am I making the wrong decision?
And people are like, “Wait, what? You're going to be tenured. Why would you leave? Your pension, your da, da…” But I wanted to be home with my kids more and just didn't feel that that type of teaching was who I was anymore.
And I had started to learn quite a bit about project-based learning. And the last school district that I was at, we had amazing professional development opportunities, and I took as many as I possibly could. And I learned so many amazing things that I have carried with me through all the different years of teaching that I've done since then.
So, project-based learning was one of the professional developments that I got to attend, and there was a new, kind of like a STEM school, but it was very project-based learning centered in our district. And I just really fell in love with this idea of project-based learning, but also this idea of I think [00:07:00] education can be different. And I think there's a way that we can balance this in a way that maybe feels better for kids, feels better for parents, and gets us a little bit back to our roots.
I learned from a friend of mine when I left public school, she was like, “What are you going to do?” I was like, “I don't really know what I'm going to do.” But there was this really cool hybrid homeschool program that was in our area in California, and it was not outdoor based at all, but it was just two days a week. The kids were homeschool families, but they would come and have credentialed teachers teaching them. Very small classes. I think I had 12 kids in my first class. And so, I started teaching there the following year and that kind of just blew up this idea of oh, this is what a hybrid homeschool is. This is what homeschooling is.
I didn't even really know, you don't know about that. No one's teaching you that in your credential program, that's for sure. It opened my eyes to this beautiful world of parents still having time with their kids, and being able to choose the type of curriculum that they wanted to do, and [00:08:00] the outings that they wanted to do, and the things that they valued. They still had three days a week with them where they got to do those things.
And I got to use my teaching experience and give them these really great experiences for two days out of the week and teach them their core subjects. And so that was the last two years that we were in California. And then moving to Montana it was like, “What am I going to do?” And then this is where I landed.
Christa Hein: So, then you continued homeschooling once you moved to Montana, and were you looking for similar hybrid homeschool situations? Is that what caused you to start your own?
Lindsey Vose: Well, when we moved to Montana, I knew in my gut, public school was not going to be what I wanted to find again. Unless something happened and financially, I had to, but I did not have any plan to go back and teaching in public school.
And at that point, my oldest daughter did her first half of her kindergarten year in public school when we were in [00:09:00] California. And at that point I was teaching at the hybrid already, so I had pulled myself out of public. And then COVID happened, so everything shut down. So, it was truly a huge blessing for our family because public school was not going to be the right route for her at all. And it's like, I just needed one thing to push me over the edge, to be like, your gut is right Lindsey.
So, she was home with me for the rest of that school year. And I was on Zoom teaching the hybrid class two days a week. And then that following year we were able to go back to school. And so, she came to the hybrid with me, and I was not her teacher, but she was in first grade. I think there were seven kids in her class. We were in the same building together two days a week. The other days of the week we were home. And I was just doing things with her. We did field trip days; we did all kinds of things.
And so, when we were moving to Montana, I was like, I don't know what we're going to do for her. But we're going to go and we're going to take the first year. And I just homeschooled her. So, I had a fun part-time job in a retail store at a ranch here a couple days a week. And then I homeschooled her the other [00:10:00] days and we got the lay of the land of Montana.
Because I honestly didn't really know what to expect. And when I looked up options, there were two hybrid programs here in Montana that were in existence when we moved here. They're two day a week programs. They're in a church and one of them is very similar to where I came from. And the other one is the core academics are taught at home with the parents, but they do project-y, sort of social studies and science types of things the two days that they're at school. But both programs are religiously affiliated, and for our family, that wasn't the right direction for us. That doesn't really resonate with us.
We tried out a couple things and there's this really awesome farm here called Rocky Creek Farm, and they do homeschool days. And so I thought, okay, this is a really great way that maybe we can meet some homeschool families. This will be a really cool way to just experience a farm. While at the same time, moving from California, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can touch my neighbor's houses on both sides if I stand in my backyard, I can't wait to buy this huge farm,” and [00:11:00] “We're going to have all these animals.”
And then I was like, “Oh, we cannot afford that in Bozeman. That is not going to happen. Nor do I have any idea what I'm doing.” So, we just ended up in a normal neighborhood with a normal size yard, but I was like, this is great. We can get involved in a farm and she can be with animals and get some of these things that are really important that I had to do when I grew up.
And so, it was a one day a week program at Rocky Creek and it was so cool. But we couldn't really connect. I wasn't able to really make friends. I couldn't bond with the community. It felt like they knew each other already, because maybe older kids had done the same program. They were locked in to maybe co-ops that they were doing already, but they were religious co-ops through their churches. And again, that just wasn't going to be our vibe.
And so, I talked to Rocky Creek. I chatted with them. Their farm educator was amazing. I loved him. His name was Adam. And I talked to him and I was like, “This is amazing what you're doing. You're doing it one day a week. There's no academics at all. Could we make this into something? Like, we should be [00:12:00] weaving all the academic standards for these kids into this farm education that they're getting, and they should be outside, and I don't have a location, but I've got the skills. And I will write the curriculum, and I will teach with you. What do you guys think?”
And we had great conversations, but ultimately, they were like, you know what? We're happy with what we're doing. Like this is kind of what we want it to stay. And they'd done it for years. I think that was just the beginning for me. I was like, I've got to do something. How does this not exist? We're in Montana and I have just changed my entire life, and put teaching on hold in a way, and we have to do this.
So, that summer I was like, let's try a little summer camp out of my garage. And it was very successful, and I met two families. And towards the end of the summer, I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do with her next year. And I just was like, okay, I guess we're doing this.
Christa Hein: Well, so how did those first families find you when you were starting just in the [00:13:00] garage? How did you even get that first community around you?
Lindsey Vose: We had wonderful neighbors that were living right next to us in our neighborhood that we moved into. And my kids became really good friends with them. They went to public school though. And so, Brittany sent her kids to me that summer. Brittany told other kids that they met, and other friends at public school.
And then they moved within our area, and so their kids no longer went to our school district and our neighborhood, they went to a very rural school that is much smaller, but 15 minutes down the road. And so, she told friends there. It felt like it was word of mouth.
And the weird part is so many of those initial families that found me are from California. They had moved here for the similar reasons that we moved here. And so, it was just this very funny network of people right from the beginning.
But there are some forest schools around the area, and so, some of those kids would tell their friends at the forest schools. And I think I posted things [00:14:00] a couple times on Facebook, but yeah, I mean, I think just pretty quickly spread by word of mouth.
Christa Hein: So, I heard that you quickly outgrew the garage, and you moved into a yoga studio, and then a larger space all within about a year. So how did you manage that growth while building something and showing up for the families and the students every day?
Lindsey Vose: Oh, that's a very loaded question. I think I just. I didn't know what to expect when I started this. I did not know if this was going to be something that people were really going to be very interested in. The first year I started with three students, one of them was my child. I wasn't really sure. And also, tuition is expensive, and tuition was not expensive then, but it's still money. And so, I wasn't sure if it was going to be something that was going to really register for a lot of people.
But, definitely by February is when I moved into that yoga studio. And honestly it was so [00:15:00] funny. So, the yoga studio is a quarter of a mile from my house. We can walk through the backyard. We have a creek in the backyard, and we had chickens, and I had a garden. So, that was my farm that I had. But we would walk out the back door of my house, and we would cut across on the trails, and we would go behind the business, and then go into the yoga studio.
And so, I just told the parents, right when I acquired the place. And I was like, we're doing this, we're moving mid-February. Here we go. Are you okay if we walk there every day? I wanted to really get the kids excited about the new space and I was excited about the new space.
So, parents were totally on board. Absolutely. I would take wagons for the littles. We would go and we would do a couple of days of school in the new space with nothing in it. It was just like the floor, but the parents were excited. And they could see the growth the same that I could see the growth. So, they understood why the garage was no longer going to work.
So, we ended up transitioning into the yoga studio around February and we finished out the school year there. And I think by the end of that year, I had 19 [00:16:00] kids and I was teaching by myself. I was still just the only person. And then towards the end, I had to have an assistant, so we could differentiate and split the groups. Because I had from four year olds through my daughter, who was a third grader. That's a gigantic span trying to teach all of those kids. And we were in a very small yoga studio; one room.
So, we finished that school year, and I just had it on my radar of I have got to find a farm, I've got to find a location. We cannot exist here any longer. And we would walk every day back to my house from the new space so that they could have their farm experience. But I mean that's exhausting and there's just no way we could keep that up.
I just spent that summer looking and I randomly met some guy in the end of July and he told me that he had just purchased a property or put in an offer. It was the day he put the offer in of a place in Belgrade and there's a house and there's five acres, and he really didn't ever plan on using the house.
He just bought it because there was no HOA and no zoning. So, he was going to put his [00:18:00] shop in the back, but he had no use for any of the other things. So, I asked him if I could rent it. And so, he closed on it in 30 days and then August 21st we moved in and started school September 1st.
Christa Hein: Oh, that's amazing.
So, you moved into the new space and now you've been running the program. What does a typical day for a student look like now?
Lindsey Vose: So, the ages are split. So, transitional kindergarten, kindergarten, and first and second grade, they're on their younger kids' schedule. And then third through fifth grade and middle school is on their older kids' schedule. For both of those groups the kids are outside for at least two hours every day.
So, the younger group starts their day outside, and they are out there just moving their bodies, socializing, getting the wiggles out. It's a soft drop off. Most parents do drop off around nine, but some kids will roll in a little later. And then they'll gather up for their little morning meeting around the fire pit and anything that they need to chat about for the day. Any changes with the animals, any [00:19:00] changes with chores and then they will get into their groups and they'll do farm chores.
And so, on the farm we have horses, sheep, goats, chickens and ducks. And so, each of the classes will take one of the animal groups for the week and they'll stick with that same animal group. And so, they'll do the chores for those animals. They feed; they will fill waters if they need. One of our horses is an older horse, so he gets some grain and he gets a pill every day. So, they'll feed him that. And then they will have snack usually outside as long as it's nice enough.
And then around 10:30-ish. That group will go inside, and they'll have their two hour learning block. And so, in that two hour learning block is all of their subjects for the day. So those foundational skills are pretty heavy in those rooms still. So, they're doing a lot of phonics still, and math. And then whatever the project based learning unit is that they're doing, that pretty much weaves all the science and social studies standards in.
And then we weave a lot of the language arts standards in as well, as much as we [00:20:00] can in those lower grades. And then they come back outside for lunch around 12:30-ish or so, and they'll eat, and then they play until two o'clock when they get picked up.
Then the older kids, their schedule is just flip flopped of that. So, they start inside and they've got a two hour learning block for language arts and social studies. And then they come outside in the middle of the day, and they do their farm chores, and they do things that the littles can't do. So, they scoop all the poop, and they take it back to the compost pile.
They clean out the chicken coops. They clean the water troughs out; scrubbing them and then refilling them. They do vet checks on all the animals. We had to split the chores into groups based on the age appropriateness, and then they will be outside until about one. And then they go in for math and science for their last learning block of the day.
And once they get to third grade their entire curriculum is project based. So, all of the standards for social studies, science and language arts including reading, comprehension and writing, are all woven into whatever that project based learning [00:21:00] unit is. So, their day is pretty much all projects.
And right now, for example, the theme that the whole school is doing for the PBL unit is interdependence. And that looks a little different in each of the classes, but it's all based on regenerative farming. So, they're working on learning how to create Wild Wonders into a more regenerative farm.
So, they're reading, they're nonfiction reading, learning all of those nonfiction comprehension skills. The third through fifth graders are doing opinion writing and they're basically persuading why their way of composting and fertilizing is better and best. The older kids each chose a regenerative farming technique that they wanted to learn about and study about. And they're writing an informational essay about it. But they're also applying that technique to their soil plot that they chose somewhere on the farm. And doing a little bit of testing of soil and learning the scientific process, and things like that.
So, yeah, that's what the day looks like.
Christa Hein: So, it sounds like they're taking those core [00:22:00] subjects and working them into the farm through the projects. Is that correct?
Lindsey Vose: Yes
Christa Hein: Oh, that's amazing.
Lindsey Vose: The younger kids, it's a little bit harder just because they're still so phonics heavy and they're still learning to read, but they're still doing their language arts when they're doing reading comprehension, they're doing nonfiction.
And so, they're learning how to read nonfiction books that are appropriate for their age level but learning how you can extract information that's important and taking notes on it turn that into an informational paragraph. And so, they're working a little bit more on what parts of the plant are important and why are they important? Why does the plant need its roots and why do they have leaves?
But yes, the idea of project-based learning is when you can give them something that is basically a guiding question. Like, how can we turn Wild Wonders into a regenerative farm using the tools that we have on hand? They are very intrinsically motivated. They want to do it. They want to learn. They realize that maybe the reading that [00:23:00] they really despise and would complain about otherwise is really necessary in order for them to learn the material that they need, that they can apply to this idea of making our farm more regenerative.
And same thing with math, right? It's well, you guys might not want to do your math book all the time, but it is important to learn about area and volume and perimeter because now that you're working on these garden beds and building these garden beds, we have to know this knowledge. So, it just gives them a real life connection, and it makes them a lot more excited.
Christa Hein: So, the type of education that you're doing is so different and the space that you're working in is so different than traditional public schools. So, I'm wondering, can you talk a little bit more about the life skills and the character that kids are building that they might not get in those just sit down traditional type schools?
Lindsey Vose: Oh, absolutely. We do a character trait of the month throughout the year, and so the kids will learn a different important life quality, and they'll [00:24:00] focus on that for an entire month. We do different activities. We read books about it. We talk about why it's important. We talk about how it's relevant to what they're doing every day on the farm.
But a big one is obviously teamwork. And dedication and resilience, those are some of the big ones. And we talk a lot about how these animals, these crops, these plants, everything that we have going on at the farm depends on us. They cannot survive without us. And do I wake up every morning and want to weed my garden in my backyard? Not really. Not all the time, but do I have to do it because it's my job. Am I tired sometimes and I don't want to go to school? Yes. But that's my job. And their job is to care for our farming environment, and that means our animals, and the plants, and our crops.
And it's funny because parents come for tours and some of them immediately connect with the farm, and say, “Oh, my kids [00:25:00] love animals so much. They love being outside. They cannot wait to be able to take care of the animals every day.” And then they're some families that come and are like, “I'm not really sure how this is going to go.” And so many of those kids have just not had those experiences before, and they end up being some of the kids that love taking care of the animals and doing chores every day more than anybody else.
And so, it's so fun to watch. And then there's absolutely kids that are like, I am so over this. I do not want to do this. But there's an important lesson there that we don't always want to do these things every day. It's hard work, but they're relying on us.
Christa Hein: Yeah. So I'm curious, Wild Wonders is built around this partnership with homeschool families where the kids are with you for four days and then families carry the learning on the off days. How do you make that handoff work and collaboration with the families so that you feel like [00:26:00] they're a part of the learning experience with the kids that you're taking on?
Lindsey Vose: Absolutely. It's something I think that we've each year have gotten a little bit better at it, too. Like I feel like we're just tightening it up a little bit each time. This year it feels like it has gone pretty well for the most part.
So, the families all register their kids as homeschoolers through the state of Montana. And we help them with that if they're new to it, because it can seem a little scary at first, but it's a pretty streamlined process. And so, ultimately I don't carry the hours or the records for the students at all. So, we tell the parents right from the beginning of the year on our school calendar that I create, this is the number of hours that your child is with us.
This year it was 688 hours. So, if you are 7-year-old through third grade, you are responsible for about an hour to an hour 0.25 per week, when I average it out, to get to your 720 hours that Montana requires. And then if your child is in fourth grade through eighth grade, they require 1,080 hours. So, that comes to be about six hours per week with your [00:27:00] child.
So, I pretty much put it in their hands. And some parents like to keep records, and they will log weekly exactly how many hours they're at Wild Wonders, exactly how many hours they're maybe at a tutoring class, or they're at outdoor science school, or anything like that to make sure that they're getting to their hours. And then we encourage them to keep some of their kids work in case they were to get audited or something like that.
But on Thursdays we send home math books with all the kids starting in kindergarten all the way through eighth grade. We use the same math curriculum all the way through, so it's very streamlined for the kids so that there's no holes every year as they're moving up in grade level. And the idea is that by the time they go to ninth grade, wherever they choose to go, they will have finished pre-algebra.
And so, this specific math curriculum that I've chosen, has worked really well for the kids, and it goes through pre-algebra. So, they'll take their math books home on the weekends, and they always are responsible for doing two math lessons a weekend. The younger kids will take home phonics work that is a review of [00:28:00] maybe what they did during the week. And then usually a little reader that we encourage them to read.
And then the older kids will just have their math books. And they have an independent reading book that they have from either school library or from a home library. But we encourage them to read at least 20 minutes of every night. Sometimes, depending on what the project-based learning unit is, they'll take some stuff home to work on that. Maybe they didn't finish it in class and we need to move on the following week. But for the most part, it's really just math and reading.
And the math curriculum that we use is a very traditional homeschooling math curriculum. So, it is written for parents. It is not written for a teacher by any means. So, it's really easy for the parents to basically just take over what we did during the week and to follow up at home.
And then by the time they get to middle school, the kids have planners and so they are responsible for writing down the math lessons that they need to do. And there's less communication to the parents and a lot more responsibility for the kids, but we [00:29:00] do send home newsletters every week. Each of the teachers writes one, and then I write a school-wide one as well. The parents can look in the newsletter and, okay, they did silent E this week, okay, if we're working on phonics this weekend, practicing some of those silent E words.
Christa Hein: So, curious from a business perspective. With the four day a week curriculum, that fifth day a week, is that built in as, like, planning time for you and the staff? Is it that you're doing other programs, other outreach, or is it for just life-work balance? What does that fifth day look like? Because I'm sure so many people are like, four day work week, sounds delightful! But are you filling that with more work or is it balancing home life?
Lindsey Vose: Well, the work does not stop for me. I can say that the original intention of four days was that my kids and I skied every single Friday for the first couple of winters of living here. And I was like, I am not willing to give that [00:30:00] up. I will have that be my day where my kids and I are doing things.
I will say, unfortunately, that is not my situation anymore because as the school has grown, comes more responsibilities and it's a lot. It hasn't ended up being like that quite so much for the last year and a half, I would say.
So, we do a Friday program, we do a Fridays at the Farm. And that's just an additional enrichment opportunity for some families. There's one or two families from Wild Wonders that usually sign up for it just because the kids do want to be at school more if they can. They're just happy to be there, and the parents work so it helps as well. But it's mostly non Wild Wonders full-time kids that come to the Fridays at the Farm.
One of the teachers from our four day program, she teaches the Friday program. I always offer these kinds of things to our teachers, but a lot of them are happy with four days, and a lot of them have their own kids that come to Wild Wonders with them. But they do look forward to having that day.
And, truthfully, the kids are spent [00:31:00] by Friday afternoon. My kids are spent by Friday afternoon. If I have to teach on Friday, my kids honestly, usually don't even come with me. They're so tired. They just want to play at home. While it's a different type of stimulation than say, thrown into a public school with a thousand kids, it's a lot of stimulation. Their brains are working nonstop. Their bodies are working nonstop, physically, and the kids are tired. Like it doesn't matter that they're shorter days, they're tired.
Friday just looks a little different for everybody. I would love to get back to the point where I had Fridays where I could put it down, and just have time with my kids, but it's just a lot.
Christa Hein: Well, and it sounds like you're still growing, too. That you're just around 50 students now and you're looking at expanding into additional locations. So, what does that vision look like for you right now?
Lindsey Vose: Oh man. Well, next year we are expanding to two more classrooms at our current location, and that is literally the end of our [00:32:00] physical space. We're building out the garage and turning it into a kindergarten class and a first grade class. And I'm just breaking the other groups a little differently than they are this year in terms of the combination classes. So, that will be for next year.
And the wait lists are extensive. And so, I can't fit everybody. And then that gives me so much guilt, and I just want to be able to service all of the families that want this type of education. And I know we're the only place that exists like that. And so, I've talked a lot to different people in the community about trying to find a location in Bozeman.
I would like to open another one. I would like to replicate it. Not change the Belgrade one at all, but I'd like to replicate it. But I'd like to replicate it in a really small way. So, I'd like to start with transitional kindergarten and kindergarten only and then grow with them and just see how it all goes.
But if I can use what's happened in Belgrade at all to gather data about how this works, those [00:33:00] young classes, that bubble, just continue to move up. Things happen of course, a family moves, a family financially can't do it anymore, and things do change, but for the most part, these kids are starting with us in transitional kindergarten, and they're staying with us because they see the value of it, they love it. Their kids are happy. They see the learning that's happening. And they want something different.
I think starting something small and just being able to do a four or five class and then a kindergarten class, and replicate the animals, but in a little bit more of a minimal way. Like, you don't need horses with four and five year olds, they can take care of goats and chickens and be super happy, and that's a really big responsibility for them. And then give me time to catch up and catch my breath and see how it's going.
It's on the radar. I think about it. It's just a matter of finding the right place.
Christa Hein: So, I always like to wrap up these interviews with asking for advice. So, for someone listening who's thinking that they might want to start something similar to Wild [00:34:00] Wonders, what are the first two or three real practical steps that you would tell them to take?
Lindsey Vose: I think something that I've learned over the last four years in a big way has been it's really important to know your population. So, are you looking for homeschool families or are you looking for traditional school families who just want something different?
And I think that was a really interesting balance for me to figure out throughout these years, because you're really catering to a different group if you're looking for homeschool families versus if you're looking for people that want full-time schooling or almost full-time schooling, but they just don't want their kids in public school. They want something different.
So, I think that just honestly starting out with what is my vision? What do I value. And what do I want to be some of the biggest values that come out of the program I'm starting, and who's my audience is [00:35:00] really important. And I think it gives a good starting point to then take off from.
And then I think something else that has also been quite a learning experience for me, and I think this year has really been a learning experience in many different ways, but I can feel I'm getting closer to funneling it into who are my people, and that can be my teachers, my staff, but also my families. Because it's only going to work and it's only going to be as magical as it can possibly be if you have found people that want to be there and believe in what you're doing. And that's people that are working for you. And that's the people that come to you every day with their children.
Yeah, it's always a learning experience. I keep joking about like when are we going to get to the point where I feel like I am leveling out? And then I realize that's really never going to happen, because if I'm leveling out, then it means we're not getting any better. We're not learning from [00:36:00] what things have gone well and things that have not gone well.
And things are always going to be shifting, but I think a lot of those things you'll figure them out as you go, but you've got to know what your values are. You've got to know what you want your community to be, and you've got to have good people that want to be there.
Christa Hein: Great advice. So, if people want to learn more about Wild Wonders or follow along with how you're growing and what you're building, where can they find you online?
Lindsey Vose: So, we have our website which is very, very thorough and has all of the types of programs that we have going on. And that's just www.wildwondersmt.com. And then I do have somebody who's really helping me with social media now and doing a lot of the business operations things in the background, which has been a saving grace for me.
And so, we do have an Instagram, which is just wildwondersmt_bzn for Bozeman. My email address is also on the website, so [00:37:00] happy to chat with anybody that would want advice or just to share anything that I've learned that could be helpful.
Christa Hein: That's such a valuable offer because what you're doing is so unique. Lindsey, this has been such a joy. I love that you didn't wait for the perfect system to exist. You built something that truly aligned with how you believe children learn best and then trusted that families would find it. And they certainly did.
Thank you so much for sharing your journey and giving us a real look at what this kind of education can be.
Lindsey Vose: Thank you for having me. It was so wonderful to talk to you.
Christa Hein: Absolutely. To our listeners, if this episode got you thinking about what's possible, whether that's starting something of your own or simply bringing more real world hands-on learning into what you're already doing, this is where it all begins - with an idea and one step at a time.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow, leave a review, and share it with someone else who's dreaming about building something in the world of farm and nature-based education.
Until next time, keep teaching, keep growing, and keep [00:38:00] connecting people to the land.
Christa Hein: Hey farm educators, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Before you go, I've got something special for you. If you're ready to build a farm education program that people are excited to book, grab my free guide: Five Simple Steps to Growing an In Demand Farm Education Program. It's packed with the same steps I used to grow my own farm education business.
It'll help you get noticed, attract clients, and make an impact. Just head over to www.farmeducatorsroadmap.com/fivesimplesteps to get your free copy. It's quick, easy, and will make your programs irresistible. I can't wait to see what you create. Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
