A hands-on program for children ages 6–12 bringing together permaculture, meditation, mindfulness, attention development, and practical life skills at Elephant Garden.
Tuesdays · 9:30 AM–12 PM
Starting October 13 · Fort Collins, CO
A weekly nature-based experience for children ages 6–12.
Roots brings together permaculture, mindfulness, creativity, practical life skills, and nature connection. The garden becomes the classroom—a place to grow food, build, create, observe, explore, and learn by doing.
Hands in the soil. Minds engaged. Learning through experience.
Each week combines real garden projects, seasonal activities, creative work, mindfulness and attention practices, and time learning together outdoors. Our curriculum evolves with the seasons, the garden, and the interests of the children.
Parents stay on site and are welcome to connect with other families or volunteer in the garden while Roots is in session.
Every Tuesday · 9:30 AM–12:00 PM
Beginning October 13
Roots is designed as an ongoing weekly rhythm, giving children time to develop relationships with the garden, their facilitators, and one another.
$125 per child, per quarter
50% off for siblings
Your program fee helps support facilitator time, garden and art supplies, books and learning materials, and the hands-on projects children experience throughout the quarter.
Roots isn’t a traditional classroom or curriculum.
Children learn by doing, making, growing, observing, practicing, and exploring together.
We follow the garden, the seasons, and the questions that emerge along the way.
This is a living curriculum.
Permaculture
Children participate in a real living system—planting, composting, building soil, growing food, observing ecosystems, using tools, solving problems, and caring for the garden.
Mindfulness & Meditation
Through age-appropriate meditation, mindfulness, sensory awareness, and attention practices, children learn to pause, observe, listen, and become more aware of themselves and the world around them.
The two belong together:
Learning to care for the world around us while learning to understand the world within us.
One week we might build soil.
Another we might plant a food forest, follow insects, harvest food, make art, practice meditation, build something, explore water, or solve a problem in the garden.
The curriculum evolves with the seasons, the garden, and the children themselves.
The learning is real because the garden is real.
Roots gives children opportunities to practice life skills that extend far beyond the garden:
Children aren't just learning about these things.
They're practicing them.
Roots happens alongside our Tuesday Volunteer Day at Elephant Garden.
While children participate in Roots, parents stay at the garden and can volunteer, connect with other families, join some activities, work, have tea, walk the mindfulness circuit, or simply enjoy the garden.
There’s no expectation that you volunteer every week.
We’re creating a place where children and parents can both participate, connect, and belong.
Roots brings together experience in permaculture, mindfulness, meditation, education, and working with children and families.
Permaculture & Nature-Based Learning
Paulo is a permaculture designer, gardener, and educator with more than a decade of experience designing and building regenerative gardens, edible landscapes, food forests, pollinator habitats, and naturalistic landscapes. His work focuses on creating beautiful, resilient spaces that work with natural systems while bringing people into a closer relationship with the land.
As co-founder of Elephant Garden, Paulo brings permaculture, regenerative design, gardening, and experiential education into Roots. He sees the garden as a living classroom where children can learn by observing, planting, building, experimenting, solving real problems, and participating in the care of a living ecosystem.
Meditation & Attention Development
Tsering Carola is a bilingual community leader, multidisciplinary researcher, writer, and advocate for meditation and contemplative practices, with over 23 years of dedicated study in human behavior and wellness.
She has led workshops, retreats, and community programs internationally, exploring conscious parenting, compassionate leadership, mindfulness, and creativity.
Through OM Curated and Dharma Parents, she shares practices that inspire families to cultivate presence, resilience, and a more conscious way of living
Mindfulness & Creative Exploration
Mindfulness instructor, herbalist, and mother of two with a Master of Divinity from Naropa University. Jaclyn brings mindfulness, creativity, play, and exploration of the body-heart-mind connection into her work with children and families.
