Wild and Free

Cultivate a Wild and Free family culture in your home and build wonder and adventure into your children's daily routine with this essential guide from the founder of Wild + Free, packed with practical suggestions and imaginative ideas. While every family has its own culture, Ainsley Arment believes that being intentional about how we raise our kids is one of the most important things parents can do. Drawn from her own family's stories and those shared in the W+F community, and filled with inviting full-color photos throughout, Wild + Free Family focuses on ways any parent can create an environment where wonder and adventure are part of the everyday fabric of family life. Wild + Free Family isn't just for parents homeschooling their kids. It's for all parents looking for a better, more intentional way to connect with their kids. Ainsley teaches you how to set up workable (yet forgiving) routines that can help kids thrive and offers ideas for creating traditions that they'll fondly remember and want to share with their own children.

Allow your children to experience the adventure, freedom, and wonder of childhood with this practical guide that provides all the information, inspiration, and advice you need for creating a modern, quality homeschool education. Inspired by the spirit of Henry David Thoreau-"All good things are wild and free"-mother of five Ainsley Arment founded Wild + Free. This growing online community of mothers and families want their children to receive a quality education at home by challenging their intellectual abilities and nurturing their sense of curiosity, joy and awe-the essence of a positive childhood. The homeschool approach of past generations is gone-including the stigma of socially awkward kids, conservative clothes, and a classroom setting replicated in the home. The Wild + Free movement is focused on a love of nature, reading great books, pursuing interests and hobbies, making the entire world a classroom, and prolonging the wonder of childhood, an appealing philosophy that is unpacked in the pages of this book The Call of the Wild and Free offers advice, information, and positive encouragement for parents considering homeschooling, those currently in the trenches looking for inspiration, as well as parents, educators, and caregivers who want supplementary resources to enhance their kids' traditional educations.

The companion to The Call of the Wild + Free: styled in the lush aesthetic of the Wild + Free brand, a four-color book offering crafts, activities, and essays, that parents, educators, and caregivers can use to inspire their children. Wild + Free Handcrafts is a beautiful, four-color resource book for parents, educators, and caregivers to enjoy doing hands-on activities with kids. A handcraft engages one's hands, requires a level of learned skill, encourages children to do their best work, and produces an end product that is useful. It has been used in homeschool settings for decades as one way to encourage them to work with their hands and discover a skillful craft they love to practice. It also is a great way for traditionally educated kids who are home for the summer, or in afterschool programs, or with their families on the weekends, to do fun activities that will stimulate their imaginations and creativity. This book will feature crafts such as: • Felted acorns • Paper beads • Nature wreaths • Cocoa mint lip balm • Woven willow hearts • Finger knit bracelets • Eco-dyed kitchen towels • Fairy tale treehouse • Flower crowns • Bug hotel With the same lush photography as The Call of the Wild + Free, this book includes step-by-step pictures that show parents how to do the craft, and essays on the usefulness and purpose of handcrafts as a tool to spark children's curiosity and wonder.

The companion to The Call of the Wild + Free: styled in the lush aesthetic of the Wild + Free brand, a four-color book offering outdoor activities and essays, that parents, educators, and caregivers can use to inspire their children. Wild + Free Nature is a beautiful, four-color resource book for parents, educators, and caregivers to enjoy doing hands-on activities outside with kids. One of the core philosophies behind Wild + Free is the belief that nature is the best classroom we could ever hope for. It unlocks the imagination and inspires creativity in ways that a schoolroom never could. Being out in nature has a number of benefits. Studies show that children are more likely to interact with kids of different ages and learn to problem solve in natural settings. Being in natural settings stimulates the brain and restores cognitive function. Children who spend time in natural settings also interact better with kids of all ages and learn to solve problems more easily. They build muscle and coordination and fend off obesity. It cultivates a sense of responsibility for caring for the earth, not to mention, encourages imaginative play, curiosity, and other qualities necessary to spark a love for investigation and learning. This resource book will help equip parents and adults who work with children to get them outdoors with activities such as: Build a treehouse in the woods. Cultivate a garden plot. Make land art and nature crafts. Create a mud kitchen in the backyard. Go for a nature walk each morning. Find a secret swimming hole. Go to the creek to learn about the water cycle. Plant a garden to see what will grow in your backyard. Raise monarch caterpillars and feed them milkweed until they transform into butterflies. Set up a birdwatching station in your front window equipped with binoculars, notebooks, and bird guides. Make a wilderness fort with the fallen branches from trees. With the same lush photography as The Call of the Wild + Free, this book includes step-by-step pictures that show parents how to do the activity, and essays on the importance of nature in a child's life.