Our curriculum isn't a textbook or a pacing guide. It's a living, breathing approach to learning — rooted in curiosity, grown through real work, and shaped by the land, the community, and the children themselves.
Like a healthy tree, meaningful learning develops from strong roots. Everything we do — from projects and academics to stewardship, community meals, reflection, and outdoor experiences — is designed to help children grow in four interconnected ways.
"Strong Roots Create Capable Humans."
When curiosity is paired with capability, when contribution is grounded in connection, and when growth is guided by character — children develop the knowledge, skills, confidence, and wisdom needed to thrive.
Rather than attempting to cover every possible grade-level standard simultaneously, we've identified a carefully selected set of high-leverage learning foundations — concepts and skills that provide the greatest long-term value and transfer across disciplines, projects, and life itself.
Carefully selected Math & ELA standards emphasizing depth of understanding over broad coverage.
Learning connected directly to the farm, forest, community, and natural world of East Tennessee.
Habits, dispositions, and character qualities woven throughout daily life and project work.
These standards were selected because they represent high-leverage mathematical concepts that support future success in middle school, high school, and life. We focus on deep understanding, flexible thinking, and practical problem-solving rather than broad coverage.
Essential Learning Habit #1
Before relying on formulas, tools, or calculations, students learn to estimate, predict, and ask: "Does this make sense?" This habit develops quantitative reasoning, practical judgment, and confidence in one's own thinking.
Essential Learning Habit #2
Students engage in sustained daily reading of appropriately challenging books, field guides, manuals, articles, and literature. This habit develops vocabulary, curiosity, background knowledge, and the capacity for independent lifelong learning.
We know that choosing something new — especially for your child's education — takes more than inspiration. It takes clarity. This document is written specifically for families with honest questions, offering a grounded, detailed look at how Year One will work in practice.
This isn't a sales document — it's an honest, detailed explanation of how we've thought through the hard questions: academic rigor, structure, accountability, and what makes this worth considering for your family.
Read the Full Year One Overview"The founding year is designed to be an extraordinary experience in its own right — not a rough draft of something better coming later."
— Foothill Frolic Farm & Forest School
At Foothill Frolic, meaningful learning begins with curiosity. Children are naturally driven to understand themselves, their world, and their place within it. Our role as Teacher Guides is not to fill empty vessels with information, but to help students pursue understanding through meaningful experiences.
Children learn best when they are emotionally invested in the outcome. When students care deeply about a question, problem, challenge, or idea — they become willing participants in the hard work required to gain understanding.
Short-Term Projects
1–3 weeks
Focused skill-building and exploration. Quick, meaningful, and satisfying.
Medium-Term Projects
1–2 months
Deeper investigation of a topic, problem, or community need.
Year-Long Projects
Full school year
Large-scale, student-driven inquiry that grows and evolves alongside the learners.
Every project begins with an invitation — a story, mystery, guest speaker, field experience, or community challenge — designed to ignite genuine curiosity and imagination.
Students deserve clarity. Every project includes learning targets, success criteria, rubrics, timelines, and examples. Students know where they're headed before beginning the journey.
Teacher Guides provide direct instruction when necessary — math, writing, research, tool use, design thinking, agriculture — delivered at the moment they become useful, not from a pacing guide.
Students need time to struggle. Teacher Guides resist the urge to rescue too quickly. This practice develops competence, confidence, independence, creativity, and resilience.
Students regularly evaluate their process, effort, growth, and contributions. Peer feedback becomes an important — and valued — source of learning.
Students share their work publicly — with each other, families, and the wider community. Presentations create purpose, accountability, and pride in craftsmanship.
Revision is expected. High-quality work rarely emerges on the first attempt. Students learn that growth is a process — and that's not a failure, it's the point.
Projects conclude with authentic celebrations: exhibitions, community presentations, performances, published work, demonstrations, and shared experiences that honor both the work and the learners.
Mixed-age environments are not a limitation — they are a strength. Older students gain leadership opportunities and younger students gain models to emulate. The goal is not for every student to be doing the same thing. The goal is for every student to be growing.
Assessment is not something we do to students — it's something we do with them. Rather than relying on traditional tests, we use observations, project work, discussions, reflections, presentations, demonstrations, and skill documentation woven throughout the entire learning process.
These are sample projects — not a predetermined curriculum. Real projects emerge from the intersection of student curiosity, community needs, academic standards, and farm & forest opportunities. Click any project to explore it in detail.
These are samples, not a syllabus. The best projects emerge from the children themselves — from their questions, interests, concerns, and passions. These examples show what's possible.
Explore the daily rhythm, the four-day school week, the school year calendar, and how projects evolve from ready-made structure toward student-driven inquiry.
View Full Schedule & Project Arc →We'd love to connect with families who share this vision. Fill out our interest form and we'll be in touch.
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