Nature Studio (Grades 4-5)

Welcome to the Nature Studio, where students observe the living world at a local park and write about what they find with a field scientist's precision and a writer's craft. Every term ends with a published Field Zine: original observational writing the student gathered, drafted, and designed across twelve weeks of real outdoor sessions.

Get Started

Description

Every session begins at a specific location—a park in Irvine chosen because something is alive and worth watching there. Students observe with the attention of a field scientist and the language of a writer. They are learning to do two things at once: see precisely and say it exactly.

Nature Studio isn't simply about learning outdoors. The natural world becomes a laboratory for close observation, careful thinking, and deliberate writing. Students study a root word that connects language to the living domain—TRANS for crossing, FLU for flow, CIRC for circulation—and they find that root word alive in what they're observing. The Great Egret's patient stillness before a strike is the grammar of motivated motion. The water crossing from city infrastructure into a living pond is the root word TRANS made visible.

The grammar instruction happens outdoors, in real time, anchored to something a student can see and touch. It does not feel like grammar instruction. It feels like discovery.

Students also read Braiding Sweetgrass across all three terms—Robin Wall Kimmerer's book about the relationship between scientific knowledge and Indigenous wisdom about the natural world. It is, among other things, a masterclass in observational prose. Students engage with it deeply enough that by Term 2, they are arguing with her—disagreeing with specific claims and defending their position with evidence from their own field journals.

Every term ends with a published Field Zine—an original, illustrated publication combining scientific observation and personal writing. Not a scrapbook. A document of a student who spent twelve weeks paying attention to the living world and learning to say what they found.

Studio Books

Term 1

  • Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults by Robin Wall Kimmerer

  • Can You Hear the Trees Talking? by Peter Wohlleben

Term 2

  • Braiding Sweetgrass carries over from Term 1

  • The Kids' Guide to Birds of California by Stan Tekiela

Term 3

  • Braiding Sweetgrass carries over from Term 1

  • Wildflowers of Southern California: Your Way to Easily Identify Wildflowers by Goerge Oxford Miller

  • Classes are 90 minutes each.

    Term 1 (12 weeks): $900

    Term 2 (12 weeks): $900

    Term 3 (8 weeks): $600

    Annual Tuition: $2,400

    Materials Fee: $65 (This fee includes books.)

    Tuition is due at the start of each term. Materials fee is due at enrollment.

    Refund:

    • Full refund of tuition and fees if withdrawal occurs before the term’s third session.

    • 50% refund after third session but before Week 6.

    • No refund from Week 6 onward.

  • Class books are provided as part of the materials fee.

    Please bring the following to every club meeting:

    • Writing tools

    • Imagination and an open mind!

  • Each term, students publish a Field Zine—a curated collection of observational and analytical writing gathered across twelve weeks of outdoor sessions at a specific Irvine location. It is a real publication, not a collection of completed assignments. Final drafts may be created by hand or in Canva.

    Every term includes three required compositions and a selection of optional ones. The required pieces change as the curriculum progresses:

    Term 1 centers on the Observational Record—learning to see the living world with a field scientist's precision and put exact language around what is found

    Term 2 centers on the Explanatory Piece—tracing the causal logic of a living system and making that logic visible to a reader who has never stood at this pond

    Term 3 centers on the Field Argument—taking a specific, arguable position about a cycle observed at the trail, defending it with field evidence, and arriving somewhere the opening observation alone could not have stated

  • Meets: Tuesday, 10:00–11:30 AM
    Location: Local Irvine Park

    Term 1 (12 sessions)

    • 09/01/2026 (Tue)

    • 09/08/2026 (Tue)

    • 09/15/2026 (Tue)

    • 09/22/2026 (Tue)

    • 09/29/2026 (Tue)

    • 10/06/2026 (Tue)

    • 10/13/2026 (Tue) — BREAK, no class (Fall Break)

    • 10/20/2026 (Tue)

    • 10/27/2026 (Tue)

    • 11/03/2026 (Tue)

    • 11/10/2026 (Tue)

    • 11/17/2026 (Tue)

    • 11/24/2026 (Tue) — BREAK, no class (Thanksgiving)

    • 12/01/2026 (Tue)

    Make-up date if needed: 12/08/2026 (Tue)

    Winter Break — No Class: 12/15/2026 – 01/01/2027

  • Meets: Tuesday, 10:00–11:30 AM
    Location: Local Irvine Park

    Term 2 (12 sessions)

    • 01/05/2027 (Tue)

    • 01/12/2027 (Tue)

    • 01/19/2027 (Tue)

    • 01/26/2027 (Tue)

    • 02/02/2027 (Tue)

    • 02/09/2027 (Tue)

    • 02/16/2027 (Tue) — BREAK, no class (Mid-Winter Break)

    • 02/23/2027 (Tue)

    • 03/02/2027 (Tue)

    • 03/09/2027 (Tue)

    • 03/16/2027 (Tue)

    • 03/23/2027 (Tue)

    • 03/30/2027 (Tue) — BREAK, no class (Spring Break)

    • 04/06/2027 (Tue)

  • Meets: Tuesday, 10:00–11:30 AM
    Location: Local Irvine Park

    Term 3 (8 sessions)

    • 04/13/2027 (Tue)

    • 04/20/2027 (Tue)

    • 04/27/2027 (Tue)

    • 05/04/2027 (Tue)

    • 05/11/2027 (Tue)

    • 05/18/2027 (Tue)

    • 05/25/2027 (Tue) — BREAK, no class (Memorial Day)

    • 06/01/2027 (Tue)

    • 06/08/2027 (Tue)

    Make-up date if needed: 06/15/2027 (Tue)

Only Grades 4-5 is currently available.

If you’re interested in seeing Nature Studio open for other grade levels or for other times, please let me know using the form below. No email required.