Introducing our new Trailhead studio (ages 5-7)
We're hiring a Trailhead guide! Could that be you?
What does a dream school look like for a five-, six-, or seven-year-old? If you were to design one from scratch, what would the recipe include?
For the past year and a half, we’ve been designing our answer: Trailhead, our newest studio, launching this fall.
Our recipe has three main ingredients.
Ingredient #1: Nature is our classroom
First up, Trailhead should radiate with joy, play, and exploration. Young children have boundless energy, and they need lots of room to move.
We believe the ideal environment for this is nature. The outdoors offers natural physical challenges: jumping over a fallen log, climbing a tree, balancing on rocks. It also provides endless opportunities for exploration, from discovering insects under a log to observing how water flows or collecting seeds from trees. All of this, of course, comes with the added benefit of the calming, restorative effect of being outside.
In Trailhead, outdoor time is not an add-on. It is one of the main learning environments. So, for our recipe, we’re adding one part Danish Forest Kindergarten. If you’re not familiar with Danish Forest Kindergartens, this video captures the spirit well.
Ingredient #2: Hands-on Montessori materials
Second, we want to build the core skills around reading, writing, and mathematics in a way that is tactile and concrete. At this age, children need to use their hands. So Trailhead will rely on hands-on Montessori materials, including Waseca, supported by guides who are trained to use them well. We’ll save Chromebooks and personalized learning software for our older studios.
We’ll also use Montessori sensorial, practical life, and cultural materials to help children build concentration, care, independence, observation, and early knowledge of the world.
Ingredient #3: Learner-driven culture
The final ingredient in our recipe is to infuse everything with the Acton Academy philosophy. Trailhead is where our youngest learners begin the journey of taking ownership of their learning: caring for their studio, solving problems, making choices, reflecting on mistakes, and beginning to discover their own path. Specifically, that means:
Building the habits and mindsets to become independent learners
Guides modeling skills (conflict resolution, emotional regulation, group communication, empathy, kindness) and then stepping back to allow learners to take more ownership
Pathways to earn more freedom as they demonstrate responsibility
Forming a tribe with shared promises, real accountability when the community falls short, and opportunities to grow into leadership roles
Lots of games that encourage both individual growth and group cohesion
Peer learning (both within the studio and from learners in the older studios)
These systems give even our youngest learners a real role in shaping the culture of their studio. Over time, we expand that responsibility in our older studios.
At five to seven, sustained focus is still developing. So we’ll build the muscle of focus through short periods of meaningful work mixed with long stretches of physical play outdoors.
We’re very much going to be living out the old German phrase, “There’s no bad weather, only the wrong clothing.”
We’ll be outside whether it’s raining or snowing, cold or hot. Part of the requirement for our Trailhead learners will be a full set of outdoor gear, including boots, jackets, and waterproof pants. Every day will start with a long period of outdoor time before transitioning indoors to work on core skills.
Trailhead will replace our previous Base Camp studio and will also take on the younger ages of what was traditionally our Foothills studio. In our experience, many learners around age eight become more ready for longer stretches of focused, independent work, which is one reason we’re moving the younger ages of Foothills into this new studio.
The name fits the larger journey we use across the school: Trailhead, Foothills, Ascent, and Launchpad. Trailhead is the beginning of the journey, where young learners build the core skills, habits, confidence, and independence they need before heading deeper into Foothills.
If you’d like to learn more about Trailhead (or any of our other programs), you can schedule an introductory call with me.
We’re Hiring!
We’re hiring a new Trailhead guide. This is not a conventional early-childhood teaching role. It is a building role, a guide role, and a startup-like role inside a school.
We’re looking for Ms. Frizzle mixed with Ranger Rick—someone who loves exploring nature with children, bounding through the woods, pulling up rocks, and noticing the questions children naturally ask outside. They’ll also help us design the ideal outdoor environment, including features like mud kitchens, nature trails, outdoor classrooms, and sandboxes.
If that describes you, or if someone immediately came to mind, I would love for you to read more about the role here and pass it along. We’re beginning interviews now, so please move quickly if this sounds like you.