SkillCraft Explorers Fall 2026
Outdoor Experiential Learning for Ages 7–11 in Patchogue
This fall, we are launching the first public season of SkillCraft Explorers, an outdoor experiential learning program for children ages 7–11 and one of the developmental levels within our new Praxis program. Beginning September 9, the SkillCraft Explorers will meet on Wednesday mornings from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Patchogue, with a fall schedule that takes children through observation, ecology, practical problem-solving, mapping, tools, shelter design, fire, movement, stewardship, and more.
Read MoreThe Praxis Program: Capability Through Hands-On Learning
There is a difference between knowing something and knowing what to do with it.
A student can understand the science behind a structure without ever building one. They can study leadership without having to guide a team through a difficult task. They can learn about entrepreneurship without ever trying to turn an idea into something another person values. They can read about traditional skills, communication, engineering, problem-solving, or community responsibility without ever having to put those ideas into practice.
The Praxis Program was created to close that gap.
Read MoreYou Can’t Change the Past, But….
The past has already happened, but our understanding of it is anything but fixed. History is reconstructed from whatever happens to survive: a broken pot, a few marks scratched into bone, fragments of a clay tablet, timbers preserved beneath wet soil, or sometimes little more than a stain where a building once stood. Every discovery gives us another piece of that enormous puzzle, and new technologies increasingly allow researchers to return to evidence we already possessed and find things earlier generations could not see.
Read MoreThe Montaukett: Jeremiah Pharaoh and a People Still Here
In October 1910, a crowded courtroom in Riverhead held an unusual contradiction. Montaukett people had gathered to hear the outcome of a case brought by their chief, Wyandank Pharaoh, over their rights at Montauk. Justice Abel Blackmar announced his conclusion: the Montaukett tribe had “disintegrated” and no longer existed as a tribe. Historian John A. Strong describes the Montaukett people in the courtroom sitting in stunned silence as they heard the decision.¹
The ruling would have lasting consequences for Montaukett land rights and New York State recognition. It also creates a strange image that is difficult to forget once it is seen clearly: living Montaukett people were sitting in the room while a government institution declared their collective existence finished.
How does a people become invisible while its members are still standing in front of you?
Read MoreNature Literacy & Outdoor Education Programs on Long Island
Nature literacy is the ability to notice, interpret, and relate to the living world with greater awareness and skill. It grows through experience: slowing down, asking better questions, using all of our senses, and beginning to understand how plants, animals, weather, soil, water, people, and place affect one another.
Forgotten Skillz offers nature literacy and outdoor education programs on Long Island for schools, libraries, museums, preserves, homeschool groups, scouts, private groups, families, and individual learners. Participants explore real landscapes, investigate natural materials, practice traditional skills, and consider how people throughout history have learned to meet their needs within the environments around them.
Read MoreWhat Happens in a Forgotten Skillz Workshop?
Forgotten Skillz offers hands-on workshops on Long Island that connect nature, history, traditional skills, craft, science, stewardship, and practical problem-solving through direct participation. Each workshop gives people a chance to work with real materials, practice useful skills, explore how people have solved problems across time, and build a deeper relationship with the world around them.
A Forgotten Skillz workshop may involve binding a book, making ink, starting a fire from sparks, studying useful plants, learning outdoor problem-solving, building a bee hotel, exploring traditional tools, or walking a trail with new attention. The exact activity changes from program to program, but the experience is always active, guided, and rooted in curiosity.
Read MoreBlacksmithing the Mind
What a Blacksmithing Lesson Taught Me About Learning, Energy, & Craftsmanship
I recently spent an evening at Spirit Ironworks in Bayport, New York, learning the basics of blacksmithing from master blacksmith Timothy Miller. While my stated goal was to learn how to shape hot steel, my real goal was much simpler: to show up as a beginner. In a world where information is always a quick search away, there is something refreshing about stepping into a workshop and allowing yourself to become a student again.
I arrived with no expectations beyond a willingness to listen, observe, and learn from someone who had spent years developing a craft. My mental image of blacksmithing came from years of reading fantasy novels, so a piece of me figured my first lesson would be sweeping the shop and shoveling coal, but Tim was a gracious teacher and provided a much richer experience.
Read MoreThe Best Survival Knife: The One You Have
At this weekend’s Wilderness Survival workshop, we spent our time on one of the most practical outdoor skill sets a person can learn: safe knife use and simple toolmaking. Participants practiced using a survival knife not as a weapon or a piece of gear to admire, but as a working tool for solving problems. We carved, notched, cut cordage, shaped wood, made simple camp implements, and looked at how one well-used blade can support a wide range of survival and bushcraft tasks.
Read MoreBasic Compass Navigation for Beginners
A compass is one of the simplest tools you can carry. Basic compass navigation is one of the most useful skills to practice before you need it. The goal is not to turn every walk in the woods into a military land navigation exercise. Most of the time, basic compass navigation is about staying aware of direction, keeping track of where you are in relation to a fixed point, and giving yourself a reliable way to move with purpose.
Read More7 Historical Ball Games That Shaped the Ancient World
The lights come on early.
By mid-afternoon, grocery stores are already crowded. Chips disappear from shelves. Jerseys come out of closets. Text threads buzz. Some people tune in for the strategy and the matchups. Some wait for the commercials. Some settle in for the halftime spectacle; maybe you were there for Bad Bunny and the cultural moment that followed. The Super Bowl feels enormous and unmistakably modern; a collision of sport, music, business, and ritual all at once.
It feels like something only our time could produce, yet the urge behind it is ancient.
Long before broadcast rights or stadiums, people were gathering in open fields and stone courtyards to do something remarkably similar. They drew lines in the dirt. They set up markers made of wood or stone. They shaped balls from leather, cloth, feathers, or rubber. Then they played while others watched. They cheered. They wagered. They argued about calls. They told stories afterward. The scale was smaller, but the energy was familiar.
These were the world’s historical ball games.
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