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.

The Wednesday morning schedule makes this particular series especially well suited to homeschool families throughout central Suffolk County and the greater Long Island area. Families can attend individual sessions or return throughout the season, allowing children to explore the program at whatever level of commitment works for them.

Behind the weekly subjects, however, is a larger idea about how children learn and what they need as they grow. The SkillCraft Explorers program is designed to help children become more observant, capable, curious, resourceful, and comfortable encountering something they do not yet understand. The woods, practical skills, experiments, tools, challenges, and conversations give us a place to practice those qualities in ways that feel natural to children.

What Is Praxis?

The SkillCraft Explorers program is part of Praxis, our broader developmental program built around the relationship between knowledge and action. The name comes from the idea of putting learning into practice: understanding something, trying it, evaluating what happened, adapting, and carrying the lesson forward into the next experience.

That philosophy influences how we design each program. A child may appear to be learning how to make a map, identify useful plant materials, build a structure, or solve a practical problem with a handful of available objects. Those activities have value in their own right, but they also provide opportunities to practice larger capabilities such as judgment, resilience, awareness, communication, creativity, leadership, and resourcefulness.

From Activities to Skills to Development

We think of the process as a series of connected layers. The activity gives children a reason to practice a skill. The skill creates opportunities for deeper developmental learning. Those developmental goals are informed by what children need at their particular stage of growth and by the qualities families hope to cultivate in the people their children are becoming.

This structure allows the educational goals to remain intentional while giving children plenty of room to explore. The visible experience might be building, hiking, mapping, observing, experimenting, or solving a challenge, while the deeper work may involve persistence, communication, judgment, creativity, or learning how to respond when a plan does not work as expected.

Developmental Levels Within Praxis

Because a seven-year-old and a thirteen-year-old need different challenges, expectations, coaching, and levels of independence, Praxis is organized into developmental levels. The SkillCraft Explorers serve children roughly ages 7–11, while programs such as Praxis: Pathfinders build upon that foundation as children grow older.

Each level is intended to meet children where they are developmentally while preparing them for the kinds of independence, responsibility, and decision-making that will become increasingly important as they mature.

Why SkillCraft Explorers Is Designed for Ages 7–11

SkillCraft Explorers actually grew out of our work developing programming for the next age group.

As we explored what families wanted for older children, we heard recurring themes around life skills, mentorship, scholarship, entrepreneurship, leadership, independence, and sound decision-making. Those conversations eventually raised another question: if those are some of the qualities we want adolescents to develop, what experiences could help prepare children for them several years earlier? We reverse-engineered SkillCraft Explorers from that question.

A Developmental Window for Exploration & Growing Independence

Children between approximately seven and eleven share enough developmental territory that they often benefit from similar kinds of coaching, scaffolding, physical challenges, social expectations, and opportunities for independence. They are becoming increasingly capable of reasoning through problems and understanding multiple perspectives. Their physical confidence is expanding. Peer relationships are becoming more important, while imagination, play, experimentation, and hands-on exploration remain powerful ways of engaging with the world.

This gives us an unusually rich period in which to practice habits that will become increasingly valuable later. Children can learn to slow down and notice before reacting. They can become comfortable saying that they do not know something and asking for help. They can discover that a knowledge or skill gap does not have to stop them from moving forward. They can learn to improvise, evaluate risk, revisit an unsuccessful attempt, and make a better decision the next time.

Those habits become especially useful as children approach adolescence and begin making decisions in increasingly complex social, emotional, and independent contexts. SkillCraft Explorers gives us an opportunity to start strengthening the underlying tools for judgment while children are still eager to explore almost anything we put in front of them.

How SkillCraft Explorers Approaches Learning

One of our central goals for SkillCraft Explorers is to preserve and strengthen a child’s sense of wonder.

Children gain a great deal from having time to notice something unfamiliar, become curious about it, generate possibilities, and explore before reaching for an answer. The SkillCraft Explorers program uses that process deliberately because curiosity becomes much more powerful when children also learn how to investigate, compare, test, reflect, and revise their thinking.

Wonder & Inquiry Are Part of the Curriculum

A session might begin with evidence of an animal whose identity is not immediately obvious, a patch of woods that holds water differently from the ground nearby, a material that behaves differently than expected, or a route that looks simple on a map but feels quite different underfoot.

In SkillCraft Explorers, the instructor helps keep that exploration within the broad banks of the day’s subject while giving the children meaningful input into where the conversation goes. Everyone contributes observations, questions, ideas, and possible solutions. The lesson has clear educational goals, while the path toward those goals can change based on what the group encounters.

That balance allows us to deliver substantial educational content through the freer, conversational, experiential format that many homeschool families value.

What a 90-Minute SkillCraft Explorers Session Looks Like

Each 90-minute SkillCraft Explorers session begins with a group conversation that introduces the central question for the day and identifies a few ideas or takeaways that we will keep in mind as we work. We call this kind of opening a “School Circle,” borrowing the term from Marine Corps boot camp, although the conversation works just as naturally at the edge of a park as it does on a squad bay floor.

From there, the group begins moving. We meet at Shorefront Park in Patchogue and use the parks and open spaces of the surrounding area as our classroom. A short walk gives children an opportunity to transition into the environment, begin observing what is around them, and encounter examples that may become part of the day’s discussion.

The central portion of the session combines instructor guidance with a child-led activity based on the topic. The instructor establishes the knowledge, skills, boundaries, and safety considerations children need, then gives them room to make decisions within the challenge. Depending on the week, they may be exploring, comparing, constructing, mapping, testing, moving, observing, or solving a practical problem together.

We finish by examining what happened. Children have an opportunity to assess their results, identify successes, look closely at unsuccessful attempts, ask better questions, and think about what they might change in another iteration. That reflective portion matters because practical experience becomes much more powerful when children learn to examine their own thinking rather than simply completing an activity and moving on.

The Outdoors Is Our Classroom

SkillCraft Explorers takes place completely outdoors, and ordinary changes in weather are part of the experience. Fall on Long Island gives us sun, wind, rain, chilly mornings, wet ground, fallen leaves, changing habitats, and an environment that can look considerably different from one Wednesday to the next.

Learning to dress appropriately, prepare for conditions, and remain comfortable while the environment changes is itself a practical skill. It also reinforces one of the larger ideas behind the program: children can learn to work intelligently with the conditions around them.

Sessions therefore run rain or shine, with cancellations reserved for extreme or unsafe weather.

Parents Are Encouraged to Participate

Parents are welcome to join us at no additional charge and are especially encouraged to participate with younger SkillCraft Explorers. Staying is optional, although many parents may enjoy seeing the program firsthand, joining the conversations, and sharing some of the discoveries with their children.

For homeschool families in particular, that creates an opportunity to see how the educational and developmental pieces of the program connect, while also giving families ideas and conversations they can continue long after the session ends.

Fall 2026 SkillCraft Explorers Schedule

The Fall 2026 season runs from September 9 through December 9, with a few intentional breaks built into the calendar for holidays. Each session is designed to work independently, while children who attend throughout the season will encounter ideas that connect and build upon one another.

September: Observation, Materials, & Hidden Life

The fall season begins on September 9 with Observation & Field Inquiry, including our Possum Walk approach to learning how to notice, question, compare, and read a familiar place. Before children begin manipulating an environment, using tools, or solving increasingly complicated problems, we want them to become better observers of what is already there.

On September 16, Plants, People & Useful Materials explores plants as food, fiber, pigment, structure, tools, and cultural resources. The goal is to begin seeing plants as part of the long relationship between people, place, ingenuity, and material culture.

After a scheduled week off, September 30 brings Habitats & Hidden Life, looking at microhabitats, insects, decomposers, animal signs, food webs, and the relationships that help a place function. This session expands observation into ecological thinking by asking children to look for connections rather than simply identifying individual organisms.

October: Resourcefulness, Mapping, Design, & Making

On October 7, Resourcefulness & Improvisation challenges children to solve practical problems with limited materials, adapt objects to new purposes, try multiple approaches, and recover when an obvious solution does not work. The emphasis is on flexible thinking and the confidence to keep working when the first idea falls short.

Maps & Making Sense of Place follows on October 14, introducing landmarks, direction, scale, simple cartography, routes, and the spatial relationships between different parts of a landscape. Children will explore maps as tools for thinking about place and understanding how different spaces relate.

On October 21, Shelter, Weather & Design examines how people respond to rain, wind, sun, temperature, drainage, and other environmental constraints. Shelter becomes an engineering and problem-solving question: what conditions are we trying to change, and how have people in different environments developed ways to accomplish that?

Tools, Materials & Making on October 28 turns toward choosing appropriate tools and materials for a task, safe use, shaping, joining, constructing, and repairing. The larger lesson is that competence often begins with understanding what a tool or material can do and making thoughtful choices about how to use it.

November: Fire, Transformation, Movement, & Physical Confidence

On November 4, Fire, Heat & Transformation explores combustion, heat, cooking, charcoal, material changes, fire safety, and traditional uses of fire. Fire offers a particularly rich subject because it connects science, human history, technology, responsibility, and practical skill within a single experience.

Following another scheduled break, November 18 focuses on Movement, Balance & Physical Confidence, with uneven terrain, carrying, coordination, body awareness, safe risk assessment, and cooperative physical tasks. Children will have opportunities to explore what their bodies can do while developing better judgment about challenge, capability, and risk.

December: Stewardship & the SkillCraft Challenge

After Thanksgiving, December 2 brings Stewardship & Caring for Place. We will explore human impact, responsible use, habitat care, shared spaces, seasonal change, and opportunities for children to take an active role in caring for the places they use.

The fall season concludes on December 9 with the SkillCraft Challenge, a culminating experience that asks children to draw from several of the capabilities they have practiced throughout the season. The specific challenge matters less than the process of recognizing which skills might help, deciding how to apply them, working through uncertainty, and evaluating the result.

Flexible Enrollment With a Connected Learning Experience

Each SkillCraft session is designed to stand on its own, so families can join us for a single topic that catches a child’s interest without needing to have attended previous weeks. Families can also choose several sessions or participate throughout the fall.

Attend One Session or Build a Season of Learning

Returning regularly creates another layer of learning. A child who practices observation in September may use those habits while mapping in October. Knowledge about materials can influence a shelter solution. Resourcefulness can reappear during a physical challenge. Lessons about habitats can change the way a child thinks about stewardship months later.

Over time, the subjects begin connecting with one another, and children begin seeing their own capabilities in the same way. They start recognizing that observation, creativity, judgment, communication, practical skills, and confidence are not isolated abilities. They work together whenever we encounter something new.

That is where we believe SkillCraft Explorers becomes especially powerful. A collection of interesting experiences gradually becomes a way of approaching the world.

Join SkillCraft Explorers in Patchogue This Fall

SkillCraft Explorers is now open for Fall 2026 enrollment. Our Wednesday morning series meets from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Patchogue, beginning September 9, and families may choose individual sessions, several topics, or the full fall experience.

Families who want to understand how SkillCraft Explorers fits into the larger developmental approach can learn more about the Praxis program.

When you are ready to join us, you can view upcoming SkillCraft sessions and enroll online:

Keep Exploring with Forgotten Skillz

Interested in hands-on learning through nature, history, traditional skills, craft, stewardship, and human ingenuity? Follow Forgotten Skillz, explore our upcoming workshops and outings, and subscribe to the newsletter to keep the conversation going.

Michael A. Evans is the founder and lead educator of Forgotten Skillz and CEO of Synchronicity Coaching Inc., a multidisciplinary organization creating educational programs and experiential learning opportunities across Long Island and beyond.

Through Forgotten Skillz, Michael develops hands-on experiences that connect nature literacy, cultural history, traditional crafts, ancestral technologies, environmental stewardship, and practical outdoor skills. His programs invite participants to observe, question, experiment, make, and better understand how people across cultures and throughout history have interacted with the world around them.

Beyond Forgotten Skillz, Michael contributes to youth education as a creative collaborator on the Little Laurie Science Stories book series and the Ninja Née Science Education Program, helping create experiences that foster curiosity, creativity, scientific thinking, and a lasting enthusiasm for learning.