A safe place where children get organically inspired to learn through nature, mindfulness, and nurturing hearts.
We're enrolling students for the upcoming school year in Brainerd Lakes Area!
Organic Roots Schoolhouse is a non-public, Forest School for school age children 5 years old to 10 years old.
My Story & Mission
Greetings! Welcome to Organic Roots Schoolhouse. I am Kirsten Rude and the founder of Organic Roots Schoolhouse. I am also a wife and a mother to 3 amazing boys and just had a baby girl in September. Our family just made our dream move from Clear Lake to Verndale in 2020 and we have loved every opportunity to be living in nature. We were lucky enough to move on to 34 acres of Red Pines right next to the Crow Wing River. We are the type of family that gets replenished with fresh air from the trees and the sunshine warming our faces. Nature has a way of restoring your soul like dry roots revived by a fresh spring rain.
I started my teaching journey as a public elementary school teacher and taught for almost 8 years. I taught 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade in Central Minnesota and loved working with my school, students, and families that I met along the way. In 2019, I completed my Master’s Degree in Teaching and Learning and this is where I discovered that I wanted to do so much more as an educator. I wanted to really meet every child where they were at and teach them with the most authentic experiences I could, offer my learners more one on one time, have a more flexible core lesson routine with our classroom, differentiate all of the homework, wait-maybe don’t give any homework, do more mindfulness lessons on the daily, do more goal tracking and pre-testing….the list went on. I ended up discovering that what the majority of my students needed was to MOVE more. DISCOVER more. CREATE more. PLAY MORE. But the problem was, I just couldn’t find a school where I could teach students with their best interests in mind. In that moment, I realized that I wanted to create my own school where children could be invited to learn through their own discoveries in nature and through their own interests and discoveries.
My mission is to invite children to learn through nature and organic discoveries from the things that they create and imagine. Children will “bloom” in a learning environment where “play”, “movement”, “creation”, and “discovery” happen on a daily basis. Children also need a space where they can learn about practical skills like cooking, cleaning, self-care, meal prepping, gardening, harvesting goods, and so much more! I wanted to create a whole new world of learning for children. I wanted to create a safe place where children get organically inspired to learn through nature, mindfulness, and nurturing hearts. After all, according to Penny Whitehouse, “Don’t just tell children about the world. Show them.” That is how Organic Roots Schoolhouse was created and I hope it inspires you to follow our journey, explore enrollment for your child, or even sponsor a student for a year.
