Redwood Bay is a Self-Directed Education (SDE) Community for all kids between the ages of 6-12. Currently located on unceded Ohlone land, now commonly known as Castro Valley, CA. We strive to be a safe and inclusive space that center’s the voices and experiences of Black, Indigenous, other People of Color. As we grow, we want to create a space based on the needs of the community while fostering a sense of belonging for marginalized and vulnerable community members.
“We can’t keep using tools of oppression and expect to raise free people”
About us
Hello Friends,
Winter is here! We have more camp fun to offer. This time, a LEGO and a Craft and Nature Exploration camp!
Our family has been unschooling for about 5 years. We have two sons and a daughter ages 11, 9 and 3! Our camp is an extension of our lived experience with natural learning through play, adventure, exploration and discovery. Namely, we are unschoolers. We will add additional daily offerings to enrich the experience for our camp kiddos. We have experience hosting and facilitating homeschooling kiddos, nieces, nephews, neighbors and friends here for over 7 years via homeschooling cooperatives, baby/kid sitting and playdates.
The Space, our home and current camp homebase
At home we have a small but plentiful outdoor space complete with a trampoline, basketball hoops, chickens, a garden and a craft room that has all the things! In the summer heat, we love to get out to water parks and splash pads, or explore the local nature parks and facilities like libraries, creeks, Lake Chabot or the other forests and parks in the greater bay area.
We offer a the same space and grace to our camp friends that we give to our own kids, which is what we want for all kids, a space where kids are celebrated for their uniqueness, where they feel free and safe to be their full wonderful selves, where adults acquire cooperation through collaboration and trust and not by exacting control, where adults treat children with respect in any circumstance and do not react with ego but with compassion.
Visit our socials to see what we are about and to view pix from our previous camps
facebook.com/RedwoodBay
Instagram: @redwoodbaysde
We are looking forward to playing with your family this season.
With love,
Lori Fernando, Fernando family team and extended Redwood Bay Community.
How to Enroll? Hit the gray “Enroll Now” button above and fill out the enrollment form.
Weekly Structure
This winter we have two camp themes as sene on the digital flyer above.
On LEGO Camp days, we will be at homebase the entire day. The LEGO offerings, Gears, Motors and Momentum will be offered as apart of the day. A good portion of the day will also include free place. They will have access to the entirely of the camp space. They are not required to attend the LEGO part of the camp. It will be an offering like any other in the space. As seen in our pillars, we support child autonomy, and last month, someone even decided to take a 3 hour nap. Either way, your child will be held by the structure of the day. There will be at least one active offering facilitated by an adult along with several available at-choice activities going on throughout the day.
On Craft and Nature Exploration Camp Days, Kids will be dropped off at homebase, but families have the option to pick up and drop off at the location of the planned field trip destination. Art types of crafts will be offered at homebase and onsite in the nature area. We’re even thinking of playing with some experiments from our “Science is Lit” book but we will see what emerges.
Daily Structure
Our days will have a structure that will support the community in building our culture of compassion and caring for each other, the space, mother earth and all living creatures. It will serve as a space where kiddos can feel seen and heard by all. Between the times listed below offerings or free play will be happening. That will vary each day.
10:30am Group check-in - How are you feeling today? What would you like to get into?
12:00pm - Reminder to eat, check-in with their body- What does your body need? (Eat, hydrate, snack, rest, move?)
3pm Clean up, required activity for all community members. Kiddos must consent as a part of enrollment.
3:30 End of day check-in reflection. Rose-bud-thorn. If you could redo any part of the day what would you do?
Each child should bring
A packed lunch with water and snacks
A change of clothes and socks for planned wet days when attending a field trip.
Additional fees depending on the outings such as the Oakland Zoo.
Canceled Camp/days
We will have to cancel camp whenever any of my children are sick with fever or other contagious illness as I am their primary caregiver. Likewise, please do not send any child to camp who may also have a contagious illness, fever within 24 hours or is feeling physically unwell to the extent that they do not wish to attend if possible.
We will have one or more immunocompromised children or community members at any given time so it is important to take care when children are ill to protect our most vulnerable community members.
“If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they’re not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn’t valued, or was actually stigmatized.”
Redwood Bay Pillars
Self-Directed Education
“Education that derives from the self-chosen activities and life experiences of the learner” -Alliance for Self-Directed Education, What is Self-Directed Education. We invite you to learn more about SDE, The Optimizing Conditions, Educative Drives, and how various families practice it. The Alliance for Self-Directed Education website or to our local East Bay Self-Directed Education community of practice facebook group are good resources to start with.
Child Autonomy
We trust kids! Kids are respected and supported in how they choose to spend their time pursuing their interests and living their life (even if it doesn’t look like learning is happening or appears to be unproductive). They have the power to make decisions about how to live their lives and, for example, about the community, budget, activities, what offerings take place and how to keep ourselves and each other safe. Anything that kids are learning, exploring or discovering is interest based and intuition. This allows kids many opportunities to kids to trust themselves by following their instincts without interruptions by adults.
Community
Kids learn the most from the culture. We use tools to create intentional culture around respecting and caring for one another, the spaces we occupy and mother nature and all living beings. It also allows for self-awareness and growth to happen through community check in and reflections about how we are responsible for ourselves and our community. Most of these tools are taken from the Agile Learning Centers (ALC) organization.
Deschooling
Deschooling is an ongoing practice of the children and parents in our community. Deschooling is the process of actively removing school ways of being and thinking and instead, begin to center ourselves in our own lives, support our children to center themselves in their own lives and create a new way of being and thinking fully aligned to our own core values, ancestral wisdom and intuition.