A Different Kind of Classroom
For the past three years, my daughters and I have packed up our gear and traveled to a sun-drenched meadow in Washington to join a beautiful, earthy, and often overlooked community: primitive skills gatherers. Between the Rivers has become a touchstone for our family’s homeschool rhythm, and every year we leave feeling more connected, more grounded, and more alive.
There’s no standard curriculum here. Instead, you’ll find fire-making circles, herbal medicine workshops, drum circles under the stars, and children barefoot in the dirt learning through play and immersion. This is homeschooling at its finest.
Why Primitive Skills Gatherings Are a Homeschool Goldmine
1. Learning in the Wild: A Hands-On Education
Between the Rivers and similar events like Rabbitstick and Saskatoon Circle offer an expansive range of workshops: herbalism, hide tanning, fire by friction, natural dyeing, basket weaving, tracking, foraging, and more. Every class is taught by people who live and breathe their craft, offering experiential education you won’t find in a textbook.
Older homeschoolers can choose their own classes, sparking new interests and following their curiosity in real time. My eldest has explored everything from stone carving to leather crafting and making her own sheath for a homemade knife she purchased at the barter faire.
Younger kids? They’re just as engaged. My 4-year-old has the freedom to roam, participate in kids camp activities, make friends, and learn through unstructured play, an essential part of early childhood development.
2. Roadschooling Meets Village Life
Primitive skills gatherings operate much like worldschool hubs, but with a uniquely ancestral, earth-centered twist. Families arrive from across the country in vans, RVs, and tents. Meals are shared. Chores are communal. Children form instant bonds. And everyone, kids and adults alike, is there to learn.
It’s not just schooling on the road; it’s living in a temporary village where children see learning modeled by everyone around them. My daughters have watched me dive into herbal medicine, make leather sandals, and learn how to card wool. They see learning as a lifelong process, not something that ends with adulthood.
3. True Community for Homeschoolers
There’s something deeply healing about being part of a space where kids are welcome just as they are: wild, muddy, curious, loud, and alive. No one expects children to sit still or stay quiet. Instead, they are woven into the fabric of the event, nurtured by a village of adults who see them.
Homeschooling can feel isolating at times, especially for single parents or families living far from their ideal community. But at Between the Rivers, we found our people. For one week a year, we live in a world where everyone understands why we homeschool, where children learn in the dirt, and where connection takes center stage.
4. Breaking the Classroom Mold: A Different Kind of Learning
These gatherings challenge conventional ideas of what education “should” look like. There are no desks. No grades. Just skill, story, and practice. It’s unschooling in action, alive with ancestral knowledge and present-moment discovery.
This is what it means to raise resourceful, confident kids: let them build a bow drill, tan a hide, or explore the woods with new friends. Let them witness adults learning and fumbling and trying new things. Let them experience education as something rooted in real life, not just books or screens.
5. The Power of Returning Year After Year
When we first attended Between the Rivers, my youngest was barely one. Even then, I felt it. This place was home. Now, three years in, it’s become a pillar of our homeschool year.
Every time we return, we reconnect with old friends, build on skills from previous years, and feel that deep, nourishing rhythm of being part of something bigger. And as my daughters grow, their relationship to learning deepens too.
Making Space for Future Growth
As my youngest gets older, I’m already dreaming of attending other gatherings like Rabbitstick, where I’ll have the freedom to participate more fully, knowing she is engaged in her own enriching experiences.
These events are a long game. They grow with your family. They evolve. And they offer the kind of education that no boxed curriculum can match.
A Call to the Curious: Why You Should Go
If you’ve been craving connection, community, and meaningful experiences as a homeschool family, primitive skills gatherings might be exactly what you’ve been looking for. Whether you attend with a homeschool group or arrive solo with a tent and a dream, there’s space for you here.
This is how we create resilient, joyful learners. This is how we reclaim ancestral knowledge. This is how we find each other in the wild and remember that we’re never meant to do this alone.
