Young Learners Program
Imagine what the future would hold if we prepared our youth with the essential skills for life? Skills development - preparing youth for whatever life throws at them.
Our Young Learners Program is a modified Equine Assisted Learning program that has been developed for the ages of 4-7. Due to the nature of our traditional Equine Assisted Learning program, participants must be ages 8 and up. We wanted to develop a program that is designed for a younger participant. By gearing verbiage and exercises towards a younger age group, our Young Learners Program gives youth the opportunity to get a "head start" on learning important life skills. Our program promotes basic life skills development, emotional regulation, and behavioural modification. Horses react to the stimuli in their surroundings and have a similar emotional language to our own. We can see how the horse is reacting to us, and modify our behaviour, as necessary, in order to create a calm environment that all beings are comfortable in. Building a relationship with a horse is a powerful parallel to building a friendship with a human being.
What Does a Young Leaners Program Session Look Like?
The participant makes their way through objectively-driven obstacle courses with their horse teacher. Objectives include kindness & understanding, body language, active listening, focus, responsibility, and more! The participant works one-on-one with their horse teacher. A Certified Equine Facilitator helps to guide the experience and act as a horse translator, of sorts, in order to understand what our horse teacher is trying to teach us. The Certified Equine Facilitator also asks open-ended questions about the objective and makes parallels between the lessons taught by our horse teacher and everyday life to ensure learning retention. Due to the nature of our Young Learners Program, we only work with our small horses and ponies.
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Each session, we start with a briefing in our Barn Classroom, where we have a quick discussion about what objective or skill we will be working on. Then, we head into the arena where we work with our horse teacher to make our way through our session's objectively-driven obstacle course. Afterwards, we head back into the barn to complete an objectively-related activity (such as colouring pages, puzzles, scavenger hunts, etc.). Each session is 45-60-minutes in length. Our Young Learners Program can be run as a Single Workshop or a 4-, 6-, 8-, or 12-Week Curriculum Program.
Who Would Benefit?
This program is designed to allow for a safe, hands-on learning environment to all learners. But, those who would particularly benefit include:
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- Those who struggle to build friendships and make meaningful connections with others.
- Those who struggle with emotional/behavioural disorders and struggle to regulate their emotions, ADHD, anxiety & depression, grief, etc.
- Those who struggle to work with others through effective teamwork and communication
- Those who struggle with understanding appropriate assertiveness and when boundaries are being crossed.
- Those who struggle to understand others' emotional states and feelings.
- Those that struggle with shyness, lack of self-confidence & self-esteem, or those that are non-communicative.
- Those that struggle with bullies or being the bully.
