Our adventure today was a Tinkergarten class, held at Cradle Creek Preserve in Jacksonville Beach, FL. Tinkergarten started as an outdoor learning experience held at local parks, where kids 18 months – 8 years learn through play and exploring the outdoors.

Update: Tinkergarten will stop doing classes August, 2024. Check the end of the post for the full news.

The Tinkergarten Experience

They offer a free trial class, so we signed up to give it a try and ventured out on a cloudy drizzly Wednesday morning to go get our nature on.

We arrived nice and early and then discovered there were no bathrooms. As soon as I learn there are no bathrooms somewhere, I always suddenly, urgently have to pee. I wasn’t up for squatting in the woods (at least not this time) so we took a quick detour to the gas station and headed back. Our class leader Sara said she was looking into moving it to a different park with better amenities and parking. There were only maybe 4 spots in the lot, but you can park on the side of the street.

We got started with a little song and then read a story that just happened to be my favorite book from kindergarten, Stone Soup. After the story, the kids got to participate in making their own version of stone soup using dirt, sticks, leaves and whatever else they could scavenge. My favorite part was when they added the “seasonings” from a bag of lavender that smelled heavenly.

The age range for our class was about 2 – 5, so it was hectic but fun. There were wanderers and the occasional tantrum breakdown, but overall, all the kids seemed to enjoy it. Keelan wasn’t sure at first, but after a few minutes he got really into making his “soup” with water and dirt and even went back for extra seasonings.

I’m waiting to hear if the class is going to be moved to a park with bathrooms before we sign up. I really did like getting to visit the nature preserve location because there weren’t any other distractions around, but I can’t be peeing in the bushes. I mean, I just met these people and it’s not exactly a kegger in the woods. 😆

Update: Although we enjoyed it, we actually never took another Tinkergarten class. I did stay on the mailing list though, so I got the notification that it was shutting down.

Tinkergarten Closes Due to Being “Not Sustainable”

Five years after taking our Tinkergarten class, it appears at some point the company was purchased by Highlights for Children, and they’ve decided to close it.

This is the e-mail that was sent out:

Hello!

We are writing to share news that will likely both surprise and sadden many people in our community. 
Tinkergarten Home, Plus, and Pro products will be discontinued beginning on August 29, 2024. Highlights for Children values Tinkergarten’s approach to teaching and learning and plans to offer and distribute the Tinkergarten content in a range of novel ways. However, the company has made a business decision that the current product model is not sustainable at this time. 

If you know us or our team, you know how passionately we care about our mission and this wonderful work of helping kids learn, grow and thrive through purposeful, outdoor play. Though this marks the end of an incredible 12 years of supporting thousands of teachers just like you who have worked in joyful collaboration to bring Tinkergarten to communities and classrooms across all 50 U.S. states—we know that Tinkergarten will carry on in all of us.

When we first started Tinkergarten, quality, early outdoor learning was hard to find. But today, we see teachers, families and kids learning outside together in communities everywhere. Everyone who has been part of this mission knows what makes Tinkergarten utterly unique, and that is why the work we’ve done together will continue to live on through the teachers, parents and caregivers, and the millions of kids we’ve reached. 

Tinkergarten is in us all, and more than ever, the world needs the benefits of outdoor play and community. For those of you who have enjoyed our monthly activity calendars and newsletters, we encourage you to visit our blog to continue getting inspiration for your outdoor play adventures. 

No matter what, it’s up to all of us to keep the marvelous mission we’ve started together going. Let’s promise to keep playing and learning outside! 

With gratitude for you and our shared passion for outdoor learning,
Meghan and Brian Fitzgerald