A community rooted in the wild.

Hi, my name is Daniel Paquette, and I’d like to invite you to join our little community of families who all share the desire for healthy living for themselves and others.

A little bit about my journey to starting a play-based, outdoor, nature cooperative, forest day program for little kids:

In 2007 one of my life-long friends asked me to move to Chicago to be the nanny for his unborn daughter. So in 2008 I moved from Indianapolis and took over full-time nannying of the three-month-old baby girl. For the next five and a half years, I took care of her for ten hours a day while her parents were at work.

While nannying for her, I began my career as an early childhood musician at her preschool in 2010.

In 2012 my first child was born, and in 2013 I moved back to Zionsville.

In 2016 I began my career as an outdoor educator for young children at White Pine Wilderness Academy. In 2024 I took a full-time job as the sole outdoor educator at The Nature School of Central Indiana, a Pre-K to 8th grade public charter school.

Also in 2024, my partner Amanda and I founded Mother Earth Nature Connection Camp that runs every summer at Holliday Park in Indianapolis for 4–6 year olds.

Along the way, while nannying, parenting, teaching, coaching, and entertaining, I have developed a profound and inspired commitment to helping our culture do the best we can in raising very young children. My mentors, gurus, and heroes are many: Ella Jenkins, Malkah Bird, Teacher Tom, Fred Rogers, Katie Norregard, Matt Shull, Amee Waltman, Evan Prairie, Amos Rodriguez, Rich Singer, Mr. Chaz, Dr. Gordon Neufeld, Jon Young, among many others.

I LOVE helping young children find their way outside through the forest in connection with the other creatures that we share this land with. It is nourishment for my deepest essence as a human being. I want to be able to share with others the wonderful lessons I have learned from my teachers and from nearly two decades of experience in early childhood care-giving.

I have three children of my own, and hundreds of others who I have guided up a tree, down a path, into a creek, over a log, under a bridge, and into the heart of Mother Earth.

I hope that you and your family will join us to create a loving and supportive community of humans who are fully engaged in the early childhood years.

I have found that doing it outside, in rhythm with nature’s cycles and ancient traditions, is healing, nourishing, and fairly easy! Mother Earth simplifies things in ways that crystallize the meaning and the growth into very natural and hard-to-miss experiences. It’s like walking into the flow of a river when you let nature guide you, if even for a brief moment now and then.

Please come spend one day a week with us this school year! It will be worth everything you put into it.