Welcome to
Forest Camps
7544 Charlotte Pike Nashville 37209
overview
Forest camps at the overall creek arboretum
7544 Charlotte Pike Nashville 37209
Hours
8:00am to 3:00pm
Pick-up window until 3:20pm
Late fee of $15 charged to your account if arriving after 3:20pm
cost
$370 per week
Offering six weeks with themes described below
Into the Woods
Whether you come just one week or all of them, you will be impressed with the discoveries you will make. You will take a journey into the wild every day to explore forests and fields, following the life cycle of animals, identifying trees, calling to nesting birds, uncovering hidden creatures, and splashing through the creek in search of fossils and macroinvertebrates.
32 acres of majestic beauty
Campers will embark on a deep dive into nature, creativity, and adventure. We will hike new trails, in addition to cooling off in the creek, identify towering trees and observe birds in their natural habitat. We enjoy practicing yoga poses and mindfulness in the serenity of the forest. Campers will be challenged with riddles, nature scavenger hunts, podcasting, and even writing a book about their experiences—both real and imagined!
Each day, many opportunities
🌳 Hike and explore different ecosystems
🌿 Learn tree identification and birdwatching
🌱 Garden and harvest for creative projects
🎨 Create nature-based art and build with natural materials
🎮 Solve riddles, scavenger hunts, and nature challenges
📰 Work on an interactive podcast and write a camp-wide story book
Let’s raise the curtain and leap into the magic of the forest stage!
Week 1:
Forest Theater
June 9 to 13
A grand opening to summer! This week kicks off the season with storytelling, song, stagecraft, and imagination. Campers will transform the woods into a living theater, where every trail becomes a path to performance and every tree can be part of the set. Whether campers love to act, direct, dance, design costumes, or just cheer on their friends, there’s a place in the spotlight for everyone!
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Construct an outdoor forest stage using logs, stumps, and found materials—perfect for showcasing talent all summer long.
Begin working on our camp cob oven, laying the foundation for future outdoor cooking and cozy campfire gatherings.
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Craft leaf and flower masks inspired by forest creatures and mythical beings.
Create natural instruments—drums, shakers, wind chimes—from wood, seed pods, and recycled treasures.
Design and paint set pieces and banners using mud, paint, botanical prints, and forest finds.
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Dive into improv games that build confidence, communication, and creativity.
Try movement exercises and rhythm play using nature as your dance floor.
Engage in collaborative storytelling and script-writing sessions under the trees.
Map-making adventures help us design the forest theater space while exploring natural construction techniques like stick weaving and fairy furniture making.
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Practice trail exploration, group challenges, and camp cheer songs as we learn to move through the forest with awareness and care.
Discover and choose the best natural amphitheater—a hidden clearing, a sunny slope, or a shady grove—to serve as our stage for the week.
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On Friday, we’ll host our first big camp performance. Campers can present skits, songs, dance routines, and lead gests in theatrical exercises—all in the open-air forest theater they helped create.
Celebrate 20 years of A New Leaf outdoor education and come spend the night in a tent with us at the Arboretum
Week 2:
Camping & Outdoor Cooking
June 16 to 20 (Closed on June 19 for Holiday)
Get ready to roll up your sleeves and dive into the classic summer camp experience! This week is all about learning how to live, cook, and play outdoors—with a delicious twist. Campers will become confident outdoor explorers and creative chefs as we pitch tents, prepare meals from scratch, and gather around the fire to share stories, songs, and stargazing moments.
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Practice essential camping skills: pitching tents, tying knots, building and tending fires, and safely using tools.
Try shelter-making challenges—can you build a forest lean-to using only what nature provides?
Learn how to filter water, read a map, and pack a day hike bag.
Join team challenges like the “Camper’s Cup” relay with firewood stacking, tarp folding, and compass races.
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Put the finishing touches on our earthy cob oven, sculpting and decorating it with natural materials. This oven will become the heart of our outdoor kitchen and Friday’s pizza party!
Create camp cooking stations using wood stumps, stone slabs, and woven baskets to organize our foraged and garden ingredients.
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Prepare your tales for the fire storytelling event while we prepare to sleep in our tents.
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Learn to make simple fresh cheese, and explore flavoring techniques.
Simmer homemade tomato sauce with herbs harvested from our garden and trailside.
Shape and decorate mud pizzas for imaginative play, and prepare real pizzas to bake in the cob oven using our gathered and grown ingredients.
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We’ll end the week with a magical overnight camping adventure at our site!
Pitch more tents, light the fire, and bake your handmade pizzas in the cob oven.
Sing songs, share stories and roast under the stars.
If you are not too sleepy, let’s go on a night hike to tune in to the sounds and shadows of the forest after dark—listening for owls, watching for fireflies, and learning the rhythm of the night.
Try stargazing with binoculars and learn a few constellations and night sky stories.
For those not staying overnight, join us for the Friday Evening Pizza Party and campfire celebration!
Come ready to explore, invent, and walk your own story path, as we weave together movement, imagination, and the materials of the wild to transform the forest into a living storybook.
Week 3:
Weaving & Storytelling
June 23 to 27
This week, we’ll follow the threads of nature and narrative—literally and figuratively. Campers will hike forest trails in search of vines, sticks, and fibers of all shapes and sizes, learning how to harvest materials with care and purpose. Along the way, they’ll weave stories into the very paths they walk, imagining the forest’s history and creating new tales of their own. We’ll explore how both humans and animals build homes, nests, and meaning by weaving the world around them—then try it ourselves, one basket, book, and branch at a time.
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Construct a willow reading dome—a cozy hideaway for storytelling, journaling, and quiet reflection.
Design and test new footpaths through the woods, adding forest markers and story clues along the way.
Map and “weave” your trail by arranging found materials into natural borders and waypoints.
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Bind your own forest journal to fill with sketches, leaf rubbings, poems, and story fragments.
Press plants to add to jour journal with botanical notes.
Weave baskets, potholders, and nature looms using foraged vines, grasses, and natural string. Use them to decorate your journal.
Experiment with making cordage from plant fibers, learning traditional and animal-inspired techniques.
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Take daily hikes in search of vines, roots, and weaving materials, practicing safe foraging and forest respect.
Participate in story hikes, where each trail becomes a living narrative full of character encounters and imaginative twists.
Join storytelling circles to share traditional tales, forest legends, and original group stories inspired by your hikes.
Try “thread the forest” games—challenges that involve stretching yarn or fabric between trees to create forest “looms” and obstacle trails.
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Study how birds, rodents, and insects weave and engineer shelters with found materials.
Explore the cultural and ecological history of weaving around the world.
Reflect on how stories, like paths, are made with intention, surprise, and care.
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Our Forest Book Fair is a celebration of all we’ve created!
Campers will present their handmade journals, read original stories aloud, and display woven works around the willow dome.
Families are invited to follow the camper-made story trail, stopping along the path to hear parts of the tale unfold while siping sun tea from the garden.
Get ready to laugh, learn, and look at our home planet with fresh eyes—because sometimes the best way to understand where we are… is to pretend we’re from somewhere else entirely. 🌌
Week 4:
Planet Earth Podcast & Alien Exploration
July 7 to 11
🚀 Calling all curious beings from across the galaxy! This week, we’re pretending we’ve crash-landed on a mysterious blue-and-green planet known to locals as “Earth.” Everything here is new, strange, and wonderful—from the squawking creatures to stationary green giants. Our mission? Observe. Record. Report. As freshly landed aliens, campers will explore Earth’s ecosystems, collect “specimens,” and try to make sense of human customs, plant behaviors, and bizarre Earth technology.
Our findings will be transformed into podcasts, songs, soundscapes, and log entries—all from our quirky alien points of view. We’ll build a spaceship-style recording studio, write futuristic lyrics, and investigate everything from soil to solar panels like it’s the first time we’ve ever seen it.
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Construct a spaceship podcast studio in the woods—complete with blinking lights, alien gadgets, and upcycled tech.
Create “alien tools” from recycled Earth junk to help us investigate and “communicate” with native life forms.
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Record interstellar podcasts documenting our discoveries about Earth's weather, creatures, and strange customs like “lunch” and “socks.”
Write and produce galactic songs with cosmic sound effects, otherworldly vocals, and radio-static beats.
Design field journals and observation logs—in alien code, of course!
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Interview “locals” to learn about Earth species, foods, and festivals.
Take on daily missions to explore biomes like forests, water, and fields—each one a new alien landscape.
Invent names for Earth’s odd features (Why do trees grow like that?) and translate bird calls into our alien language.
Play Galactic Games like Moon Toss, Interplanetary Relay Races, and “Decode the Earth Message.”
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Investigate Earth's biomes, animal behaviors, and human inventions as if they’re completely new.
Upcycle Earth junk into alien artifacts, tools, and communication devices.
Explore concepts like climate, soil, energy, and ecosystems from an outsider’s view—asking big questions like, “Why are there so many kinds of leaves?” and “What is dirt, anyway?”
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We wrap up our week of extraterrestrial adventure with a space-themed showcase for friends and families:
Present your team’s Planet Earth Reports via podcast, music, and alien “data logs.”
Dress in your best alien gear and guide guests through the Spaceship Studio and Alien Archives.
Share songs, tell space jokes, and maybe even decode some human expressions!
Put on your boots, grab your cape, and answer the call of the forest—because this week, we’re not just campers. We’re heroes reflecting on what it means to be a protector of the wild, and how we can each carry that role into the world.
Week 5:
Forest Stewards & Eco-Heroes
July 14 to 18
After a week exploring Earth through alien eyes, we’re back in human form—with a renewed love for this incredible planet and a calling to protect it. This week, campers become Eco-Heroes and Forest Stewards, stepping into action as guardians of the land. With capes made from repurposed cloth and tools in hand, we’ll tackle real-world conservation challenges and learn how to restore balance to the forest ecosystem.
We'll dig into the science of ecology, building habitats, and solve the “Mystery of the Fading Forest”—a thrilling week-long scavenger hunt that blends adventure, investigation, and teamwork. Campers will take on the roles of naturalists, scientists, and storytellers as they work to uncover what’s threatening the forest—and what we can do to help.
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Construct a dead hedge using invasive honeysuckle and other removed species—turning problems into possibilities by creating shelter for birds, insects, and small mammals.
Create “forest guardians”—natural sculptures that mark and protect forest spaces.
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Co-write a collaborative story where the forest calls for help and the campers become its heroes—complete with secret identities and nature powers.
Craft capes, badges, and nature wands from forest finds and repurposed materials.
Learn to cut and carve honeysuckle into walking sticks and beads.
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Learn about native vs. invasive species, forest layers, and how to protect biodiversity.
Discover how even small acts—like planting one tree—can make a difference.
Tree planting, trail clearing, and mini restoration missions around camp.
Eco challenges like erosion control, wildlife tracking, and “litter rescue races.”
Nature mapping and tree ID hikes to understand the personalities and needs of our leafy neighbors.
Create seed balls to take home or toss into bare patches for future forest growth!
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All week, we’ll follow clues, riddles, and hidden symbols through the woods, unlocking the mystery of what’s causing parts of our forest to fade.
Use real ecological evidence to solve the case.
Interview forest “witnesses” (aka trees, animals, and rocks).
Present your findings and heroic story in a dramatic retelling on the forest stage, where your team saves the forest—and inspires others to do the same.
Let’s end the summer with brightness, wonder, and wild creativity—a swirl of art, light, laughter, and love for this amazing planet we’ve spent the summer exploring together. 🌍💛🌿
Week 6:
Rainbow World & Natural Dyes
July 21 to 25
We’re wrapping up summer in a swirl of color, creativity, and celebration! This week, campers dive into the spectrum of nature, from the tiniest wildflower hue to the shimmer of light on water. As we follow the rainbow through field, forest, and sky, we’ll become artists and photographers
We’ll mix art, science, and play—learning how colors are created in nature, what they mean to animals and plants, and how we can capture and share them in beautiful and imaginative ways. Whether it’s through pigments made from crushed rocks or photographs that capture sunlight dancing on leaves, campers will express themselves in vibrant new ways.
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Construct a rain catchment system, learning how to collect and use water sustainably for art and gardening projects.
Build mini rain sculptures and “puddle mirrors” to reflect and play with light and color.
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Create natural dyes using plants, nuts, berries, and roots—then use them to dye fabric, yarn, and t-shirts.
Mix paints from rocks and soil pigments and sculpt with wild clay.
Design large-scale art installations and collaborative mosaics inspired by the patterns and palettes of nature.
Try sun prints, nature cyanotypes, and leaf print photography to explore image-making using light and found materials.
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Nature photography walks to hunt for textures, colors, and unexpected beauty.
Learn simple photo techniques and experiement to transform your images.
Join the “Forest Color Quest”—a scavenger hunt across the spectrum where you’ll find and document every color of the rainbow in unexpected places.
Daily movement moments: paint with your hands and feet, dance through color trails, or create rainbow ribbons and streamers.
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Discover how animals use color to camouflage, communicate, or stand out.
Explore bioluminescence, iridescence, and the science of light refraction in water droplets and wings.
Reflect on the colors that speak to you and what they express about your week, your summer, and your imagination.
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On Friday, the forest turns into a gallery and a stage! Families are invited to a Rainbow Revel—a festive celebration of color, community, and creativity.
🖼️ Take a gallery walk through the trees, admiring camper-made art and photography.
👕 Rock your hand-dyed t-shirt on the Rainbow Runway.
🎶 Dance among colorful streamers and join in the bubble and chalk party.
📸 Step into our nature photo booth with props and backdrops made by campers.
🌦️ Close out with a rain and light ceremony—a final moment of reflection and joy under the trees.