Utopiat
Family Camp
Free Pilot Week
Screen-Free • Nature-Based • Hands-On • Child-Centered
A complimentary, invitation-only pilot experience for our founding families.
What Every Day at Utopiat Includes
While each day has a special theme, these experiences form the rhythm of every day.
🌿 Nature Every Day
We spend meaningful time outside — exploring, observing, gardening, harvesting and developing a relationship with the natural world.
🌬️ Movement & Regulation
Children practice simple movement, yoga, breathwork and nervous-system regulation techniques that help them notice what is happening inside their bodies and discover tools for returning to calm.
🍅 Cook & Eat Together
Children participate in preparing real food, often incorporating ingredients from the garden.
We cook, set the table and share meals together.
🧹 Chores, Contribution & Care
Everyone contributes to our little community.
Children participate in age-appropriate everyday responsibilities such as setting the table, tidying shared spaces, washing up, composting, caring for materials and helping one another.
At Utopiat, contribution is part of belonging.
📚 Read & Reset
Each day includes quiet time for reading, drawing, journaling or simply slowing down.
🧚 Imagine & Play
Unstructured play matters.
Children have protected time to invent games, explore, build friendships and follow their imaginations — without a screen directing the experience.
🎨 Create
Creativity at Utopiat is bigger than arts and crafts.
Children use their hands and imaginations to make things, solve problems, prepare food, transform spaces and bring their ideas into the real world.
🤝 Connect, Communicate & Repair
We end every day with a 30-minute closing circle inspired by Nonviolent Communication.
Together, children reflect:
What felt good today?
What didn’t feel good?
How did I feel?
What did I need?
What could we communicate or do differently tomorrow?
Our goal isn’t to eliminate disagreement.
It’s to help children develop the language and skills to understand themselves, express their needs, listen to one another and repair relationships when something goes wrong.
Monday — Soft Launch
Belong & Explore
Monday is our small internal practice day.
We’ll explore the environment, experience the Utopiat rhythm, practice transitions and make adjustments before welcoming the larger pilot group.
Tuesday — My Body & Nervous System
Understand Myself
What happens inside our bodies when we’re excited, frustrated, frightened, overwhelmed or peaceful?
Through age-appropriate anatomy, movement, yoga, breathwork and playful exploration, children will begin discovering the relationship between their bodies, emotions and nervous systems.
Rather than simply telling children to “calm down,” we want them to begin understanding:
Something is happening inside my body — and I have tools that can help me.
Wednesday — Nature, Food & Stewardship
Care for My World
Where does our food come from?
What does it mean to care for the living systems that care for us?
Children will explore the garden, plants, soil, harvesting, food preparation, composting and our relationship with the natural world.
We’ll cook and eat together while exploring the idea of stewardship — taking responsibility for our food, our environment and the shared resources we use.
When something takes care of us, we can learn to take care of it too.
Thursday — Creativity
Transform Our Space
Creativity isn’t only about making something to take home.
Our challenge for the day:
How can we make our playroom more functional, beautiful and enjoyable for everyone?
Children will observe the space, brainstorm ideas and work together to transform it.
They may organize materials, create different activity areas, rearrange the room, make artwork or decorations, create labels and signs and find creative solutions to problems they discover.
Different children will have different ideas — and that’s part of the experience.
They’ll practice listening, communicating preferences, compromising, collaborating and turning a shared vision into something real.
At the end of the day, they’ll be able to look around and say:
We made this place better together.
Friday — Entrepreneurship
From Idea to Market
Friday is our entrepreneurial adventure.
We’ll begin the morning with one question:
What can we create today that someone else might value?
Children will look at the resources available to them — ingredients, fruit, flowers and herbs from the garden, creative materials and their own ideas — and decide what they can transform into something people might want to buy.
Possibilities might include:
Fresh lemonade • Homemade cookies • Cupcakes or simple baked treats • Dried fruit snacks • Garden flowers and bouquets • Herbs • Child-created goods
Then we’ll take those ideas through the entrepreneurial process:
Idea → Resources → Create → Price → Brand → Display → Sell
Children will make their products, think about pricing, create signs and displays, prepare their market space and practice interacting with customers.
Friday’s Utopiat Market
Friday afternoon, participating parents and families will be invited to become our children’s first customers at the Utopiat Market.
Weather and logistics permitting, we’ll set up outside for a real neighborhood-market experience.
We’ll use real money so children can experience what happens when an idea becomes something another person genuinely chooses to purchase.
Because Utopiat is providing the pilot week, ingredients and materials at no cost to participating families, market proceeds will go back toward the cost of supplies and the pilot program.
Afterward, we’ll count our revenue and reflect:
What sold?
Why did people choose it?
What didn’t sell?
What would we change next time?
The goal isn’t how much money we make.
The goal is discovering that an idea can become something real and valuable to another person.
What We Ask From Our Pilot Families
This is a free pilot — not a finished camp program.
We’re intentionally testing, observing and refining the experience in real time.
Our core daily rhythm will remain consistent, but individual activities, menus, timing and details may change throughout the week based on what we observe and how the children respond.
That’s part of the purpose of a pilot.
In exchange for complimentary participation, we ask our pilot families to help us learn.
Be Flexible
Come with an experimental spirit.
Activities and details may shift as we discover what works — and what doesn’t.
Give Us Honest Feedback
Tell us what worked, what didn’t, what surprised you and what you think could make Utopiat better.
We’re not looking for perfect feedback.
We’re looking for useful feedback.
Tell Us What Your Child Says at Home
Some of our most valuable information happens after children leave.
We’d love to know:
What did they talk about?
What did they love?
What didn’t they enjoy?
What did they want to do again?
Did they want to come back the next day?
Complete Our Short End-of-Week Survey
We’ll ask participating parents to complete a brief survey at the end of the pilot so we can capture what we’ve learned while the experience is still fresh.
Photos & Documentation
We hope to photograph and occasionally record portions of the week so we can document the pilot and eventually share the Utopiat experience with future families.
Parents will be asked separately for photo/video permission.
Share a Testimonial — If We’ve Earned It
If you and your child genuinely love the experience, we’d be grateful for a short testimonial that we may share with future Utopiat families.
A positive testimonial is never required.
Honest feedback is much more valuable to us during this pilot.
Join Us for Friday’s Market
When possible, we’d love for parents and family members to arrive a little early on Friday and become customers at our children’s Utopiat Market.
Help Us Build What Comes Next
This week isn’t about running a perfectly polished camp.
It’s about discovering what happens when children step away from screens and are given the time, tools, responsibilities and freedom to reconnect with their bodies, nature, food, creativity, one another and the real world.
We’re grateful to the families willing to experiment with us.
Thank you for helping us shape the future of Utopiat Family Camp.