Hello and Welcome! My name is Shawna Gass, the founder of Whispering Pines Village. In 2023 I started homeschooling my oldest son. He is a highly sensitive child and the pressure and rigidity of mainstream school was not a place we felt he would thrive in. While our homeschooling journey has been amazing, I felt it was lacking the social piece. I believe that our kids can learn so much more from their peers than they can from an adult at times. I have a younger son as well, and they both are eagerly wanting that interaction with others. Rewind even further; for the past 20 years I have been teaching and working with children in some type of capacity. I hold a bachelors degree in early childhood education (birth-3rd grade) and a masters degree in Curriculum and Instruction.  I am thrilled to be able to merge the two of these passions together (homeschooling my own children and teaching others)!  In 2016, I taught at a nature preschool for a few years. It was here that I fell in love with the nature-based learning philosophy! Going from teaching in traditional classrooms to a hybrid model of partially outdoors- I was hooked! There is nothing more rewarding than watching a child wander through a natural space and see the world from their eyes. I went down a rabbit hole of learning about forest schools, nature-based education, nature-based co-ops, etc.. It is then when I stumbled onto this idea of a homeschool collaborative, and found out many homeschooling families are looking for a hybrid model where their children can come and be a part of a community, in which they can learn and thrive together. That's where Whispering Pines comes in! I hope you can find a place within our village!