Teaching Off Trail

"Adults, you will fall in love with teaching all over again! Peter Dargatz shares his playful, loving and joyful approach to teaching, along with real-life strategies, ideas and suggestions-guaranteed to have a positive impact for all children. This should be required reading for anyone who wants to make a difference in the life of a child!" -Dr. Patty Born, Hamline University, author of Teaching STEM Outdoors

"Peter Dargatz has created a way to keep kindergarteners from climbing the walls-he takes them outside to play and their love of learning never stops." -Pat Rumbaugh, co-founder of Let's Play America, and author of Let's Play Outside

"Going on Peter Dargatz's journey throughout this book was pure joy! He is a natural storyteller. I have been working in nature-based education for two decades, yet I still found myself jotting down notes to share with other teachers. Teaching off Trail is a heart-felt, fun, and fully inspiring tale that shows just how much children (and teachers) benefit from nature and play-not just as a diversion from learning, but as its most essential foundation." -Catherine Koons Hubbard, Nature Preschool Director at Schlitz Audubon Nature Center (Milwaukee, WI) and co-founder of the Wisconsin Nature-based Early Childhood Association

"In Teaching Off Trail, Peter Dargatz shares his transformative teaching experience and leads readers in how to make playful shifts in their own philosophy. Can play and academics coexist in today's classrooms? Can we learn inside and outside the school building? Peter not only affirms a play-based approach, but he also shows readers how to make it happen." -Dr. Julie Jones, director, Converse University, School of Education & Graduate Studies, author of The Playful Classroom

"What a pleasure to read an honest, common sense, no-holds barred, story of how one teacher confronted the 'crisis in the kindergarten' and decided to actually do something about it. Peter Dargatz's story of turning his classroom inside out is accessible, funny, free of jargon, and compelling. He makes you feel, 'Well if he can do it, so can I.'" -David Sobel, Professor Emeritus, Education Department, Antioch University New England, author of Nature Preschool and Forest Kindergarten and The Sky Above and the Mud Below