Lia Grippo
Reclaiming Nature Connection Conference Faculty
Born in Riga, Latvia, Lia (she/her) spent many of her earliest years foraging and fishing the nearby woodlands with her family. Her early relationship with Nature has remained a constant thread in her life. At an early age, Lia was drawn towards working with young children and has been an early childhood educator since 1989.
In 1996, Lia founded her first preschool, Seedlings, and in 1998 she opened Wild Roots Forest School, a preschool and kindergarten roofed by the sky and carpeted with the living woodland floor. Lia is a storyteller, naturalist, herbalist, parent educator, mentor and education consultant. Using the arts of storytelling, song, poetry, movement, and play, Lia is dedicated to helping children and families develop their powers of imagination, and through these powers discover their relationship with all of life. Lia has brought knowledge, compassion, reverence, and magic to her community not only through Wild Roots Forest School, but also through workshops, seminars and mentoring for adults. Having trained and mentored hundreds of early childhood educators through her years, she is excited to have co-founded Academy of Forest Kindergarten Teachers, which offers formal training for forest kindergarten teachers, including the annual Reclaiming Nature Connection Conference, formerly called Reaching Nature Connection Conference. Lia’s commitment to excellence sets a high bar in this fledgling field in North America. Lia is the grateful mother of two tree-climbing sons and the wife of an exquisite musician.
