From Outdoor Preschool to Camps

Sunhouse began as a pilot: a year-round outdoor preschool at Trout Lake, in East Vancouver. Children spent their weekdays with us in the park, through the rain, the wind, the snow, and the long stretches of summer sun. We watched hundreds of children grow up outside, and we learned an enormous amount about what young children actually need from outdoor education.

In 2026, Sunhouse moved to running seasonally, as outdoor day camps during July and August. The reason is simpler than most people expect, and we will get to it below. Trout Lake is still our home base, and always will be. It is where the pilot ran, where The Sunhouse Method was built, and where we have run every season since.

This piece is for the families who have asked us why the format changed, and for the new families who want to understand the depth of practice behind what we do.

What We Built First

The preschool model gave us something irreplaceable: time. Time to watch the same child move through three full years of outdoor childhood at the same park, from the wobbly first weeks to the quiet leadership of a returning child. Time to refine an approach across hundreds of hours, hundreds of meltdowns, hundreds of small breakthroughs, hundreds of conversations with parents at pickup.

That repetition is where The Sunhouse Method was born. The five principles of the Method, The Capable Child, The Body as the First Language, Regulation Before Reason, The Steady Adult, and Reinforcement, Reflection, and Integration, were not invented at a desk. They were noticed, refined, and named through years of practice. We saw what worked across many children, in many weather conditions, in many group dynamics. We saw what failed. We kept what consistently produced calm, capable, regulated children.

By the time we formally documented The Sunhouse Method in 2026, it was already the unwritten muscle memory of every educator who had worked with us. The document is the structure. The practice is older.

What We Learned in Years of Daily Practice

The year-round preschool taught us things that no week-long program could have shown us:

• Young children regulate faster in consistent outdoor environments than indoor ones. The forest does work that walls cannot.
• The 6:1 ratio is not aspirational, it is mandatory. Below that, an educator cannot read every child’s body. Above it, capability cannot be scaffolded individually.
• Educators who are present and engaged are unmistakably more effective. Adjacency is not supervision. Presence is.
• The language an educator uses in the first thirty seconds of an escalation determines the next ten minutes. This became the foundation for the named techniques inside The Sunhouse Method.
• Weekly video recaps are more meaningful than constant social media updates. Parents want depth, not feed.

Each of these became a non-negotiable in the camps.

Why Summer Camps Now

The honest answer is that the children grew up, and we decided to grow with them rather than stay attached to the idea of the programme itself.

The pilot started with preschoolers. Those same children kept coming back, year after year, and then they turned five and six and started primary school. They were not available on a Tuesday in October any more. They were available in July.

We could have held on to the format and recruited a new set of three-year-olds to fill it. Plenty of programs do. But the format was never the point. The children were. So the age range moved up to five to eight, the year-round week became a full week in summer, and the children we had watched learn to carry their own backpacks came back as the oldest and most capable people in the group.

That is not a pivot. It is the same programme, following the same children.

Two things confirmed it was the right shape. The first is that a child who experiences a full week of immersive Sunhouse pedagogy comes home different. Not subtly different. Visibly different. A week is enough, which is not something we would have believed before we watched it happen repeatedly.

The second is access. For most families, weekly enrolment year-round is a major commitment, and many of the families who would benefit most from our approach do not have the schedule, the proximity, or the room in the budget for it. Summer opens the door to many more children, at the exact moment Vancouver parents are actively looking for a capable, well-staffed outdoor programme.

What Has Not Changed

Everything that mattered about the preschool is in the camps. The same 6:1 ratio. The same pedagogically grounded educators. The same daily structure of morning walks, shared meals, child-led play, and structured activity blocks. The same insistence on educators who are trained, calm, and present. The same refusal to substitute supervision for adjacency.

Our educator standards have only tightened. Every Sunhouse educator is reference checked, CPR and First Aid certified, background checked for child safety, and trained directly in The Sunhouse Method by the founder. Camp staff managers are qualified primary school teachers. This is the same calibre of practice the preschool families experienced for years, now applied to a summer format.

What Has Changed

A few things are genuinely different in the camp format, and we want families to understand them clearly.

The cohort changes weekly. In the preschool, the same children were together over months and years, which built deep continuity. In camps, the cohort is different each week. We compensate by anchoring each session in a clear, consistent structure that helps children settle quickly.

The age range is tighter. The camps serve children ages 5 to 8. The Sunhouse Method is most effective when children have the language and motor skills to engage with the principles consistently.

The pace is more concentrated. A week of Sunhouse camp is intentionally full. There is no slow ramp. We meet the children where they are on the first morning and walk them through a week of growth.

The schedule is summer-only. Outside of July and August, we are not currently running camps. This means we cannot serve every season for every family, and we have made peace with that trade-off.

We are adding parks. Trout Lake remains our home base and runs every season. For 2027 we are adding further sites so that more families have a park within a short drive. How many, and which, is confirmed in late 2026 and goes to the early bird list before it is public.

What This Means for Long-Time Families

Some of the families reading this attended the preschool. We want to say thank you. The years of trust you gave us, the hours we spent watching your children become themselves, the conversations at pickup, the videos shared at the end of each week, all of that built what Sunhouse is now. The Method exists because of those years of practice. Your children helped shape it.

For families with children still in our age range, the camps are the natural next chapter. The pedagogy is the same. The educators are trained by the same founder. The park is the same park. The intent has not changed. We invite you back.

What This Means for New Families

For families finding us for the first time: the camps you are considering are not a new program. They are the summer expression of a pedagogy that has been practised for years and refined in real time with real children. When you enrol your child at Sunhouse, you are not booking a recently launched outdoor camp. You are accessing the focused, concentrated form of work we have been doing for nearly a decade.

The Sunhouse Method is the proprietary work of Nicole Hughes. It was synthesized from years of outdoor preschool practice and formally documented in 2026. It is taught only to Sunhouse-trained educators. It is the foundation of every interaction at every camp.

Common Questions

How long has Sunhouse been operating?

Nearly a decade in some form of outdoor education for children. The brand has evolved from year-round outdoor preschool to its current summer camp format.

Why did you stop year-round programming?

The children in the pilot grew up and started primary school, so the programme grew with them into a summer format. A full week of immersive Sunhouse pedagogy also turns out to have the highest impact, and summer is when Vancouver families have the greatest need.

Are the camp educators the same as the preschool educators?

Our standards have only tightened. Every Sunhouse educator holds current CPR and First Aid certification, has been reference checked and background checked, and has been trained directly in The Sunhouse Method by the founder. Camp staff managers are qualified primary school teachers.

Will you ever offer year-round programming again?

We are focused on the summer camps for the foreseeable future. The next chapter of Sunhouse will likely involve making The Sunhouse Method available to other educators and programs through training and certification, rather than running our own year-round preschool.

What Comes Next

The camps are the current home of The Sunhouse Method. They are not the only future home. Over the coming years, we will be making the Method available to other educators, parents, and programs through training, certification, parent workshops, and published materials.

For now, our focus is on running the best possible summer outdoor day camps in Vancouver for children ages 5 to 8, from our home base at Trout Lake and the parks we are adding for 2027. We run rain or shine, Monday through Friday, in July and August.

If your child is ready, we are ready. Join the 2027 early bird list.