Free Range Kids
Adventures in Learning - The Challenge Hike
Our community of highly experienced, passionate, and dedicated Crew Leaders align awesome adventures with California Preschool Early Learning Foundation Standards to guide daily instruction in numeracy, literacy, and social/emotional skills. Our year-end adventure is the Challenge Hike. The adventure is an opportunity for the big kids (6th-graders) to aid in the passage and perseverance of the littler Pre-K kids. On this 6 mile journey, the Pre-K crew members carry their own packs and are teamed up with an older buddy. The older buddy has the responsibility to have the patience and courage to help their little buddy out for the entire 6 miles.
Anne Chippendale
Stephanie Brodi
Anne Chippendale | Pre Kindergarten Director & Founding Teacher
Anne Chippendale has been a teacher and coach in the Lake Tahoe area for almost 30 years. Anne earned her Teaching Credential from University of Nevada, Reno while coaching the Squaw Valley Ski Team and facilitating swimming lessons at the Truckee Pool. Soon after, she began teaching at the State Preschool in Tahoe, where she developed a fun and creative multicultural program for her students and families. Prior to Tahoe Expedition, she spent four years at Creekside Cooperative Charter School.
Outside the school environment, Ms. Annie loves traveling and seeing the world beyond our immediate reach. She volunteered and cheered for our local athletes at the last two Olympics (Italy 2006, Vancouver 2010), has skied in Argentina and enjoys biking and hiking in our backyard, on the Tahoe Rim Trail.
Ms. Annie, as she is affectionately called by all who love and appreciate her, wholeheartedly believes that education is much more than classroom academics. She encourages the opening of doors to explore our environment, other people and cultures. With a positive outlook on life, she believes a well-balanced person will thrive, and in turn, benefit those around them as well as the future of our world.
Before moving to the area, she spent her childhood in Palo Alto and earned a Degree in Human Development from U.C. Davis.
Stephanie Brodi | Pre Kindergarten Teacher
Originally from Upstate New York, Stephanie moved to Truckee in 2012. Before joining Tahoe Expedition, she taught grades K-2 at Custom Learning Academy and most recently Year One in Auckland, New Zealand. Stephanie has a B.A. in Childhood Education and has both New York and California teaching credentials.
Her mission is to create a learning environment that encourages students to take healthy risks so they are able to realize just how much they are capable of. Stephanie focuses on teaching the whole child in light of their individual and developmental needs so that they become life-long learners.
Outside of the classroom Stephanie can be found outdoors taking in all that the Tahoe area has to offer. Snowboarding, mountain biking and hiking are a few of her favorite activities. During the summer months, she coaches downhill mountain biking.