Free Spirit Forest and Nature School

Nurturing Connection with Self, Others and Nature

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot…

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“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot…

…nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

Some wise words from Dr. Seuss which led to a lengthy discussion this week, after a reading and a dramatic interpretation of “The Lorax”. It was the perfect story to build our day around: Trees, trees and more trees. And what better way to start than a look how trees work, followed by our favourite game: Sappy, Sappy?

After our smudge and morning circle, each student adopted a tree in their sit spots by identifying it using a field guide, drawing and naming it, getting to know its leaves and bark and finding out an interesting fact about it. Did you know that Willows originated in China? That Ash is a preferred wood for bats and hockey sticks? That Sumac can be used to make a drink similar to lemonade? Neither did all of us! Afterwards, as a group we identified (and gave medallions to) a whole bunch of different tree species just outside our schoolhouse doors – Pines, Ashes, Aspens, Beeches, Cherries and much more.

The afternoon had us go on an epic exploratory hike to a new section of forest. The students were able to put their knowledge to the test and identify many species along the way (“Looks like elephant legs, that’s a beech!”; “Round needles and looks like a Christmas tree – white spruce!”). We ended near our sugar shack where we took a few minutes to do some yoga (Tues.), be tree “huggers” (blindfolded and using other senses to identify a tree) and create “murder mysteries” by uncovering (and imagining) what happened to some felled trees and how old they were at the time (Tues.).

At the end of the day, we had a fire and boiled some Cedar Tea (packed full of vitamin C – click here for recipe) with a little maple syrup from last year’s harvest of our Maple stand. The students enjoyed this simple treat while students told stories to earn their storytelling bead (3 in total!).

We also gave out 4 Nature Lover beads over the two days! Congrats!

Next Week:
The eagerly anticipated FIRE week!

Did you know that 3 beads can be prepared at home?

Storytelling – students prepare a legend/story/poem to be read at a fire
Teaching – your child will teach the other students something they are passionate about – for example we’ve had students teach about origami, composting, and birds – this can be something simple and anything at all!
Craft – anything creative and homemade that uses natural/recycled materials. Just have your child bring it in and present it to us!

As the days are getting colder please remember to layer up!
Cheers,

Matt and Kim

Insect puns bug me.

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Hey Folks,

We started off our day today with a group game called Kubb (pronounced: Coob). Essentially it’s viking chess – a great target game. Unfortunately it’s way to complicated to explain the rules – so here’s a link to what it is. After our intense game, we did our smudge, morning circle and sit spots. Then it was time to enter the wonderful world of bugs!

After learning about where bugs live (underground, on the ground and in the sky), we explored our site with magnifying glasses and guidebooks in hand, and in a very short while were able to identify over 30 different species of bugs. Everywhere we looked there was a mini-world of insects unfolding right in front of us. (The Wednesday group varied slightly in that they also had a chance to do a pond study as they didn’t get to it last week.)

We also learned about soil today and have started a project using worms, compost and the different layers. You may have noticed your child come home with a yummy Soil Sundae? Or maybe it didn’t make it all the way there.

Speaking of making things, we wanted to spend some time exploring what insects can do for us. And what better insect to use than a honey bee? It was amazing to see the knowledge the students already had and were able to share about bees. Did you know there are over 20,000 different kinds of bee species in the world? After role playing the life of a bee, we made chap stick and hand balm from locally sourced beeswax, organic coconut oil, shea butter, and a little peppermint to give it a scent. Pretty simple! We did this over a camp stove, but you can do it at home too! For a complete recipe, please click here.

Thanks to Healthy Kids Challenge Collingwood, the students also had a chance to create GIANT bugs, bug hotels, bug amusement parks and bug castles with the imagination playground. Check out the masterpieces in the pictures below!

A big congratulations to our bead recipients this week. 2 Teaching Beads: one to a student who brought in their birding field guide taught us how to use a guide and showed us all the birds she had seen in her own backyard; and one for a lesson on composting. 2 Craft beads were also given out for an interesting project on compost in a jar.

Next Week:
We’re going to have some fun with trees!! Please remember to dress warm and have some extra layers – we’ve had some unusually awesome weather this fall, but who knows how long it’ll last.

Cheers,

Matt and Kim

I can’t think of any boat puns. Canoe?

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Hi Folks,

This week Kim and I were away for the Wednesday group as we were on paddling trips with our other school (hence why this post is late), so this post will focus on what happened on Tuesday. Luckily, our Wednesday group was paired up with our Thornbury School and a blog post about their day can be found here. A big thanks to Jen and Neal for stepping in in our place! They are phenomenal outdoor educators and I know Wednesday’s group really enjoyed their experience.

Our day started off as usual (a smudge and morning circle) and then we were of to our Heathcote location for a day on the Beaver river. When we got there, we were able to explore the awesome gardens and new outdoor classroom. The students spent a good chunk of time exploring and challenging themselves on the rope swing, climbing wall (which is actually a tree) and tasting some of the veggies in the garden.

After a few team challenges, it was time to hit the river. Some of the Snowy Owls challenged themselves by opting to kayak, while the others eagerly jumped into canoes. In total, we paddled 3.5 km of the winding Beaver River. We spotted all sorts of wild creatures along the way; lots of birds and small mammals… and even a painted turtle!

After our return and quick lunch, we jumped into our pond study. Students grabbed their nets and buckets and dove right in. They found the usual – crayfish and minnows – but were also able to catch and identify different species of bugs and snails.

The day was incredibly fun and chock-full of learning. A picture is worth a thousand words, so be sure to scroll down and see for yourself. A big thanks to Jacob, our awesome Free Spirit guide who paddled along with us, and all the other guys at Heathcote that lent a hand (Joel our boat master; and Bryan, who gave an impromptu lesson on gardening and free pick at his ground cherries.) Overall, a very successful first outing!

Next Week:
Time to uncover those creepy crawly bugs!

Matt and Kim

Our Fall Harvest!

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Hey Folks,

With the autumn looming this week we celebrated our “Fall Harvest” at Forest School. The whole day revolved around harvesting food, working as a community and sharing a meal together.

We searched the property and to our pleasant surprise were able to not only uncover a few awesome pear trees, but also some apple trees scattered throughout the forest. Preserving was the word of the day so we set to dehydrating the pears we picked from the tree to make ourselves some chewy fruit snacks. This was a big hit among students!

During an exploratory hike around the property, the Snowy Owls (with the help of some keen Painted Turtles), were able to fill a bag of apples – and discover sour wild grapes, red clover, Queen Anne’s Lace [wild carrot], and a patch of strawberries for the spring too! Even through hardship (a journey through the newly named “prickly” mountain – full of thistles!) we trekked on and were later rewarded with 100% pure, local apple sauce prepared with love over the fire. All the students were able to bring a jar home, so be sure to try it!

Our final project today was to create “Stone Soup” over the fire. We would like to send out a big thanks to all students who brought in some home grown (or neighbour/grandparent grown!) veggies. Our veggies included kale, cucumber, tomatoes (from our School Garden from last year!), garlic, potatoes, onions and much more. The soup was a HUGE success and one of the tastier ones we’ve ever had. All students had a hand in the prep work and the cooking and therefore all earned their Cooking Beads! Congratulations.

In addition to the food, our day focused on the 7 Grandfather Teachings. Using legends and discussions, students learned about Love, Truth, Honesty, Humility, Respect, Wisdom and Bravery. They made connections in their own lives and at Forest School (in fact our whole sticker system is based on these Teachings). Furthermore, students spent a good amount of time in their sit spots, balancing on our slackline, and working together to build a brand new fire pit area (as our old one was invaded by poison ivy)! We even had time to set up our own seed library for use next year. What a busy and productive day!

Congrats to our first ever “Teaching Bead” recipient for an awesome lesson in making origami. And a big welcome to our two new (but returning) students!

Next Week:

FIELD TRIP! We are going to be paddling next week and have a water focused theme. Please send along a bathing suit for your children so they can enjoy the water. Boats, paddles, and life jackets will be provided but if you have your own PFD feel free to bring it. Drop -off and pick-up will be as usual at Bygone Days!

Have a great week!

Kim and Matt

A cathole? You’ve got to be kidding.

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Hey Folks!

We had a busy day learning all about Leave No Trace (LNT) principles for low impact visits to natural areas.

Let’s go through all 7 together:

Plan ahead
Also known as “know before you go” students had the opportunity to get organized and pack a backpack with all the necessities needed for a one night camping trip. One at time they presented their chosen item to bring and explained why. It was nice as teachers to sit back and watch how things unfolded. Some were necessary – water, matches, first aid – and others were very well justified – a book, a net, a bag of gummies. Thanks to a quick prior lesson using a bandana and coming up with as many purposes as possible, the students now saw things in a different light and opted for multi-purpose tools. Something we didn’t expect was when students started changing the bottle size of soap and sunscreen in order to save space and minimize weight! They thought of just about everything, and even set up a tent in case of rain.

Camp and hike on durable surfaces
AKA Choose the right path. For this one students identified potential problems arising from venturing off trails. They then had their own maze to overcome and find the right trail!

Leave what you find
This may be the hardest lesson for people to learn, but our students were able to brainstorm some really good reasons why. To hammer this point home, we went on an “archeological dig”, where a scene was set (a flat tire on a bike, pump nearby, oil canister, first aid, etc). The first group came up with a story around it, then took one item each away with them. When the second group came, there wasn’t much left to tell the story, so they came up with a completely different view. After a solid debrief, the students were able to make important connection with the natural world (and cultural heritage).

Trash your trash!
This is more than just garbage, as the students learned first hand today! Aside from the classic “pick up garbage”, the students had to complete a “cathole” relay. During the relay, students had to dig a cathole (a 6-8inch hole which they had to measure) fill it with “poop” (a rock), cover it properly and then run back as fast as possible (luckily we have bathrooms on-site!). They also got a first hand look at how long different materials take to decompose.

Respect Wildlife
Through a guided visualization of a special natural place, students became the animal of their choice, when all of sudden their place was ruined by humans. Add to this a “candy toss” where students acted like animals to get at it, and we’ve learned not feed wild animals.

Respect other Visitors
We visited “Camp OhNo” today and it was trashed by previous visitors – and without any prompts the students jumped in to clean it up. We also learned about noise pollution

Be careful with Fire
We covered the basics today and will delve much more in depth with this as the semester progresses. We learned briefly about making fires in existing pits, leaving no trace behind when you are done and never burning garbage, food or anything else that is bad for the environment (why food? It’s remains attracts animals to the spot.) For all their hard work today, they were rewarded with delicious marshmallow to cook over the fire.

So why do we teach LNT? An easy answer is that we are trying to educate those who enjoy the outdoors the potential impacts they can have, and how to minimize or prevent those impacts. More importantly though, we are trying to instill a good environmental ethic, and a respect and love for nature. It teaches us to live in balance with the natural world and is best understood as an educational and ethical program, not as a set of rules and regulations. And it gets us on the same page for the rest of our semester together.

A big thanks to our returning students who have incredible memories of the things they learned last year and were able to take a leadership role and play an important part in our activities. And a big CONGRATS to everyone in earning their first bead! The LNT bead. We also gave away our first craft bead for a fantastic terrarium.

REMEMBER! The key number is 200ft. In the backcountry, your catholes should always be 200ft from camp, water and the trail. Your camp should always be 200ft from water. And always be at least 200ft from animals.

One last thought – a candid moment overhead by us:

“Why do people still make these things [plastics] that are so bad?” – Student 1
“For money.” – Student 2
“Well, we can change that when we get older” – Student 1

We love these moments.

Next Week:
Next week we are calling the “Fall Harvest” where we will learn about the 7 grandfather teachings, get into some food preservation, and create a “stone” soup. The stone soup will be cooked over a fire and it is a soup full of random veggies. If you want to, please send your child with a vegetable to add in to it, preferably from your garden so they can tell us all about it.

Cheers,

Matt and Kim

And we’re off!

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Hey Folks!

A big welcome to all our new students this year and a big welcome back to all our Forest School returners! Every week, we’ll be posting a summary and photos here of all the adventures our Snowy Owls and Painted Turtles get up to. It is our hope to try and capture all those moments of exploration, learning and good old fashioned fun on here to share with you.

We (Kim and Matt) are privileged to be the Tuesday and Wednesday teachers for the Collingwood branch of Free Spirit Forest School. Although we have a basic outline we follow each day, one of the greatest things about emergent learning is we never know where it is going to take us. And thus you will certainly read about slight variations in our days.

This week our focus was on getting to know our school house, the land we are using, our learning community and our daily routines. After creating our nature medallions, we started our day off like we will every week with the students participating in a smudging ceremony using white sage. We do this to honour the cultural history of the area as well as cleanse ourselves of negativity in order to set the tone for the day.

After some community building, the students were then introduced to some of the tools that we use including our sticker charts (which are tied to the Seven Grandfather Teachings) and our Bead Ceremony. The Bead Ceremony is an ongoing project where students will earn beads for various hard, soft and creative skills that learn. For more information on specific beads, please click here.

Just before lunch, we headed out on a hike around a portion of the property to get to know it better. The students brought along their journals a mapped out the village and the surrounding area. We have a giant group map that we are creating together with all the special places we discover along the way.

After lunch, we headed out to choose our sit spots and spend some alone time in nature. These spots will play an important part throughout the year at Forest School as we will be visiting them weekly with different activities to do. We followed this up with the extreme race course – crawling through tubes, balancing on beams, army crawling under a fence, then hopping over walls – and all in under 30 seconds!

Throughout the day, we had some great moments of curiosity and exploration, too. From our students ripping up old diseased tomato plants to save the others; to climbing trees, catching frogs and naming swans; from sweltering heat, to running around in the pouring rain; from sharing legends and stories, to slurping down watermelon and spitting the seeds out as far we could. We had a blast and are looking forward to the upcoming semester!

We have a great group of kids this year and are excited to see where it will take us. We are always open to suggestions and want you to be involved as much as possible. Please let us know if you have any ideas or resources we can use to enhance your child’s learning.

That’s all for this week, check out the photos below! Next week we’ll be diving into Leave No Trace ethics.

Thanks,

Matt and Kim

That’s a wrap

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What an AMAZING season we had at Forest School!

Your child was able to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of concepts learned throughout our Forest School in our culminating Amazing Race Challenge. Using their compasses and orienteering skills, they navigated through various team building exercises, survived a terrible storm in a shelter, and indulged in placed-based learning by the infamous Fossil Mountain. Along the way, students answered questions related to safety, the Grandfather Teachings, medicine wheel, animals we studied, LNT principles, and tracking to earn material used for a building a small fire to celebrate our final time together. We processed the learning experienced throughout the “year” and shared many memories and laughs along the way.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, we cannot thank you enough for diving into this program with us and trusting us for the beginning stages of our Forest School. We know that the fall will look similar in terms of nature-based emergent learning and we look forward to creating more opportunities to grow and learn outdoors with your children. If you have any suggestions, don’t hesitate to reach out. Uploaded soon will be a registration form for next year.

Thank you again for an amazing semester! Enjoy your exploring this summer!

We hope to see you on the trails/rivers/rock walls,

Matt & Kim

“Pond”er this!

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Hey Everyone,

We spent our days this week with two classical elements: Fire and Water (and I suppose the Earth and Wind as well). After measuring our tomato plants for growth, it was time for the much anticipated attempt at the Fire Bead.

After a review of the basic needs of fire (heat, oxygen, and fuel), we were off to the back fields for students to show off their skills. Students partnered up, selected their site and were given three matches to create a small fire that would burn long enough to roast a marshmallow. They gathered tinder, kindling and bigger pieces of wood just like we practiced (and a water bucket… safety first!) They built teepees, keeping in mind the 3 d’s – dead, down and dry wood. Within half an hour, ALL students were enjoying their marshmallows on the fire. Some were even able to light it using one match! Needless to say, everyone earned their Fire Bead!

The afternoon saw a visit to Black Ash Creek to discover the creatures it held. The students jumped right in (quite literally!) with sieves and nets, and quickly filled our buckets with various little critters. At first, we found a lot of the usual – striders, minnows and crayfish (even one with eggs under her tail!), but soon we had the magnifying glasses out and were identifying a whole bunch of new ones. We found a ton of mayfly larvae, an interesting, somewhat scary looking creature. Then came the elusive dobsonfly larvae, a hard character to identify. Finally, an intense looking predacious diving beetle, or more commonly known as the “water tiger”. We even caught a baby snapping turtle on Thursday! In true Forest School and LNT fashion, all the creatures were returned to their homes soon after making our observations and classifications.

Next week is Rock Climbing! All the gear will be provided, but if you have your own feel free to bring it. We recommend wearing running shoes too. As mentioned, we (Kim and Matt) won’t be there as we are off in the woods on canoe trips, but the students are lucky enough to have some great leaders filling in! We look forward to hearing about it!

We’ll see you at the final ceremonies!

Matt and Kim

Paddlin’

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Hey Folks,

We had the great opportunity to explore off property this week with a trip down the Beaver river. Though we had two drastically different weather days, the result was the same: lots of laughs and some new hard skills. We were treated to an abundance of wildlife – birds galore, fish, so many frogs we lost count, and of course bugs – as the students navigated their way down the river and even against strong winds.

On Wednesday, we joined up with the Red Tail Hawks from our sister Forest School group for our paddle and then we were off to their property to explore and get a sense of all the wonderful things they are up to – and what an incredible place they have. After our initial tour, Shannon led a lesson on survival debris shelters and the students jumped at the opportunity to set up ridge lines, frame the roof, and “shingle ” it with natural materials. Some turned into forts, while others were perfect for survival (complete with a NE facing door).

Thursday was similar, but we stayed in Heathcote and explored the Free Spirit gardens, accomplished some team building exercises, and then returned to Bygone Days to build shelters of our own. It’s always amazing to see what the kids can come up with when left to their own devices.

A great big thanks to all the adult volunteers who came out for the paddle with us – we couldn’t have done it without you. And special recognition to the students that sat stern of their very own boats!

We’ll see you next week! Enjoy the warm, sunny weather.

Matt and Kim

Learning Blocks and Compasses

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Hey Folks,

Another fun-filled week of productive play and learning at Forest School, with a special contribution from Collingwood’s Healthy Kids Community Challenge who brought us their mobile Imagination Playground. We spent a solid portion of our day working collaboratively using the block-based system to build, smash and recreate various castles, towers, bird’s eye views of small villages, buildings, cars, waterfalls – you name it! Your children unleashed their creativity to manipulate the foam blocks and noodles to modify existing target games – like baseball, horseshoe and other tossing games. They collectively built a large creative structure for lunch (with a moat all around us too one day). They met our team building “bobsled initiative” by working together to move a ball across the field using the “pipes”. And they enjoyed the social aspect of hands-on productive playtime. Keep your eyes open in parks and green spaces near your neighbourhood as the HKCC has dates booked in June to visit local parks with their mobile playground to encourage fun, active play outside – and it’s FREE! For more information, check them out here.

More exciting news for Forest School: Thanks to Free Spirit Gardens, we now have our very own raised veggie bed! We drew on our previous knowledge about species competition, plant needs and wants, and appropriate spacing. We measured, marked and planted multiple tomato and pepper seedlings! It was fun getting our hands dirty to grow our own food!

In the afternoon, we spent our day learning about all things related to maps and orienteering – Cardinal Directions, parts of a compass, how to travel. Using various hard copies of maps, we identified key components of maps (title, legend, directions, scale), then updated our Snowy Owl and Red Tail map of the property. Shortly after (on Wednesday), we ventured to our sit spots to create a bird’s eye map of their own area (Thursday they made classroom maps due to weather). If your child is asking for a needle, cork, and magnet, they are likely referring to the craft we made today to demonstrate how magnetic North works. Did you know you can make your own?

To earn our new Travel Bead (white), students were required to successfully navigate an orienteering course created on the property – all students were able to independently travel between points using their newly honed compass skills! Quite impressive! This hard skill will be of extra importance as we approach our culminating activity for our final day at Forest School (last week of June).

In addition to the Travel Beads earned this week, two students earned their Peer Support Bead – a very special bead designed to represent the consistent awareness and curiosity of others, empathy, and general support of one another through meaningful friendship and play! A very significant bead at Forest School. Congratulations!

As weather continues to warm up, a friendly reminder to bring lots of water, a sun hat, sunscreen – and even a change of clothes, swimsuit and a towel! We will soon be selling Forest School T-Shirts for those who are interested! ($10.00). Lastly, please remember to bring in your parent/student feedback forms, if you haven’t already. We would really love to hear from you!

Enjoy the rest of your week,

Matt and Kim (and Aden!)