As most of you know we went off property this morning and headed to one of Forest Schools favourite area – Metcalfe Rock! Located just beyond Blue Mountain we tucked ourselves away right beside natural rock formations and some of Ontario’s best rock climbing.
Our students challenged themselves through rock climbing and caving, along with meeting our sister school from Collingwood. Our older students discovered how courageous they were caving in the Ice Cave, while our smaller students explored caverns and smaller caves. We are so proud of everyone who pushed their comfort zones, made new friends and new memories. We took an extra pictures this week to capture everyones experiences, we hope you enjoy!
Thanks for stopping by to read about another great day at Forest School, and we had such a mix of weather from heat, sun, rain, thunderstorm, lighting, chilly wind, hail and then back to sun, our students are getting used to what Fall is all about.
This morning our students warmed up by our new fire pit (Thanks Jennie), and with some familiar games that kept us working up a sweat, we also introduced a new skillful game called scout. This was child invented, and quickly became a favourite of ours that we plan on continuing to play and work towards becoming skillful scouters, hiders and planners.
Today was also the start of our natural first aid kits, and we are lucky enough to have a HUGE patch of Spotted touch-me-nots or Spotted Jewelweed right by our building. Our students harvested some and put the stems in a jar and covered it with oil. Within 4-6 weeks we can then strain the contents and make a salve – this will become a remedy for Poison Ivy. We continued to wonder through the forest and found more gems like our friendly neigbourhood Garter Snake, which welcomed more questions and firsts for some, journals, sit spots, lots of construction with forts and plant identification – with our new I.D cards (Thanks Matt).
A big Thank you to all the students who helped out with making our Pear Sauce, and while having too much fun we ran out of time to cook it, but we are happy to report all pears were still eaten raw, coated in cinnamon, ginger and vanilla – YUM.
Reminders – We are going a Field Trip to Metcalf Rock, and we couldn’t be more exited to show all of our students a new space and a place where they take their families!
This week we welcomed the rain, and while some of us may stay inside to stay dry, our students embraced the rain and discovered our soil ecosystem, which was full of life! We even learned a new song called Young and Wild – ask your child to sing it for you!
While some of our students started their day playing rain hockey/rain soccer, some were working on their powers that controlled the weather (wind), and discovered magical crowns, similar to what the fairies wear.
We then ventured to “hot chocolate mountain” and really began diving into the dirt, which brought extreme discoveries. Ranging from frogs, millipedes, HUGE worms, spiders, ant farms, magical willow monsters, and even a Red Spotted Newt! This was a great find for our students because it was new, and the second ever found on Bygone Days Property.
Along our adventure we even came across our pear tree, and we thought it was a great day to introduce our students into cooking over the fire, and we are so proud of the teamwork for stick collecting. We are continuing each week to work towards building our fire skills with our 3 D’s (Dead, Dry and Down) – which is even harder when it’s wet outside, but our sweet reward was worth the wait!
We love taking the time to sing, dance, get really muddy, explore and investigate even if it’s the roots of a plant! We love to give children the guidance and empowerment to try new things even if its letting a spider walk on their leg, and as one of our students said today, ” I’m scared of spiders but I’m trusting myself”.
Thanks for stopping by for another great day at Forest and Nature School, and with all this beautiful weather we didn’t waste any time. We welcomed all of students with the sound of ukuleles, which led to lots of singing and our students even playing their own tunes this morning. We are always encouraging our students to express themselves through song, dance, art or story telling, and we welcome more instruments every week!
Our students were in full swing this morning playing child led games, working on our hunting and hiding skills, which make our students amazing trackers and are even starting to build relationships that embody respect, communication and genuine empathy. We have so much to learn from each other and this is why we encourage our older students to spend time with our younger students, which naturally happens and the learning is abundant!
Today we challenged our younger students and continue to wander and explore our new Forest School home, and while all of our students work on core routines, each students day unfolds differently. Some students focused on the little things like catching new creatures (tree frogs, millipedes, caterpillars, cicadas, and one legged grasshoppers!). Plants were a big topic today from ground mushrooms to acorns falling from the sky, along with which animals we can catch (chipmunks and squirrels). Some of our other students worked on construction projects, identification, journals, art work, ultimate hiking, tracking and we even started collecting Cicada exoskeletons!
We continue to build our school map which lead us to all of our amazing finds and continue to make the Blueberry trails our own personal magic forest. We look forward to seeing everyone next week to make some more music!
We are filled with gratitude for the wonderful welcome into the Wasaga Beach community from our new friends and families. Our day was filled with little moments that took us by surprise (literal surprise!.. aka spotted touch me not flowers), and big moments that brought us all together to build relationships.
We are very proud to say that all of our students have amazing Owl eyes (excellent vision) and identified plants and creatures that our teachers even missed. Our students were so eager to share their findings with their fellow peers and were constantly asking “I wonder” questions, which as educators we love as we want to keep those inquisitive minds pondering. We worked on mapping, tracking and our karate moves when we walked through unknown spider webs.
A lot of our students were new to this forested area, which made for lots of hiking and exploration. We were really looking to the ground for what Mother Nature had to offer and we were not disappointed. Some of the finding our student made were: Monarch Butterflies, Yellow Bears (Caterpillars), Huge Dragonflies, Inch worms, Tree Frogs, Fire Ants, Mushrooms, Ferns, Trees, oh and did we mention Millipedes? These friendly little fellas were abundant today showing us their legs, body and how they protect themselves. Our students were even lucky enough to have some firsts and felt what it was like to hold one. As one student said “it feels very ticklish and feels super cool”.
We want to thank you to all the students for coming into the Forest with us and exploring, wandering, playing and sharing their stories, we are very lucky to have spent our day with such awesome students.
Come back each week to see what we have been up to!
What an amazing day to welcome new and familiar faces back to Forest School, and our Chickadees didn’t waste anytime getting back into the swing of things. We had a busy morning filled with games, running, building, obstacle courses, a very talented band, and our returning students even helped with our morning fire!
Jumping into our core routines (opening circle, sit spots), our Chickadees were constantly practicing their Deer ears (excelling listening), Owl eyes (excellent vision) and Fox feet (being super sneaky). These skills were used while we found an abundance of small creatures only found by those who believe in the magic of the woods! Some of the smaller friends we found were Caterpillars, Spiders, Worms, Fire Ants, A Preying-mantis and Grass Hoppers (great job to all of those who caught one, and showing us that their pee stains your hands – But with a little hand sanitizer, cleaned right up!).
While bugs were the highlight of our day, mother nature provided moments for us to relax and learn about her other offerings, such as Plantain, Goldenrod and Walnut Seeds. Coming close to the end of our day we ended with an amazing and very skillful game of soccer.
We had a day full of laughing, adventure, exploring and first times, and we couldn’t have asked for a better group of chickadees to share our day with!
Thanks for stopping by,
Emily and Krista and the FNS Team.
Check out some pictures below to see how our day went!
We welcomed our last day of Forest School with positive vibes and though all students were sad to leave, we knew summer break had to come at some point – and who doesn’t love summer!? Last week we asked our students “What would you love to do for our last day?” which was a super exciting question because this led to a full day of activities and play directed by students. Our ideas ranged from games, building objects, testing our skills, learning more about wild edibles and team bonding. Being Forest School students the rain and ominous clouds didn’t wash them out, it actually gave the students more excitement, energy and a day full of messy, mucky play!
A huge thank you for all our students who showed and shared some amazing things today! We had Izzy show us her Earth Ranger badge! She is one of many students protecting painted turtles and their habitat – amazing! If you would like more information about becoming an Earth Ranger please visit www.earthrangers.com. We also had Alice show us her favourite vest that was hand made by her Grandma, Emily introduced us to her wolf stuffy named “Snow” and Taven gave us a sneak peek into his tooth and rock collection! We also headed out to a new spot by the Beaver River for most of our day, this burned off some energy. Along the way our kids found wild grape tendrils, wild black caps (not ready to eat) and the start of crab apple trees.
Within our afternoon some students worked on whittling their arrows, while some tested and practiced with the “maze game”. Students also starting building a HUGE birds nest! This project was taken home by Aaron, who we know will continue to build upon it and make a great home for birds. This afternoon we tested our kids with 3 tasks. Our first task was to make it through our “maze game” all students helped each other along the way, which made it easier to make it to the end. Our second task was communication and hand eye coordination with “throw me the water balloon” game – we have some great water balloon tossers as it turns out! Our last task was our scavenger hunt! Our kids had 19 things to find, which came easy for some – it was great to see the different things our students picked and noticed.
Thank you to all our students who participated in Forest School this year, as well with all the parents for driving your young ones to our program! We had another amazing semester full of laughter, tears, self discoveries, learning new things every day, building upon our skills and too many memories to count! Remember to keep exploring and discovering new things!
“Congratulations today is your day. You’re off to great places, you’re off and away. You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re off on your own and you know what you know, and you are the one who will decide where to go.” – Dr. Seuss.
We enjoyed another awesome field trip this week to the Beaver River located in Heathcote. This river is a local favourite of ours, especially if we want to see an abundance of wild life!
Each week at Forest School we are reminded of how much of a caring community we have, and field trips bring out the best in us! After our morning routines each class bounced into the vans anticipating the excitement of our last trip before summer break. Kayaking and Canoeing were the options for the day, and while some felt more comfortable leading their own boat, others took turns paddling and looking for wild life. Some of the amazing finds were painted turtles, leeches, birds, frogs, slugs, toads, and snakes.
Our week also brought mixed weather, which didn’t slow anyone down! Within our afternoon our students took advantage of what the Heathcote property had to offer. Some students ate wild strawberries, worked on their slack lining skills, climbed the willow trees and had an epic frog hunt! Our students showed off their creativity by building lego towers and life sized lego men and even created a student led game called “capture” (which was a huge hit). We also took a crack at attempting to solve some of our wooden puzzles, which turns out are a lot harder than they look. 3 out of 5 were accomplished!
A HUGE thanks to Carley and Tamara for stepping in this week for Matt and Kim! We would love to have you back!
This week we welcomed Collingwood’s Forest School students to join us on our adventure down one of our favourite rivers – the Beaver River. Sadly, no actual beavers were spotted today. However, we would like to send out a huge thank-you to Brian – our local plant ID expert, for showing the students some wild edibles this morning. Our students had the chance to eat black lochs flowers (full of flavour and a sweet “pop”), and grape tendrils (“grape arms” that are a bit sour) and mint (ahh, refreshing). We highly suggest trying these wild treats, OH – and our potato towers are are becoming taller than us, and will be ready to pick by the end of summer!
This afternoon during our group paddle down the Beaver River, our students came across frogs, lots of different birds, a cool water beetle, leeches, fish, crayfish, a garter snake, and even a painted turtle! We challenged and pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones, which earned some students very well deserved beads. Nearing the end of our day we said good-bye to our new friends, and focused on one of our favourite activities – frog hunting! We must say, our students are becoming experts at catching frogs, it’s a good thing we don’t eat them – or there would’t be any left to catch! Today there were 7 peer support beads, 1 bravery bead, 2 litter less lunches, 1 Al bead and 1 leadership bead.
Next week – Summer Celebration!!! Our last day of Forest School will consist of games, challenges and amazing memories! What a bittersweet day we have to look forward to!
Another great day in the books with our amazing students, this week at Forest School was all about reflection and hiking! After our morning smudge circle, our class raced to the van and headed to one of our favourite Brue Trail hike spots – Loree Forest. The past two rainy days gave us a great opportunity to find animal tracks in the soft mud (fox, deer and dog..or maybe wolves), the kids earned some beads as well!
Our students also came across huge patches of poison ivy, salamanders, garter snakes, caterpillars, centipedes, worms, slugs and an abundance of “Jack in the pulpit” flowers.
Our hike took us to the top of the Georgian Peaks, and after our snack and check ins, we had an in depth discussion about bullying. It was amazing to see our students support each other, there was no shortage of great advice, thats for sure. Sometimes we forget how hard it is to be a kid these days, but the courage to ask for help makes it a lot easier. Afterwards, we took some time to relax in the beautiful sunshine and reflect on our past week.
Within our afternoon our kids kept super busy by revisiting their favourite game “Farmer”, while some went for an epic frog hunt (17 in total), and others spent time building animal shelters. Sticking with our reflection theme, we thought back to our morning hike and wrote down what we saw, smelled, heard and touched. Our class is becoming incredibly independent and creating self-led activities. We are SO proud!
Today we formed even stronger bonds with each other by sharing advice, and encouragement. All of the support our students recieve goes along way outside of out classroom. Students gained more show and share beads, litter less lunch beads, fire beads, animal tracking beads and everyone deserved an exciting Al bead. Congrats!
Next week – We are going to be paddling the Beaver River.
