Free Spirit Forest and Nature School

Nurturing Connection with Self, Others and Nature

Squirrel dance parties and an epic coyote hunt.

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Hi Folks!

Thanks for checking into the blog this week. We spent time learning about animal tracks and were fully prepared to discover all of the new (and old) prints on our beautiful property. To understand tracks better, students focused on learning various parts of a print, how/what to measure to correctly identify it using a field guide and how to use the print information to tell us about what’s happening (stride, straddle, direction of travel). Is the animal galloping, pacing, or stalking? Are they conserving energy or doubling back on their tracks? Are they moving to and from specific places, like shelter, food or water?

Whether we heard animals rustling, saw tracks, scat or deer rubbings, felt chew marks or scratches on trees, or smelled (though not nearly as well as animals!) animals, we could use all of our senses to discover various large, medium and small signs of animals nearby. We soon learned that animal tracking is both a science and an art- it’s not just about the actual print; we also need to be aware and process the entire environment while tracking to get a complete sense of the story!

Tuesday saw us jump into the role of animals with a game of Survival to start us off. We then headed out and around Mysterious Forest, where we discovered a lot of coyote scat, and prints, rabbit signs, and different burrows. Tuesday even brought the addition of Frarles (or Fred/Charles) our lovable, crooked live Christmas tree. Students also got crafty with some homemade wreaths, decorations and other play dough figures.

On Wednesday, students decided to stay close to a water source and we were amazed by all of the activity! We were able to track prints, discover more scat, and even follow a trail of a coyote stalking a goose – feathers, bones and all! Students seemed incredibly understanding after discovering a loss like this, especially when we explored the topic of needing to survive and took a deeper look at the life cycle. We also ventured off site to do some stalking of our own with the community healthy kids GPS challenge!

On Thursday, with freshly fallen snow, students enjoyed seeing some fresh squirrel, chipmunk and rabbit tracks in between the trees. We even ventured to the far end of our property for the first time, all the way past the maple forest and sugar shack. We spent some quality time out there with newly invented student-led survival and camouflage games.

On Friday, students were keen to go to both the water source and Mysterious Forest on the hunt for more tracks! It was really fun to see them using the guidebooks independently and creating their own understanding about what unfolded (be it an epic battle scene or a squirrel dance party after finding a lost nut!) Tracking animal prints lets us explore outside, feel closer to nature and hone our creativity and imagination! We also had a special guest – Mrs. Simpson (Matt’s Mom) – who taught us some American Sign Language to go along with the creatures we discovered. Thanks Sandi!

A special thanks to our Thursday class as well for diving in to help set up part of our new amazing plans for the winter: a Prospector Tent, with a wonderful wood stove!!! We love how helpful and curious our Forest School students are and how keen they were to be involved in this new addition. Just in time too for our winter session!

Despite having some warm places, please remember to bring extra clothing. In particular, we consider boots, hats, mitts and neck warmers a mandatory part of our outer wear. When these inevitably get wet, we can dry them by the fire/heater and wear our extras in the meantime! Remember, with our freshly welcomed snow, always wear snow pants/jacket, with some good fleece and wick away layered clothing underneath.

Next Week: Snow Fun!

Enjoy all this new snow!

Kim, Matt and Tamara

More pics:

What bird is best?

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Hi Friends,

Our little birds

This week at Forest School was dedicated to continuing our education about our feathred little friends, Birds! With our in-class lessons and hands on games, we packed our day full of physical activity. This morning we put our students to the test, and worked together to start a fire without a match! Thanks Aaron for sharing your flint and steel, and great job to Jack for starting it, we even timed it at 7 minutes and 49 seconds. Between our fire starting and teaching each other how to fish, we discovered our second Beaver! We even found 3 bird nests with mommy protecting her eggs, which fit our curriculum perfectly. Check out our epic day!

Our day was too beautiful to be inside, so we only spent one lesson indoors. There was a big discussion about what makes a bird, a bird! Is it their feathers, wings, beak, hollow bones or just their great personality? Either way birds are pretty cool animals and getting the chance to not just discuss them, but feel their feathers, and get up close an personal with their nests is a great opportunity to invoke more curiosity. While we spent some time on our journals, we also took a moment to create our “Forest School Binoculars” out of toilet paper rolls. Through out our day we saw many Canadian Geese, Robins, Chickadee’s and Turkey Vultures.

Our students dove right into their role of Canadian Geese for the game “Canadian Geese Migration” this morning. Our little birds had to migrate down South safely, and be aware of all the risks associated with migration. Our flock of birds had to fly from each resting stop, making their way through beautiful landscapes full of clean water and food , natural disasters, oil spills and landfills and a SURPRISE from the hunters! Our students discovered some of the challenges these birds face on a daily basis, and that nature isn’t nice all the time. It was sad to say not all Canadian Geese survived, with starting with 9, and ended up with 2!

This afternoon we let our creativity take over, and made natural bird feeders with peanut butter, honey, bird seed, pine cones and sticks. Some of our students even made “human-feeders” with bracelets and necklaces made from Cheerios and pipe cleaners which led us into our bird feeder game, and then into the ultimate “Chickadee Vs Blue Jays”. It’s not always easy being a bird, our little Chickadee’s had to fly to the bird feeders and take their food back to their nests, but WAIT! Those pesky Blue Jays are trying to steal food from the Chickadee’s nest! All of our little birds worked so hard to fill their nest with food, but the Blue Jays won the battle, flying away with 25 pieces of food. Good news is all birds went home with some food in their nests!

Today there was an abundance of Love, Wisdom and Respect stickers earned! We are getting close to some prizes and Bingo beads! Thank you to Izzy for bringing in your Whale book, it was super awesome to look at all those pictures, Congrats on the Show and Tell Bead!

Next Week – We will be working on some new, and unfinished projects!

Until Next Week,

Krista

Jays vs Juncos

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Hey Everyone,

Wow! What a fun-filled week at Forest School. Our focus was on birds this week and we had just the right mix of rainy days and sunshine to see them keeping busy and singing songs… though Thursday students might not agree with the sunshine part! Our bird feeders from last week welcomed new feathered friends and signs of spring were all around us.

We had a wide range of fun throughout the day, starting with an awesome invention of “ring toss” (a combination of dodge ball and volleyball), and perhaps our new favourite game, “Jays vs Junco’s”. For Jays vs. Junco’s, most students acted as Junco’s foraging food, discreetly bringing it back to their nest to feed their young. Their objective was to hide it from the pesky Blue Jays, who were ransacking all of the nests they could find for their own needs! There were decoy nests, distress calls between Juncos, and a lot of laughs!

All decked out with binoculars and field books, our students wandered around the property with a Bird BINGO card in hand, looking for all types of birds, doing all types of things! Birds perching, flying, building nests, birds with long legs and tails, super colourful feathers, or a more camouflaged look – we saw it all! After gaining a few tips in observation (nature voice and fox-feet) and fine-tuning our eyes and ears, we set out for a hike around the big pond in an attempt to see (and hear) some more action. And that we did! Turkey Vultures, Killdeers, Chipping Sparrows, Robins, Common Grackles, FISH (3 dead, but some alive!), frogs, snails, caterpillars, another duck nest with 6 eggs and more! One day, we even had an impromptu memorial for Chippy, our little chipping sparrow that sadly must have collided into a window. Sometimes we work through big feelings and meaningful events at Forest School and we are always impressed with student’s thoughtfulness, wisdom and empathy during these times.

Students continue to LOVE spending time in their sit spots. This week, the Snowy Owls had a challenge to create dialogue between birds and record their conversations. Needless to say, with their incredible imaginations, students came up with some creative story lines! After identifying characteristics of birds, the Painted Turtles were tasked with the challenge of eating with “beaks” and were required to fill a “nest” with birdseed… using chopsticks! On Thursday, all students rose to the challenge of becoming migrating geese working together to take their flying V south. Along the way, they learned of the struggles faced by birds and some of them didn’t make it all the way to the end.

It sure was a wonderful week to be listening to and watching our bird friends! A big congratulations to the students who earned an Al’s bead for their thoughtfulness and good friendship, and other students who earned their Show and Tell beads this week! We also gave out a special Nature Lover bead to a curious birder!

Next Week:
We will be learning about ecosystems!

Reminder:
Please dress for the weather and bring an extra set of clothes, including a water bottle!

See you next week,

Krista, Matt and Kim

More Photos:

Hibernate, migrate or keep active!

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Hi everyone!

Today was packed full of exploration, curiosity and new skills! With our focus on wilderness survival we decided to gear our day towards learning about our furry little friends and how they survive our harsh, Canadian winters. Our students decided to start their day by working towards a new bead – “starting a fire without a match”. What a great way to start our day. Thank you Lara for bringing in your show and tell item which also acted as a tool for our fire. This hand held flint and steel was a challenge for some but after lots of persistence and determination we were able to start our fire.

“This is the best fire I have ever seen” -Izzy

After reading the book “Over and Under the Snow” by Kate Messner our students had the opportunity to visit the back bush and search for evidence of our little friends living under the snow. We found animal prints, animal holes, tunnels and fur under the snow. We also had a lot of fun “skating” and dancing on the ice that was left over from the storm earlier this week. This activity touched on three elements for animal survival – Hibernation, Migration and Keeping Active!

Hibernation (also keeping warm) is a huge part of survival; it is also something we strive for every day at Forest School. One of our goals of the day was to get the kids to brainstorm and idea. How would they would keep a jar of water warm and from losing heat in the cold? The challenge was accepted by all! We spent some time pretending our jars were animals and the outer layers (rubber pads, cloth, bubble wrap) were the fur and fat. We buried our jars in snow and will check on them next week just like the wild we believe that some will survive and others will not.

We took a moment out of our day to act like birds for the “Amazing Bird Wilderness Survival Game”. We paired up and each team received a “Bird information card” which included information about their diet and habitat. Their goal was to migrate through this large scale board game while coming across man-made and natural obstacles such as high winds, oil spill, clean windows, BB guns and other predators. We started with 12 birds and only 6 survived.

With all of this talk about animal survival, we then spent some time discussing how we would survive in the winter. We started our first survival kit that we will continue to add to over this semester. We continued to improve on our shelter building skills and some of our students tried their hands at a new skill – the bow and drill. We learned it was harder than it looks and when it starts to smoke, it smells like marshmallows!

With all that was going on we still found time to learn yet another new skill from one of our students. Thank-you Dax for showing your fellow classmates how to make a “slip knot”, and all of our students were able to complete one knot after the demonstration. Congratulations for earning the Teaching bead!

What a day for stickers and beads! Our stickers included 10 Respect, 8 Wisdom and 1 Bravery, and our beads included 1 Teaching, 3 Fire, 10 Shelter and 1 show and tell. Congratulations to everyone!

Next week – Field Trip!

Have a great week

Neal and Krista

Our day was awesome!

Subnivean Cities

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Making our own Subnivean Zones

Hey Everyone,

What an interesting day we had for our ~~Winter~~, wait scratch that, Freezing Rain Survival days. We went into this expecting to create quinzees and spend all day in the snow, but who could’ve guessed our snow would turn to ice so quickly!? So what can we do but make the best of the situation?? And that’s exactly what we did.

Our day was focused on what animals do to survive during the winter. After visualizing and becoming the animal of their choice, students were asked what they would do to survive in the winter. Some said they would sleep, others would hunt and others said they would move to somewhere warm. This covered all of our bases and in essence they already knew: hibernate, stay active, or migrate.

After reading an incredible story (Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner – seriously check it out if you don’t have it) to set the tone for the day, the students designed their own “Subnivean Cities”. This under-snow layer captivated the imagination of students, and we were even able to explore the real thing outside once the rain subsided.

Over and Under the Snow

To get a little more in depth with hibernation, students were teamed up and given a jar half-full of water. Their mission? To ensure this water doesn’t freeze even after being left outside for a week. Students attacked this challenge head on and started to come up with super creative ideas to insulate and protect the water. The water jars became their “Frogs”, Snakes” or “Turtles”, and when the layers were complete they now needed a safe space to hibernate. Outside the students searched and found ideal places for their “amphibians” and “reptiles” to sleep… buried deep in the ground, insulated by debris, dirt and snow. We’ll see what happens next week!

Insulating our “frogs” for hibernation

Add in some time playing student-created games, tracking animals and one another, engaging in a creative Forest School buff fashion show, having a bonfire while reading legend, and completing an adventurous hike to find a geocache, and it seems we had quite a busy day.

And still the students returned to the classroom for one final challenge. In partners, they were given a particular bird species outlined like a Pokemon Card that showed their strengths, habits, diets etc. As this specific type of bird, students had to navigate a human-sized board game to show just how difficult migration can be and the potential threats that birds can face en-route. By the end, only a couple groups were able to migrate safely, but we developed really great insight about birds and their journeys during the winter.

(We had a request from a student for a copy of this game – it can be printed out by clicking here)

Migrating

Congratulations to our 3 Show and Tell bead recipients for bringing in a spider man web shooter, a handmade pair of moccasins and some awesome Polaroid pictures. We also gave out 2 musical beads for some stellar renditions of songs from the Lion King and a Bravery Bead!

Next Week:
Field Trip! We’ll be heading out to do some Cross Country Skiing!

We sure had practice with our balance on all that ice this week – here’s hoping for some snow next week.
Matt and Kim

More Photos:

Principal Jennie salting the driveway – thanks!

Follow Me!

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Hey Everyone,

Though tough for drivers, the snowstorm over the weekend was sure welcomed by us! It gave the perfect amount of time for local animals to run around and have their prints frozen in place for us to discover. As the temperatures warmed up, we were able to also see lots of tracks captured in the mud.

Tracking animals was our goal this week – and we were after much more than just footprints. Deer hair on trees, animal pee and, yes, even some coyote scat were all welcomed signs. We also used our ears to hear if animals were giving themselves away… turns out there is a lot of noise in silence.

Overall, we found a bunch of different animal tracks. Lots of white-tailed deer, some red foxes, rabbits, geese and other birds, and of course, Aden! He also gave us a first hand look at canine paws – toes, claws, dew-claws, and the heel. Some students even put their skills to use to track the teachers and find them!

On both days, and in different areas throughout Loree forests, the children were drawn to the hills and made impromptu slides with all the snow. It was magical to see the imagination, teamwork and good old fashion fun come to life.

Towards the end of the day, after completing Track ID 101, finding tracks, GPS tracking, and interpreting a picture of tracks by creating a story of what happened, the students had one more task to complete before receiving their Animal Tracking Beads: survive “Survival”. And they did. Congrats to all our new Tracking Bead recipients!

In addition to the Animal tracking beads, we gave out a record this week – 3 beads to one student, in one day! A couple of people received the Nature Lover Bead, other earned their Reflection Beads (for 15+ journal entries), a few creative Craft Beads were distributed, and a wonderful Teaching Bead on the origins of Popcorn. With only 2 weeks left, please encourage your children to finish up any bead work!

Next Week:
Shelters!!!

FRIENDLY REMINDERS:
Even though we are now into some Winter weather, we are still pretty comfortable at Bygone days. We plan to be outside as much as possible so please remember to send your children with layers… too many is better than not enough. At minimum your child needs a good warm toque and mittens/gloves, warm coat and snow pants, with a back up pair of splash pants. A back-up pair of gloves and hats would be good too. Remember – we are out exploring and sometimes that means snow, puddles, mud, etc. Thanks to everyone who is ensuring this – learning can’t happen when we are cold.

Our classroom is unheated and usually not much warmer than outside. On our end, we have:
A new Chiminea to have a fire going nearby
Small heaters to dry gloves
A kettle and tea (please send your child with a mug if they would like some; and it warms the hands!)
Extra gloves/hats just in case; and
For especially cold days, access to a warm space at the Youth Centre (though this is our last resort)

And one final thing! We’ve had some inquiries about Forest School for the winter semester. Just to clarify, some parents thought their children were going to be automatically enrolled in the winter semester which is not the case. If you want to enroll for the winter semester, you need to go to https://fsforestschool.com/register/. Or you can email Jennie Elmslie at freespirittours@hotmail.com . Spaces are beginning to fill up!

Challenge: Go out and explore this week with your child!

Thanks!
Matt and Kim

More photos:

Art Attack!

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Hey Folks!

At Forest School, we develop a lot of skills: physical and emotional intelligence, ecological literacy, and much more. In more traditional school terms, we’ve had a heavy focus on Science, Physical Education, and English, with some Art and even Math included in there. Usually, we pick a topic and focus our lessons around it. This week we decided to focus on a subject rather than topic, Art, and see where that took us through our student-led, emergent and inquiry-based learning. Hence both days unfolding differently.

Remember that old TV show Art Attack? It was all the rage when we were growing up. So we decided to replicate that this week as our culminating project… the only catch? In order to get the materials, the students had to “buy” them with points earned through team-building challenges and other art projects throughout the day.

Our first project was a cheerio bird feeder to replace our old pb ones in our sit spots. The Red tails then drew pictures of all the birds they thought would visit their feeders, as the Snowy Owls came up with conversational pieces (and dramatic plays) of the what the birds were up to in their sit spot and saying to each other. Quite a treat to see your children’s imagination at play here!

Throughout the day students completed a lot of team-building challenges. These focus on developing teamwork, communication and trust among participants. The activities have no right answer, the learning being the process. The students were put in a variety scenarios – cross through the “spider web”, navigate lava rivers, become an ant on a log and switch places with everyone, flip the tarp over without getting off, and the human knot – whatever the case they were up for the challenge. And they earned valuable points along the way for their final masterpiece. In some cases, not all attempts were a “success” in terms of completion. But the debriefing process that ensued was full of learning, and incredible to watch and facilitate.

Both groups had a great time making their new hiking sticks as well. Using a variety of paints, hemp strings and carving, the students came up with some beautiful pieces of usable art. And even built a totem pole for our Forest Hut area.

The final project involved using our “loose parts” (anything that can be moved, natural or not, to create things). From high up on fossil mountain, the teachers watched as the students used the material they had earned, along with things in their surroundings to create a masterpiece from the bird’s eye view.

As for beads, we gave our very first peer support bead this week! We also gave out a whole bunch of craft beads for some awesome crafts, including the titanic, a bird/squirrel house, a homemade starbucks mug, a clay teepee and natural puppets.

See you next week!

Kim and Matt

Catch me if you can

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Hey Everyone,

First off, a big WELCOME to our new students!

It seems like winter just won’t leave us alone – which we took full advantage of this week. The fresh layer of snow was perfect for seeking out and learning about animal tracks.

We began the day by checking “baited areas” to see if any creatures had visited and lucky for us, we had a hungry neighbourhood vole. Before learning the ins and out of tracking though, we tracked each other in a game we like to call Track and Seek. The students dove right in, tried to throw the other group off their trail while searching out shelter to hide in. Along the way, we were pleasantly surprised to find goose, rabbit and many more tracks.

Afterwards, we took the classroom to learn about the different parts and types of animal tracks. We even had a helping “paw” from Aden who was happy to show off his claws, toes, heel and dew claws. After a legend about animals, the students designed their own “monsters” and “monster tracks”. The ideas and explanations were incredibly creative! Then the students were given field guides and we were off to the 11th Line Trails. Our goal: to find the tracks of a white-tailed deer and red fox.

And did we ever reach our goal! The students were able to successfully identify dog, fox, deer, squirrel and rabbit tracks. Not only that, using the guide they were able to determine the speed at which the animals were traveling, which led to an epic tale (both days independently!) of the “rabbit” getting away from the “fox” (with a happy ending as we found no evidence to the contrary!)

Both groups independently got into “parkour” on the trails. Jumping from safe spot to safe spot when the trails were flooded. “I feel so ALIVE!” is the quote of the week from one student. Seems the weather can never bring us down at Forest School, and a big kudos to all the positive attitudes of the students.

As for beads, congratulations to our recipients this week! We gave away 2 group beads for excellent games invented and then led by students, one called Soccer Ball Track and Seek and the other called Sick Bug.

We are looking forward to next week, and hopefully some nice sunny days.

Matt and Kim

List of creatures’ tracks that we ID’ed:
Goose
Rabbit
Grey Squirrel
White-Tailed Deer
Aden
Domestic Dogs
Red Fox
Seagulls
Vole
Raccoon

The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw

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Hey Everyone,

We dove into birds this week and were fortunate enough to identify over a dozen different species. With robins, red wing blackbirds, cedar wax wings, so many waterfowl, and (our personal favourite) some killdeer to name a few, we had such an abundance of birds to ID and observe. We even saw a Red Tailed Hawk!

We explored a new forest area in search of pine cones (now aptly named “Pine Cone Valley”), then got sidetracked for awhile at the “Concrete Factory” (a wet, sandy, muddy mix in the “Endless Desert”). We brought the cones back to the school house and made good old fashioned peanut butter and seed bird feeders to hang in our sit spots in hopes of attracting some new friends.

From the stories of the students, we hear you had a happy Easter and enjoyed an extra long weekend! We had our own version of an egg hunt at the forest school this week. Students learned about maps and the use of latitude and longitude to find coordinates. We then got out the GPS and did an egg geocache, receiving new coordinates at each egg found, leading us to the next. The grand finale? A pot filled with hot chocolate cooked over the fire.

A BIG congratulations to our first recipients of beads this week. We gave out 3 craft beads for a great homemade bag, gravity-tension thorn spinner, and an egg carton museum; a storytelling bead for a wonderful legend told around the fire on the origins of maple syrup; and a 3 group beads for a great reflection activity led by a red tailed hawk, and two group activities lead by Snowy Owls.

See you next week!

Kim and Matt