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!
Metcalfe Rock is, and has been, an important place to Free Spirit for many years. For those of you who have never been, it’s totally worth the trip! Metcalfe is part of the Kolopore Uplands with trails that run in and among the Niagara Escarpment. In our humble opinion, it’s a magical place and it’s become a sort of ritual to return to the caves with our students each year.
Risky play is a huge part of what we do at FNS. It takes many different shapes, but always involves pushing limits and comfort zones in a thrilling and exciting way. It’s about testing oneself – and finding out what happens. During risky play, children not only experience an element of danger – actual or perceived – but they also risk receiving the potential benefits. With this in mind, it’s not a free-for-all in the caves, but a calculated adventure supported by the educators.
So why do we do it? Well, first of all it’s fun! Metcalfe is a surreal place full of magnificent crevice caves. It’s a step back in geological history where we literally go inside rock that is 450 million years, that was then carved and shaped by the last ice age. It’s also a place with rich cultural history and ancient trees and it’s a recreational haven you could explore for a lifetime. Not to mention you can also drink from natural springs! All of this and more, right in our own “backyard” (yay for place-based connections!).
Now why do we really do it? Aside from some obvious science, history and geography lessons we teach and the nature-connections we make, it’s also about personal growth for us. While caving, we push ourselves to expand our comfort zones. We find our limits and respect them, but sometimes push them, too. Not only are we developing physical literacy, we are building self-esteem, confidence and our socio-emotional self…all while caving!
As with everything we do, caving is challenge-by-choice for our students, and heavily front-loaded. Taking risks is integral to whole-child development, well-being and health. Exploring the caves is a great way to target this while teaching how to independently manage risks and be safe. We see trust developing, teamwork, encouragement and support. We see a shift a group dynamics, new friends, and leadership… we tend to see a different group leave then that which arrived. And this is why it is so important to us.
It was a great week here at Forest School and we had a lot of fun as teachers exploring new places and old favourites with our students. On Monday, we held a trial day to introduce new children to FNS. It was a great day full of sharing our special places at Bygone Days, hiking, playing, making shelters, fires and building with hand tools. Thanks to all those who came out, we had a blast!
Once a semester we like take a field trip to explore our local trails. We live in a beautiful area and believe that place-based education extends to our community as a whole. This week, we went to 4 different natural places with a goal to explore, have fun and learn a few things along the way.
Tuesday – Clendennan Dam
Located in Clarksburg, this place is a gem! After checking out the dam (and racing sticks over it) we headed along the trails. This hike offers a beautiful cedar forest, perfect for tree climbing as our students soon found out. The Chickadees set up camp and played around while the Snowy Owls headed further down the trail – trampled across bridges, along the cliffs, through the forest and finally out to the Beaver River. Along the way we saw lots of animal prints, fish and after lunch we were even treated with the discovery of a Beaver Dam.
Wednesday – Duncan (Bruce Trail)
The Collingwood and Heathcote FNS’s joined forces for this day as we stomped our way through some of the muddiest trails we’ve ever seen… and you probably already know this from the state of your child’s clothing. But muddy kids = happy kids, right?!
We hiked for a bit, down hills, across streams and up ladders over fences then chose a nice spot to hunker down for lunch. While there, unstructured time unfolded in various ways – building forts (which became zombie refuges), fairy cities with playgrounds and restaurants, and good old fashioned group games.
Thursday – Eleventh Line Trail
With the weather on Thursday our plans changed and we spent a good half of the day exploring and hiking around our own property. In the afternoon, we stayed a bit closer to home and had an awesome time splashing through puddles, navigating log balancing beams and searching for the perfect hiking stick. Oh, and again, avoiding the zombies on the Deer Trail of course! Kudos to these kids for braving (and embracing) the wild rain and snow!
Friday – Kolapore
Friday was a special day and with the awesome weather we were able to explore a really special place – Al’s Cave. Located close to Metcalfe Rock along a side trail, Al’s cave is home to a Geocache. After a crash course in Geocaching, students were given the GPS and led the way. After some twists and turns, and climbs and descents, we found our way and entered the cave. After a bit more looking we were able to locate the Geocache, swap prizes, write our name’s down and learn about Al and why this place is so important to us. When we returned to the school, students were so excited we continued our Geocache adventure and uncovered 3 more!
It was a really fun week, and we’d encourage you to explore these places with your kids! Let us know if you need anymore details to get there! Before we wrap up, we wanted to send out a BIG WELCOME to our new students this week and last. It’s exciting seeing our community growing!
A big thank you to all of the students who helped create our wonderful FNS float for the parade – it looked fabulous and was a great group project!
Next Week: Wild About Maps!!
Cheers,
The Forest School Team
(Matt, Kim and Tamara – and so many more!)
We had a fun week exploring the caves up around Metcalfe rock last week. Challenge-by- choice was the name of the game, and students pushed their limits and expanded their comfort zones as they ducked, crawled, and climbed their way down into the Earth.
Most groups had the chance to visit the Ice Cave, a local favourite because of it’s tasty surprise at the bottom. Students had the choice to visit the “holding tank”, head to the bottom, and attempt the “birth canal” – and we all made it through.
On Friday, we went in a different direction and headed deep down into the Bat Cave. Although their were no bats, students pushed themselves to make it down the grueling 65 feet to the exit… and then back up again.
Our young Chickadees showed a lot of courage in tackling the different parts of the tunnel cave while some of our older students who have been with us for awhile got the opportunity to try the “Ultimate” cave – a cave not suited for the feint of heart.
Metcalfe is one of our favourite places to go and with good reason. Each day after lunch unstructured play unfolded using different natural “loose parts” of the forest. Forts were constructed, fires were built, stories read, games played, and the discovery of a new area dubbed “The Rock Castle” with tunnels and shelters galore. A big koodos to the Tuesday crew – we were caught a bit off guard by all that snow but stayed warm and safe, and all pitched in to help out… and we got to visit our sister school in Heathcote!
We are really proud of all our students for showing such bravery – in both pushing themselves and in knowing and listening to their own limits. Congrats to those who earned beads!
Next Week: Projects! This is a time where we use tools to create things . Anything can happen and we’ve got a lot of material, but if your child is interested in doing something specific please let us know!
This week at Forest School we wanted to take our kids off the property and explore some of the Bruce Trail that is located right in our own “backyard”. Words could not express how much fun we had today exploring a new part of the Bruce Trail, some of our hiking goals were to discover “Standing Rock” and find the newly renovated “Frank’s Lime Kiln”. Let the adventure begin!
Before we headed out on our journey, we took a slight detour to “Fossil Mountain” to take time to uncover some fossils by peeling apart layers of shale rock. The discoveries made were amazing! Our students got their hands dirty and found different types of rock, fossils, shells, seeds and ice.
Our first trek started at the Nottawasaga Lookout, located just outside of Duntroon. The “Standing Rock” trail is a 1.2 km side loop that encompasses flat and rocky terrain, including caves and crevasses. Bravery and Leadership beads were earned all throughout our afternoon escapade. Our kids ducked, crawled and slid down 5 ice slides, it gave them an easy head start for the rest of our hike! Before we headed back to school, we wanted to let the kids explore a 150-year-old kiln. This kiln had been built in 1860 and was restored in 2015 – the outcome is beautiful. The kids also had a great time learning a little bit about our local pioneer history.
It was great to see our class being so cohesive through out the caves. Our comfort zones were tested, and challenge-by-choice was presented. Moving slowly, and communicating was top notch today! We also worked towards leadership, peer support, spotting, encouraging one another and trust. We are so proud of everyone, you all worked so hard.
Beads and Stickers were abundant today! 8 Bravery Beads, 1Show and Tell Bead, 1 Travel Bead, 1 Leadership Bead, 2 Peer Support, 1 Curiosity Bead and 1 Nature Lover Bead. As usual love, respect and wisdom stickers were earned as well.
Next Week – This will be our last class for the Winter semester, can you believe it!? We will be doing a recap of everything we have learned over the semester, with lots of laughs, fun, and games. We are excited for the spring semester to start and to meet all the new faces!
This week on Tuesday we celebrated International Forest Day and Wednesday we celebrated International Water Day. I guess the world kicks environmental protection into high gear come Spring! And what better way to celebrate than check out some of our local protected areas!
We headed out to explore some new wonders in our “backyard” at the Nottawasaga Lookout with physical literacy on our mind. Our goal was to explore the crevasses and hiking trails and ultimately uncover some caves. And what better way to celebrate the arrival by spring than with a ton of SNOW?! We slipped and slid our way down into the crevasses, contorted our bodies through impossibly small cracks and discovered new amazing things over and over again. And we had the whole place to ourselves, with just the birds to keep us company.
On Wednesday, we also had time to check out and eat lunch at Devil’s Glen lookout, and hike down in to the valley to escape the wind. What a beautiful place and worth much more exploring!
Many students pushed themselves out of their comfort zones and took on a lot of scary (perceived) risks. Other students were great at knowing and respecting their own limits in our challenge-by-choice activities. Teamwork and helping each other out became the norm. And patience – everyone moved slow to be safe and encouraged one another. It’s amazing to see a community thrive. And as bonus, we even found some small caves!
All in all, everyone had a blast and left feeling proud of their personal accomplishments throughout the day. Everyone received a bravery bead! We also gave out 5 Peer Support beads, 1 Leadership bead, 1 Curiosity bead, 1 Nature Lover bead and 1 Al’s bead. Congrats!
Next Week: Our last class for the Winter Semester!! It will be a celebration of all we’ve done; a recap of our time and a look forward to our Spring semester!
See you next week,
Matt and Kim
PS. Our apologies for all the muddy clothes Tuesday!!! It warmed up quite a bit!
We won’t expose the student who gave us the quote for the title of this blog, but he (or she) was referring to some of the ancient white cedars out at Metcalfe Rock. Specifically the “Braided Root Tree” which grew out of the cliff, then had its roots devour an old fallen tree to make a unique braided root from the cliff to the ground – ask your child about it!
After playing around with a slingshot and uncovering some of Matt’s ancient rock collection, we jumped in the van and headed out to the Kolapore Uplands, home of Metcalfe Rock. This epic piece of the Niagara Escarpment is great for climbing, hiking, biking and (you guessed it) caving. Fall is an especially beautiful time of year up there, though can bring a mix of conditions. We had some drastically different weather from Tuesday to Wednesday. (Tuesday saw snow and luckily we had a fire to keep our toes warm!)
After setting up a tarp shelter and getting a fire going, we got all geared up and ready to head into the caves. This year, we took it up a level and headed for the amazing Ice Cave. It’s reputation held true – we found some ice inside. All the students were incredibly brave crawling and climbing their way into the cave! Some students even made it all the way to the bottom of the Ice Cave and got to drink its’ pristine water. Others respected their own limits (our old adage of challenge-by-choice, which is brave in and of itself) and chose different paths through the rock maze. We even tackled the dreaded “Birth Canal” with 100% success (even Matt fit through!).
The afternoon was a chance to explore and play games in the surrounding forest. Some students got really into fire-building and whittling, while others built shelters, giant piles of leaves to jump in and sought out lichen to sort through. With so much to do, students could be seen balancing on logs and trying not to fall in the “lava”, while others opted to play some classic games like camouflage – free play is such a wonderful thing to watch happen.
Metcalfe has been a really special place for us and we were thrilled to see it through new sets of eyes as we pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones and into adventure. A big, big thanks to Krista and the Thornbury crew who joined us on Wednesday, and brought along a special treat – popcorn over the fire!
We got back just in the nick of time to the school, and weren’t able to give out beads. But we wanted to mention that 1 Nature Lover Bead and 2 Peer Support Beads will be handed out next week!
Next Week:
ART ATTACK! Bring your creativity! We will both be wearing costumes to extend the Halloween Celebrations, so if your child(ren) want to, please do so! Maybe put your costume over all of your bundled layers!
FYI There’s a Fright Night Happening at Bygone Days over the weekend put on by Elephant Thoughts. It might be really spooky to go!
