Free Spirit Forest and Nature School

Nurturing Connection with Self, Others and Nature

Snow Snow, stay and play!

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Hi Friends,

Mother Nature sure did hand us a bag full of every type of weather this week, and we still loved every minute of it! Each day at Forest School always looks a little different and discoveries are always unfolding, but some things were consistent throughout our week – like how the snow makes sounds seem more dense, less birds and noise, our well known hikes have become more challenging and there is much more to discover and create in the snow.

Some of the highlights this week that we cannot forget are:

New Creations at Lakeside
Quicksand and Waterfalls
Legends and Plant Identification
Snowstorms
Discovering Duckies Camp site
Eagle eye on Fossil Mountain
Fire Building and Flint and Steel
Prospectors Tent
Dangerous Baby Squirrels
Raccoon Touch
New records with Fossil Mountain Sledding
Fan favourite Fox and Bunny game
Fort building with snow

We look forward to another great week ahead of us!

The FNS Crew

Snowmageddon

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Hi Folks,

I think we were all super surprised this morning when we saw so much of that white stuff! We can’t believe we almost forgot how beautiful it is. Our students had a beautiful moment at the start of our day – venturing into the woods, we all found a quiet, personal space where we caught cotton ball size snow flakes with our tongue. It was so quite with no wind or birds to listen to we were in awe of the silence. We observed so much, and we are so proud of our students and their amazing owl eyes.

It was amazing to see all our builders at work this morning ranging from epic igloos, snow city with walls, towers and a full volcano in the middle, snowmen and a race car track fully equipped with a pit stop and stands. Our students even had the chance to play a Forest School favourite game – Fox and Bunny. A game of endurance, chance and pure luck, along with a new twist from a student – the Elder Bunny. The magical bunny that can bring a bunny road block back to life! It was a huge hit, so you should ask your child about it.

We continue to track, explore, share, reflect and build relationships with each other, ourselves and our environment. Thanks for a great snowy day!

Krista and Travis

Mysteries for days….

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Hi Friends,

Another pretty awesome week we had, starting off with a pretty epic mud kitchen, some hard core obstacle course construction and our imagination even helped us become local farmers.

With all the rain this morning, our students were lucky and discovered 3 rainbows. We pondered about rainbows and why they appear after a rain storm. We all came to the conclusion it was a beautiful sight to see after the dark clouds moved past. This also allowed us to find all the Green Trees (Pine, Spruce, Cedar and Hemlock), which hold magical properties and special medicine. Mother Nature is pretty fascinating!

Our Chickadees ventured to a new part of the forest this week and discovered the Mysterious Forest which led into time spent alone, group play, magical powers of the world, new paths, train stations along with courage, patience and awareness of one self and the natural environment. Ending our day with an amazing puddle discovery full of splashing, jumping, running and laughing.

We look forward to seeing everyone next week!

Krista and Emily

Acorns and more…

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Hey Folks,

Imagine being a baby squirrel and accidentally falling out of your drey (tree squirrel nest). Now imagine being an eagle flying over the forest and with your keen eye, you see an unprotected meal right for the taking? Our students looked at this scenario from both perspectives today and while some thought playing the squirrel was stressful others realized playing the predator was also tricky, and not as easy as some might think.

As much as we love the rain, we were lucky enough to see some sun finally! Some students revisited our colour walk from last week and talked about the magic of change and the gifts Mother Nature provide us with. We found some pretty magical leaves and recreated them on our magical flags and wands. We also revisited our “nests” again to see if their nature offering were taken. We worked as a team this afternoon and collected an enormous amount of acorns, and we mean enormous – our educated guess was roughly around 600 total, who knew this nut was so popular!

Our older students ventured into the forest today and discovered a family of salamanders, forest wands, building bio-domes, and even had some time time to start working on their carving skills. What an incredibly busy day that flew by! Until next week friends.

Krista and Travis

Making friends with Birds

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Hi Friends,

We had a special visitor come knocking at the schoolhouse today. We will give you three clues to guess who:

1. They could fly

2. They were persistently searching for something in the wood on the outside of the schoolhouse

3. If they were in a band, they would be the drummer

If you guessed a woodpecker, you are correct! After observing the busy worker with binoculars and using our bird books to guide us, we discovered it was a male Downy Woodpecker. Be sure to ask your Chickadee for some more fascinating facts pertaining to woodpeckers (interestingly, Downy Woodpeckers have been observed in mixed flocks with chickadees in the winter…maybe our friend was testing out our flock for the winter!). Woolly bear caterpillars, a lively game of capture the flag and a book club in the fort were other highlights of a sunny Monday at Bygone Days.

Until next week

Emily + Krista

Community Building

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Hi Folks,

Each week we challenge our students to discover something new that is within our woodland, and this week was no different. While some of our students used their wonderful imagination this morning – playing Wolf pack – which consisted of territories, predators, cubs, stalking and of course nap time, our other students really dived into their creative side and created a Forest School Wooly Bear Sanctuary, which consisted of 17 wooly bears, and banded tussock moth and a Brown Hooded Owlet. Now we do not normally like to take creatures out of their natural habitat, but we like to let everyone know that all caterpillars were returned back to their natural habitat unharmed.

While our chickadees took on the role of a chipmunk or squirrel, we started collecting different types of food (acorns, leaves and chestnuts). We then built a very special “cupboards” made from natural objects in different spots around our outdoor classroom, our goal is to check back next week to see if the food we left will still be there! Our afternoon looked a bit different for our older forest schoolers – building forts, exploring the woods and continuing to build relationships with each other. We love giving our students the time to reflect back on the day, and with another great day all round we feel very grateful for all our students who come and let us spend the day with them!

We wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving weekend!

Krista and Travis

Ready, Set..Imagination!

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Hi Friends,

This week our chickadees jumped right into action playing games, digging for treasures and discovering a hidden gem just outside our classroom – a chestnut tree! This brought so much interest from why does the seed pod have spikes?, What’s inside?, What animals eat this and how do we open it up? This gave our students the opportunity crack open their findings and take their seed home to plant their very own chestnut tree! We even gave our little chipmunks the chance to act out their animal and scurry to find all the hidden chestnuts and bring them back to their den before the Prey (Fox and Honey Badger) could catch them! Well done everyone.

Our afternoon was filled with so much imagination which was surrounded by finding the wild wolf that was let loose in Bygone Days along with fort building, tree identification, bracelets and necklaces, fire bundles, mud construction and a very popular Wooly Bear Hotel. Everyone was so thoughtful making sure these caterpillars were safe, had lots of food, bedding, shelter and even a tanning room.

Due to Thanksgiving falling on a Monday this year, everyone at Forest School wishes all our students and families and very happy and safe Thanksgiving! We will see you all in two weeks!

Gobble Gobble,

Krista and Emily

Field Trip!

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Hi Friends,

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!

See you all next week,

Krista and Travis

You can find us in the forest!

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Hi Folks,

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!

Until next week,

Travis and Krista

Music is everywhere!

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Hi Folks,

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!

Travis and Krista

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