Free Spirit Forest and Nature School

Nurturing Connection with Self, Others and Nature

Nature Detectives

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Hey Folks!

This week saw a drop in temperatures and the sights, smells, sounds and sense of Fall in the air. And with these changes there were a few other changes we discovered along the way. Not only were the plants seeming to wither, but there was a noticeable loss appeared in the animal kingdom too! Death was a subject that came up a few times this week – with a turtle funeral, a mysterious shrew discovery, a few fish and a frog. Sometimes, this can be tricky to navigate as these hands-on discoveries can be tough for some, while others approach with intense curiosity. As teachers, we see these as teachable moments in life-cycles, respect of nature and much more.

A quick Snapshot of the week

One particularly interesting story unfolded for our older groups on Thursday and Friday while out wandering… and no doubt if your child was part of those groups you’ve heard of the dead goose we stumbled upon. At first, this was a sad moment for some and a sense of empathy was evident – we had watched these birds all year swimming and playing in the pond. This discovery soon led to curiosity with this up close encounter… and a story began to unfold – what had happened here? It became a mystery to be uncovered! And suddenly we were overtaken by an obsession to figure it out.

We looked for clues – coyote, goose, duck, racoon and deer prints were all around. We followed them and tried to figure out where they went. We found feathers and scat to be identified everywhere! We got out our Field Guides and measured lengths and widths of everything, and looked up any potential ideas we had. Students set out their theories and added to them until we had several different, plausible and cohesive stories. And whether they were right or not, it doesn’t matter – it’s all about the process. Before leaving, they picked wild flowers, laid them down and said a few kind words about the bird.

Questioning and Tracking is one of our Core Routines (as well as Wandering and Using Field Guides in this case). Students are encouraged to ask questions about everything and we, in response, ask questions to them. They become detectives unraveling nature’s mysteries. This collaboration was fascinating for our students as it captured their imaginations.

Oh! We should also mention all of the fires that our students made with magnesium and steel; the pumpkins that were painted and decorated; the hikes we ventured on; the pears that were gathered and cooked on the fire; the “fairy seeking missions”; the epic animal style games of capture the flag; and so many more adventures that happened this week!

Cheers,

The Forest School Team

PS Thanks to all those who came out to our Open House Thursday night! We had a great time building community!

Some Pics:

Money grows on trees…

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Hey Folks!

We rang in the last week of summer with some very hot, then cool, then crazy windy and rainy weather!

This week at Forest School we saw many adventures unfold and really dove into the joy of following emergent interests. Full on “stores” opened up in the forest (see in depth details below); fires were sparked with only a magnifying glass, cedar and the sun; going canoeing and receiving mail from the Fairies; shelters were hastily constructed with impending grey clouds looming; visits to fossil mountain and long hikes; and so much more.

This week we also introduced two more of our core routines: Sit Spot and Journaling.

For those of us new to Sit Spots, here’s a quick overview. Our students’ sit spots are chosen by them and become a natural space that we visit all the time. They get to know this spot as they would a best friend – noticing any and all changes throughout the year. It’s a place to sit still, alone and quietly where we develop the quiet mind and a deeper connection with nature (and arguably one of our most important routines).

Journaling acts as a way for us to keep records of our adventures. It helps train our minds to pay attention to the details and we try and keep a journal regularly. In the past we’ve given students journals, but we chose to make our own this year and made some pretty awesome ones this week! We’re hoping this gives children a little more ownership over their note taking, mapping, drawings, stories, poetry and everything that will fill those pages with. In essence, journaling helps support many of our core routines (Expanding our Senses, Sit Spot, Questioning and Tracking, Mapping, and Story of the Day).

One last story for this week.

A magical moment unfolded with our Tuesday Snowy Owl group at an area known as the Fort. As you know play is a huge aspect of our programming (check out this blog Play-based Education: The joy of shared Adventure for more details on play), and on this day unfolded a great example of “Socio-dramatic Play”. This type of play sees children acting out and recreating situations they have seen. It’s the chance to jump into the role of real (or potentially real) experiences.

It started with this: one child picked up some leaves to “buy” a shell from another. Before we knew it, “property” was being purchased, precious things were being mined and sold, a police force was created (along with a jail) and the little society was born. Children even had wooden “debit cards” and we literally had a thousand yellow leaves floating around – enough that we needed a vault and an armored vehicle to move “money”. The swings and slide were being rented, trees were bought and sold, and in all the chaos it all just seemed to make so much sense. And that’s the beauty in it.

(Sidebar to unpack later: it’s interesting to see the views of children owning, purchasing and profiting from nature… and thus makes us wonder how they see the world and our role? Maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s more – but could be a powerful reflection of society from their view.)

From our educators point of view on play, it was inspiring to see the complex levels of the society unfold. And because we love co-conspiring in play with the students, our educator held the role of banker (and then became the chief of hiring security and police, and payday – like we said it was pretty complex.) It’s remarkable when given time and space what can develop as each child brought in their own opinions, ideas and roles – and all ideas were welcome by everyone.

Just another reason we love what we do!

Cheers,

The FNS team

More pics:

Trees in Jars and Natural Hammers

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Hey Everyone,

This week at Forest School our main goal was to learn a little bit more about plants. After our morning core routines we jumped into the role of plants in a macro-model to learn about cycles and needs of a plant. We then became explorers tasked with the mission of the uncovering a new plant, naming it and then learning all about it. After making a journal (T-Th), they were off. Collectively, we learned about mushrooms, flowers, trees and shrubs, the history of these plants and any uses they may have.

Friday our focus shifted to trees, where we collected samples in a jar, identified and labelled them. We then “adopted” a tree in our sit-spots – a tree we’ll take care, watch as it changes over time and learn as much as we can about. We spent time as “bees” as well in a macro-model about pollen and pesticide.

As it does, our unstructured time took many different shapes. Imaginations came alive using our “loose parts”, where anything from a relay race to an intergalactic space war and store happened. Students also had the option to make natural hammers from spruce or willow trees. They sawed and carved them out as we begin to hone this skill. We even had bunnies on Thursday (thanks to our students who brought them in!).

We had many fires over the week, with an average of 2 a day to keep warm as the temps being to drop. Which meant we gave out a bunch of fire beads and had a few treats! Some groups harvested and had rose-hip tea, others made some popcorn over the fire.

Next Week:
We are stoked to be doing Archery next week!! It’s also “Show and Tell” if your child would like to bring anything in to share with the class.

As the temperature is cooling down please remember to pack extra layers for your children, including mitts and hats. You can leave a set at the school if you would like. Warm, waterproof footwear is also essential and a back up pair can’t hurt if you have them! Thanks.

Cheers,

Kim, Matt and Tamara

More Pics:

Stone Soup and Bike Smoothies

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Hey Everyone,

With the temperatures finally starting to settle down (well, except for Tuesday) it’s really starting to finally feel like Fall. We celebrated this week with our annual Fall Harvest, with a big focus on local food.

After spending time in our sit spots, we set out to explore our site early in the morning to harvest some sweet snacks from all over the land. We are lucky enough to have pear and apple trees scattered throughout our property which made for a great smoothie to add to our lunch. The cool thing about our smoothies? Totally made with the power of pedaling! Students jumped on the smoothie bike and each took turns blending not only our local fruit, but all sorts of other wild edibles we could find – red clover, chicory, mint and more. Oh! Of course there was also our favourite addition across the board: the wild grapes that turned our smoothie a bit sour and really purple!

After some afternoon unstructured play which took all sorts of forms – from baseball to slacklining, dragon tails to loose parts, music to obstacle courses, (it truly is wonderful watching the ideas and imaginations unfold!) – we did a storybook walk to Stone Soup by J.J. Muth. It’s a wonderful story – read it here if you’d like! This story inspired us to create our soup. We found stones, added salt, chopped and added veggies and had a communal meal. Everyone played a role and a special thanks to all those brought in a garden veggie.

Depending on where interests went, we also had students dehydrating pears and apples, creating solar ovens to bake cinnamon apples and pears, and we even preserved some pears on Friday!

All in all, a yummy week.

An incredibly big thanks to Healthy Kids Community Challenge for lending us their Smoothie bike and Story Walk! They’ve got so many cool things happening and are making a huge difference in our community! Check them out here.

Next Week:
Field Trip: Disc Golf for the older students, Pond Study for the younger ones.

Cheers,

The Forest School Team

More pics:

There’s a lot of noise in silence

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Hey Folks!

We’d like to extend a HUGE welcome to our new students and families and a welcome back to our returning students! We had a good start to our first week at Forest School and luckily, though it called for rain, we seemed to miss the worst of it!

This week we focused on getting to know each other, community-building and becoming acquainted with a small portion of the property. We began the day as usual with a smudge, morning circle and other core routines. We also engaged in some get-to-know you activities, such as designing our own personal flag to highlight our favourite activities and passions. We will hang this in our classroom for the semester.

Students eagerly picked out their sit spots and began creating and imagining all the things they intend to build/do/create there. Some were content to just be and absorb the changes that Mother Natures will bring. We spent some quiet time reflecting in our spots and came to a consensus: there is a lot of noise in silence. Blue Jays, crickets and wind in the leaves just to name a few! We found ourselves immersed in our surrounding. We all came away loving our own sit spot experience… and eager to return next week!

The students jumped at the chance for some exploratory time, where imaginations, teamwork and good old fashioned outdoor fun came alive. The afternoon brought our first bonfire of the year, where we added the ashes from the final community fire of last year and made some thoughtful goals for this year of new challenges, budding friendships, and pushing comfort zones. In anticipation for next week, where some might want to try earning their fire bead, we spent some time learning the basics of fire-building (even in the rain!) and how to use fire respectfully. It was a great start to building our new community.

Speaking of beads, we’ve got a whole bunch of new ones this year, as well as some classics – click here for the list! Don’t know what beads are yet? Check out our core routines page. There are even some that can be done at home. Along with this, we made our medallions to store our beads on. On one side, children wrote their names, and the other they drew or wrote their spirit/favourite animal or plant. This also gave students the chance to use tools for the first time this year by hand drilling their own holes!

Next Week:
Survival Skills – fires, shelters and more!

We also still have a few spaces available! If you know anyone that may be interested please share with them. Thanks!

That’s all for now, we look forward to the semester and exploring alongside everyone!

Matt, Kim and Tamara

More pics:

Life is best traveled with Friends

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Getting “Red in the Shed” to find our way.

Hey Everyone!

We had such a blast exploring this week! After learning the cardinal directions and compass basics, it was time for studying maps… and what better way than an all out East vs West game of capture the flag? Students divided territory, created boundaries and marked key locations on the map before they were set loose in the playing field. Teamwork, honesty, attack-defense strategy and some good physical endurance was the name of the game.

Afterwards, the students were challenged with mini-orienteering courses that looped back on themselves. All students excelled at this and were soon up against the “ultimate” orienteering challenge that spread property-wide. After finding their direction of travel and getting the “Red in the Shed”, students were off to the races. The group was able to complete this challenge with ease, and all this before lunch!

And they are off on the Orienteering Challenge!

Our next challenge would take us off property to the Eleventh Line trails for an afternoon of hiking and Geocaching. With the help of our GPS’s (a big thanks to Healthy Kids Community Challenge for lending us these!), we were able to uncover 2 Geocaches!

GPS in hand, off to find the treasure.

If you’ve never geocached, it’s a wonderful way to spend time outside. Think giant, worldwide scavenger hunt using GPS technology – it can even been done through an app on your phone or borrow one from the Collingwood Library! Check out geocaching.com.

We are pleased to announce that EVERYONE earned their Travel Beads this week! We also gave out 1 Teaching Bead for a lesson on animal calls, two Reflection Beads, and a Nature Lover Bead – Congrats!

Next Week:
Survival Skills! If you have any (preferably) plastic containers that can be used as a fire kit please send it (or them) along! Thanks! (Small peanut butter jars are best as they screw shut and are waterproof, but anything similar will do!)

Have a great week,

Kim and Matt

More photos to download and share:

Take care of the earth, and she will take care of you

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Hi Friends!

Can you believe it? 6 weeks left until we are done our first semester, how time flies! We couldn’t have asked for better weather today, and with the excitement of snow we decided to focus on Environmental Science.

Today brought a mix of physical exercise, visualization games, student creations and discussions. Throughout our day we discussed two types for pollution (natural and human), two types of energy (renewable and non-renewable), as well with how we as individuals can save the planet. We also started the David Suzuki Superhero challenge with one of the activities called the right to a healthy environment. If you would like more information about this challenge, check out their website at www.getbackoutside.ca

Check out how our day went below.

After our smudge ceremony we started the day with an “X and O” relay race. The teams were “The Dragons” on the left, and “The Hunters” on the right. After 5 races it was still a tie game…until later in the day when the dragons took the lead.

This morning Taven brought to school a box full of special things. This included a Peacock feather, an arrow head, a crystal, a shark tooth, a shotgun shell and a magnifying glass. The students loved it so much that next week we are going to have more show and tell!

After discussions about renewable energy sources, we took time to create our own windmills. They even worked in the wind!

The David Suzuki Superhero challenge was a great way to visualize and discuss the right to a healthy environment. Our students had to think of 5 things that can help protect our environment. We came up with great suggestions from don’t waste water, don’t litter, don’t cut down trees, ride a bike and eat all your food.

Free play is great for our students to burn off that energy, work on their social skills and have fun! We somehow ended up in rain barrels and took turns rolling each other around the garden. No one got sick.

Our afternoon was filled with fire skills, and creating our very first bio-dome! The kids had the choice of planting Kale or the flower Morning Glory. The great thing about this bio-dome? It waters itself and looks pretty cool!

Things you will need to build your own bio-dome:

2 recycled plastic bottles
1 string
Tape
Dirt
Water
Seeds

We took advantage of the sun and debriefed about our day, congrats to all our sticker earners (6 Wisdom, 6 Respect)!

Reminder: Due to the colder weather, please remember to bring extra clothes to layer up!

Next Week: Is all about Mapping and Travel. I wonder where that will take us…

Thanks for stopping by, talk to you next week!

Krista

Check out our bonus pictures!

Acrylics, oils? Pfffft… we’ve got grapes.

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Hey Folks,

Hard to believe we are more than half way through the trimester! What awesome weather we had this week (especially compared to last!) for jumping into our creative minds with Art Attack!

We started off the day as always with some free play, smudging and morning circle – except this time a number of students (and the teachers!) took advantage of one last day to wear their super creative Halloween costumes. From ladybugs, to anonymous, to zombies and even someone who “lost a fight to a tree”, we had it all. (Oh and that strange guy in the pictures? That’s Matt sans beard.)

What better way to kick off the day than with some physical literacy to bring down the sugar levels a wee bit. We jumped into a giant relay game of Tic-Tac-Toe, followed by our ultimate team challenge of “Lava Crossing”. This combines planning and strategics, communication, balance, teamwork, and a lot of patience to achieve the desired goal of crossing the lava river. Wednesday’s students even set up their own course during free play!

After snack, we headed out with colour tags to see just how colourful nature can be. We usually think of nature as green, brown and blue, but our students discovered that when we look closely we can see hundreds of different colours and shades. With that in mind, we put our creative hats on and headed out to our sit spots. While there, students made rough drafts of a painting they would like to make. Afterwards, they were given a canvas to create their masterpieces. The only catch? It had to be created solely using natural materials. Grapes for purple (complete with a grape pounding station), dandelions for yellow, dirt for brown, grass rubbings for green – the children got very creative. Twigs were suddenly being used as trees or frames, or even stands for the canvas itself. It was neat to watch all the ideas unfold.

After lunch (and some intense stilt walking), we headed to our fire pit where students put their fire skills to the test. We listened to a couple stories (congrats to our Bead recipients!) and made some walking sticks. We learned how to make a comfortable handle out of cord (congrats to the teaching bead given out for this!), carved some images or designs, and painted to our hearts content. Tuesday’s group even had time to make homemade play-dough!

We ended the day with a special Halloween treat – some Fair Trade chocolate. The students briefly learned about the importance of this mindful consumption. Find more information at http://fairtrade.ca/

Next week:
We dive into Environmental Science!

Check out the pictures below and have a great week,

Matt and Kim

Every child is an artist

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Hi Friends!

“Creativity is contagious, pass it on” – Albert Einstein

This week at Forest school, it was a student-led emergent day full of creativity. It was amazing to watch how the day unfolded through team-building activities that strived towards working together, communication and memory.

Our students worked both individually and together to construct a masterpiece of art from natural products as well as with man-made materials. Did I mention there was a lot of mud involved?

This was a great day for our kids to be as creative as they could!

Check it out!

The fog was amazing this morning and while we were sitting quietly across from the Beaver River, we spotted a Blue Heron hunting for his breakfast.

We hunted down our natural paint brushes, paint (wild grapes, blueberries, and crab apples) and objects to stick onto our artwork (leaves, cedar scales and grass).

One of our team-building activities was the create our favourite animals out of pipe cleaners. Some of our creations were a Wolf, Thunderbird, Salamander and Octopus.

Another activity that was completed was “The Maze”. Communication and memory was the name of the game!

Our students creating their art with natural paint brushes, mud, rocks, wood cookies and cold ash from the fire pit.

“The Village”. This was created by all students and everyone had their job. Some students worked on concrete (water and mud), digging holes, building homes and roping off future development.

Some of the artwork our students created today!

Today was an amazing muddy day full of adventure and creativity.

Great job Taven and Jack for starting their first fire without any help! What amazing stories we had around the fire as well, so make sure you ask your child what story they told. This meant we gave away our first Storytelling beads! Great job everyone!

Next Week – We are going to be looking into Environmental Science.

Thanks for stopping by,

Krista.

Check out our bonus pictures of our mud monsters!

“1000 years? That’s as old as my grandma!”

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Hey Folks,

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!

Cheers,

Matt and Kim

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