Free Spirit Forest and Nature School

Nurturing Connection with Self, Others and Nature

Pioneers, Fire Keepers and Engineers

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This week at Forest School was special in that our classes had planned in advance their “perfect” Forest School Day and we set out to achieve these goals. Thus we had some very different looking days this week, and here’s a quick recap.

Wednesday

Our overarching theme of the day was camping out and so after some impromptu rafting on the huge puddles and a game of ga-ga ball, students strapped on their backpacks with lunches and we hiked out to the elusive mysterious forest to begin development. We built a fire place, learned how to saw wood safely and purified water. We teamed up and made natural and tarp shelters, boutiques, meditation rooms and even traps with pulley systems – the students were only limited by their imaginations. In the end, a whole little community developed in our once little-known forest.

Other than our infrastructure development, students got lost in a world of play – cops and robbers with a twist (doughnut launchers!) and creating natural treasures such as ballerinas made of pine needles and leaves. We also were introduced to a new game called Fox and Mouse, a soon-to-be classic (think capture the flag meets freeze tag).

Time slipped by and before we knew it, it was time to have a marshmallow and hike out!

Thursday

Thursday was all about Fire! We learned about the basic needs of a fire: heat, oxygen, and fuel and effective ways to create them. A big thanks to our student teachers who led this lesson!

Next we were off to “Lakeside View” where, after a quick lesson in material gathering and fire nest-making, students were tasked with the mission of creating a fire without using a match. After much preparation and anticipation (and a lot of learning from our mistakes and successes) everyone was able to light a fire using only flint (magnesium) and steel! And everyone earned their Fire Keeper Beads.

In the afternoon, we launched a rocket and headed out to sit spots for some upgrades and more fire building. Out next goal is to make a fire with a bow-drill!

Friday

Friday was a day of construction where we headed out early in the rain to “Lakeside View” and “The Fortress” to get creative in and around our sit spots. Students used reclaimed wood to make additions to the their sit spots after having a lesson on sawing techniques, hammering and drilling. We even built a tree bridge as the beginning of a bigger tree house project we hope to add to in the future,

and by adding climbing holds, we’ve realized it’s the beginning of the ultimate outdoor playground!

After lunch and some fun and games, we opted to return to our sit spots for some more upgrades and imaginative play as the sun came out. A day well spent!

Thanks to all the students for their wonderful ideas which made this week a very special one!

Next Week: One of our favourites – PROJECTS!

Cheers,

The Forest School Team

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Skating, Maple Tree Tapping and so much more!

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We had another wonderful week at Forest School and quite the range in activities too!

Great Snowy Owl demonstration!

On Wednesday, students worked hard to clear off the ice rink and we enjoyed skating away the morning! We even had a lesson from a Snowy Owl, including some basic skating drills and tips on a variety of ways to stop. It was an awesome start to our day and had smiles all around! The afternoon had us in our sit spots and by Lakeside Campsite for the majority of the time. Students enjoyed working together to create and build new structures (including bridges, coat racks, ninja stands and more). It’s amazing to see what unfolds when we just make time to play and explore! It was neat to see the little communities become established and imaginations take over.

Just getting some quality time in with nature!

Though the blue bird week wreaked havoc on the rink, the warm temperatures made for a sweet treat from Mother Nature… that’s right the maple trees are FLOWING! On Thursday we spent some quality morning time learning about how to tap maples (and drilling!) and of course enjoyed some of the immediate perks that comes with helping out around the sugar shack. Students loved the opportunity to taste some sap coming directly from the trees! What a cool and tasty experience! By Friday, the temps had dropped and the sap was frozen, but nevertheless we had a tasty, icy treat!

We also spent Thursday and Friday playing mini sticks on the rink, enjoying our sits spots, building snow castles and snowmen, and playing some of our favourite group games (camouflage, ga-ga ball and fox vs rabbit!).

We built in sometime this week to brainstorm some really great options for our Student-Led day next week and are eager to see how it unfolds! Students worked well together, collaborating and idea-sharing to make some big and exciting plans.

Kim sends a big heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone for the love and support as she goes on maternity leave next week. She promises to visit when the little one arrives, especially if it’s as sunny as it was this week! And with that exciting announcement, we welcome our new teachers Krista, Aislinn, and Natasha! To learn more about them, check out their bios!

Thanks for checking in!
The Forest School Team

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Swinging Bridges, Black Diamonds and Mysterious Forests

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Hey Folks!

Well Winter is back! And hopefully here to stay. This week at Forest School we were on a field trip for Wed and Thurs and spent the day exploring at Bygone Day’s on Friday.

Wednesday and Thursday

Off to Scenic Caves this week for some fun cross-country skiing and exploring the area. We started off both days with learning basic skills: how to move, slow down, climb hills, and most importantly how to get up after falling (Turtle-French Fries-Knees to Skis-And UP!). After some practice laps, students we were off exploring. Our Wednesday group made it all the way to the lookout point (though it was foggy!) and the Thursdays group braved the fierce snow and tackled the meandering hills – including part of a black diamond for experts only! It was a lot of work climbing some steep hills, but ask your child if it was worth it in the end!

We’re really proud of all the hard work our students put in. For some it was their first time ever on skis and everyone committed themselves to learn. After a lot of successes, tumbles and speeding through the trees, it was time for a well earned lunch.

Have you ever been to Scenic Caves? Then you know it boasts one of the best parks in the area – just ask your kids! Students loved using all of the fun equipment, especially with all of the snow! Afterwards, student made their way down the snow covered trail and onto the largest suspension bridge in Ontario – what a wonderful way to see our beautiful home! Students enjoyed the panoramic view of roughly 10000 sq. km. overlooking Georgian Bay and they were keen to point out their homes and make connection to places from such a high vantage point.

On Thursday, some students braved a challenge route and took the snow-filled Creekside Trail underneath the ravine and up the other side! We enjoyed a lot of play, collaboration and teambuilding on the slope of the escarpment too. We loved sliding down into the snowy valley and worked well together (and creatively!) trying to climb our way out. After all of their hard work, you probably noticed some pretty tired kids this week!

A big thanks to the folks Scenic Caves – they provided us with equipment, their beautiful property and infrastructure, and a wood fired cabin all to our ourselves.

FRIDAY

On Friday we saw even MORE snow and had an adventure filled day at Bygone Days. Students ventured out to Mysterious Forest to explore the wonderful natural shelters of our coniferous trees – which provided a great space to play some of our favourite games like sardines and camouflage! Students continue to be engaged in our subnivean tunnel activities, fascinated by discovering more ice below the deep snow and loved to build and spend time around the fire! We visited our sit spots (and created some new ones) and recognized some of the amazing changes that have happened over the winter. It was an awesome day and especially sunny by the afternoon!

NEXT WEEK:

Weather permitting: ICE FISHING! If you have your own gear, or nifty trinkets that might be helpful or fun during ice fishing, don’t hesitate to bring them in!

Cheers,

Matt and Kim

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Wed/Thurs

Friday

Survival Olympics (or Mary had a little lamb…)

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Hey Folks,

We had some fun this week putting some of our survival skills to the test in a collaborative, cooperative and competitive style Olympics we nicknamed the “Forest School Timber Tour”. Our days varied greatly Tues-Thurs with different events geared toward developing and testing various skills – each day uniquely designed with the specific class dynamics in mind. Some events were even created by our students en route. We pushed ourselves physically, mentally and creatively, and in the end all agreed that no matter who won, everyone had fun.

To get an idea of what happened over the week, here’s some of the events:

Individual:
Tree Toss – a whopping 33’2″ by one student!
Obstacle Course – new FS record 43 seconds!
Singles Tug of War
Planking
Race around the Pond
Sling Shot Competition

Team Competition:
Flag Design and Cheer
Broom Ball
Ultimate Capture the Flag
Forest School Idol Music Competition
Balance Beam

Cooperative:
Fire Building (Magnesium and Steel)
Shelter Building
Orienteering
Plane Crash Survival
Lava Bridges
Human Knot, Tarp Flip, Hula Hoop Circle and more.

On Friday we approached things differently and focused entirely on teamwork with initiatives that earned students “Timber Dollars” that were used for buying gear to create the ultimate campsite. We’re really proud of everyone’s hard work (and persistence!) in achieving their goals. And through that persistence, our students were able to light the fire with only minutes to spare!

At the end of all days we handed out (wooden) medals to our winners! And a big shout out to all the sportsmanship award winners – you showed us that even through competition, we’re all still good friends.

Next Week: Animal Tracking!

Cheers,

Matt, Kim and Tamara

PS. Confused about the title? “Mary Had a Little Lamb” was our official Olympic Anthem.. ie one of only 3 songs Matt can play on the recorder.

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Fires and Shelters… and Bear-Hangs? Oh my.

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Hey Folks!

We welcomed Summer back (or for the first time??) at Forest School this week and took advantage of the beautiful, hot days to learn some important survival skills. As we’ve said before, with emergent interests, all of our days looked very different, but we’ll sum up the highlights here.

After our core routines (smudge, check-ins and sit spots), students were tasked with the mission to come up with the “ultimate” campsite. Students created designs and then headed out on our property to find the best place for a campsite – high and dry, sheltered and safe.

After exploring (including the unveiling of a new area on Thursday – “Mysterious Forest”), we chose our sites and students were off to work. Some groups made their shelters out of tarps, with a couple people earning their knots beads, while others opted for a natural shelter and are on their way to earning their Shelter’s Beads. Some students spent their time building trails to the site, while others focused hard on earning their Fire Beads. The Chickadees especially enjoyed gathering material, sorting out sticks for fuel, and trying different types of ignition (match, flint and steel, Bunsen burner). Of course fire safety and leave no trace principles were highlighted! To cap off the Ultimate Campsite experience, the Snowy Owls even had a bear-hang challenge… which was super helpful after the lunch picnic at their campsite!

Throw in some free-play time and watch the creativity unfold! We had swings made, shops open, fences built, and a full on imaginative forest “battle” where bark became a powerful a object. When we finished, we had an important lesson in leave no trace – some sites we dismantled completely, others we gave a permanent home and recorded on our map in the classroom.

And in between all of this, a jumble of creation and play, collaboration and independence, team building and new friendships forming. It’s amazing watching the group dynamics evolve and interests emerge. Music, role-playing, storytelling, building, dismantling, observing… it’s hard to capture it all in words, but it sure is inspiring.

Next Week:
We are going to try and catch some fish and learn some paddling strokes. We have all the gear, but if your child would like to bring in their rod and tackle, no problem!

See you next week,

Kim, Matt and Tamara

PS – If ever you want a better quality copy of a photo, just email us!

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Tuesday:

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Escape Rooms, Memories and Marshmallows…

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Wow! What a beautiful last week of Forest School! We had a wonderful time reflecting on what we’ve learned and experienced throughout the year and we sure had fun reminiscing about a lot of funny, meaningful memories that stood out! It’s so worthwhile to pause and reflect on these experiences together – so much has happened in just a few months!

After our morning circle and a story, students had the opportunity to say goodbye to their sit-spots. Some offered a piece of white sage to say thank you for all of the learning and reflecting that they’ve engaged in at their chosen spot. Some drew in their journals or created new medallions for their Sit Spots. Some chose to simply sit and reflect quietly. Sit Spots are just one way that students connect with the land in a meaningful way at Forest School. It’s been really special on our end to be able to witness this relationship develop with nature. Students seem to get a lot from just sitting and being still in Nature. We wonder if it’s something they will continue to do on their own this summer because so many of our students really looked forward to starting their days off in their Sit-Spots. Let us know!

We had a fun new challenge for Forest School this week where students had to work together to complete the first ever Forest School Escape Room! They collaborated to gather clues, solve problems, and build on prior knowledge to find the secret antidote (and marshmallows!) required to save the world! Everyone was able to successfully complete the challenge in less than an hour – one group made it with just 43 seconds left! Afterwards, we enjoyed a campfire and basked in our wonderful learning community… celebrating appreciations, new friendships, and hopeful summer play dates!

In the afternoon, we had an array of more student-led activities to celebrate our final day. Some included exploring the heritage site and venturing into the old buildings, playing a final game of Survival and Capture the Flag, and the classic Bubble Tag. It was an engaging way to wrap up our school-year!

A special thank you to the families who could join us for our closing ceremony! We will have the videos uploaded soon and send you a link! Remember if you haven’t picked up your NEW FOREST SCHOOL T-Shirt, you can do so Monday between 8:30-9:15am at Bygone Days during the Kids Camp Registration.

Parents and Families, we want to thank you for making this program possible! Thank you for believing in our approach to education and understanding the value of risky play and connecting with nature. We trust you will have a healthy, happy summer packed with adventures, family time and play! Hope to see you on the trails or by the water!

Take Care!

Matt, Kim and Krista

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Helping Hands

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Hey Folks!

Happy Solstice! After our core routines this week and a brainstorm on teamwork, our days differed immensely in what student-interests led us to. We book-ended all days with sage and sit spots in the morning, and a fire at the end, but otherwise they were so unique, let’s sum them up separately.

TUESDAY

We had some eager helpers on Tuesday and started off by weeding the garden and planting some tomato plants in anticipation of our Fall Harvest next school year. The majority of our day was spent “farming” and building gardens in our sit spots, developing clay factories (which turned into clay all over the place!), and harvesting wild edibles to eat in a salad. Some lucky adventurers even gathered some wild strawberries!

Students also built a brand new fire pit, complete with rock ring which we used for our end of the day fire. Despite the rain (or maybe because of?…), we still had a great time. After a game of Capture the Flag, we even had time to hang our homemade bat house SW facing high in Willow Tree… we’ll see if anything moves in!

(PS – since we were on a camp trip, we didn’t have time to put up photos for Tuesday’s canoeing last week, so if you scroll to the very bottom, you’ll find some there.)

Wednesday

Our Wednesday class dove into what they love best – catching aquatic creatures and manipulating the movement of water with waterfalls, rapids and dug out riverbeds. Everyone had a job in this project – digger, dammer, dumper and more. And what a lucky day we had with the discovery of many 4+ leaf clovers!!!

We headed out to our sit spots, and student-interest kept us there for most of the morning. Like Tuesday, we saw students dive into the clay market (quite literally!) and create a whole bunch of infrastructure and objectives. Others could be found trying their luck at fishing (no bites this time), collecting ample amounts of wild strawberries, transplanting wild edibles into their personal gardens, and carving cutlery from wood.

Another reoccurring theme throughout the day was ants and their colonies and nests. We had a lengthy and great debate about whether or not to capture some ants and create our own ants in a jar – and in the end, everyone agreed that we should leave these fellas be. Later in the day the students even created an epic ant home (or mansion) and the Painted Turtle group sit spot! And speaking of which, this area had quite the facelift with everyone pitching in to create a new reading circle with stumps and boards, and cleaning all the garbage along the way.

A big thanks to our volunteer parent, Jamila, who lent some helping hands of her own today!

Thursday

The pond, as usual, was a huge hit on Thursday and we were able to identify new species of critters that lurked under the leaves. After our check-ins (and by popular demand) we played some team games including our favourite, Survival, where students learned that it’s not just humans who work together and lend a helping hand. Afterwards (when the rain came briefly), we laid out and drew up plans for a future “Nature” playground that we want to develop at the site! Students came up with some really practical, feasible and awesome ideas! We hope to put some of them in place in the near future.

Before embarking on our afternoon, we held an impromptu funeral for “Max” the toad, a poor fella we came across today. This was topped off with a great rendition of Mary Had a Little Lamb on the the recorder, played by one of our students. Throughout the day we visited some new places, including the reading circle created by Wed’s group and the fire pit created by Tues’ group, where student’s created their very own imaginative stories to share with each other around the fire.

Alas, some sad news – we say goodbye to Krista this week as she won’t be here next week! A HUGE THANKS for all you do for the students and the program!

Congrats to our Beads Recipients: 2 Tracking beads, a handful of Sit Spot bead, 2 Colouring beads, 2 Curiosity bead, 2 Music beads, 3 Littlerless Lunch beads, and 4 storytelling beads!

Next Week: Hard to believe it’s the last day of the year! We’d like to invite all families to our final wrap-up at 3:15 pm at Bygone Days. It will take about 20 minutes.

Cheers,

Matt, Kim and Krista

More Photos:

Photo’s from TUES group last week:

Welcome Summer!

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Hi friends,

Working on our “Selfie”

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.

Have an amazing summer break!

Krista and Vicky

And they say kids don’t like vegetables…

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Hey All,

What an amazing week we had exploring ! The students had the opportunity to spend time looking at the forest through a different lens – and a delicious lens at that! Our energy this week focused around the question: What can we eat??? We brought in Brian, a local wild edible and plant ID expert, to help us uncover the treasures that were literally growing right in front of us!

Our morning objective was to get out and ID/harvest as many different types of edible plants as possible. And over three days, we grew quite the impressive list:

Dandelion (or as Thursday group came to learn the “Pusteblumen” in German)
Wild Carrots
Grape Tendrils (or the “arms” of the grape – sourly delicious)
Cattails
Clover (but not too much!)
Thistle!
Bladder Campion
Daisy
Bass Wood
Cedar
Catnip
Pineapple Weed
Leeks
Burdock
Curly Dock
Strawberries
Pepper Grass
(GIANT) Asparagus
..and much more!

Medicinal:
Plantain – chew it up and put in on cuts, stings and bites
Yarrow – helps stop bleeding (and nose bleeds!)
Willow – like Tylenol for toothaches or cankers

We spent the afternoon by the lake, where epic tunnels were dug, gardens were built, clay factories were opened and overall people were just covered in mud – including a sweet puppy visitor on Thursday. We wrapped up our day by gathering around the fire, where we cooked up some delicious wild veggie stir-fries, with a salad as an appetizer, and shared some steeped loose leaf teas from foraged greens and roots. Things taste so much better when you collect them yourself!

Congratulation Bead Recipients:
A whole bunch of Nature Lovers, 2 Al’s Beads and 1 Cooking Bead!

A BIG thanks to Brian! He brought an enormous amount of knowledge and great energy to the groups, and made the learning so accessible and inspiring for the kids. (He does edible nature walks as part of his job, if you are interested in doing one or you’d like to get in touch with him, send us an email – it’s totally worth it!)

Next week:
We are paddling!!! Please remember bathing suits and a towel. We’ll have everything else, but if you want you can BYO-PFD. (and water shoes are good choice!).

Reminder: Days are getting HOT! Please remember to bring a water bottle and a hat to protect from the sun. Sunglasses is a good idea, too.

We’ll leave you with a quote from one of our student’s:

“It’s so strange. It’s like I see the world and plants differently now.”

Happy Harvesting,

Krista, Matt and Kim

Wild edibles and plants

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Hi Friends,

It is amazing what rain, sun, and a few weeks will do for our Heathcote property. The shrubs and flowers have grown so much that we almost couldn’t find some of our sit spots. Our day consisted of the learning and widening our knowledge about wild edibles and plants! With so much to talk about we focused on the famous poison ivy, along with it’s friends poison sumac and oak. We also focused a lot on expanding our imagination, teamwork, communication and respecting those attributes. Check out our wicked day!

A couple of weeks ago our students started their potato gardens, which have now started to sprout amazing leaves – soon enough we will be able to cook up those home-grown spuds! A toad hunt served as an excellent addition to all the excitement today, which included our respectful catching and releasing rituals. Midway through our hunt, Taven came across, what we believe to be a rat skull, YUCK! (but it was pretty cool!) To add to our discoveries through out the day we even came across two baby moles hiding in our compost area. We are hoping to see them again next week!

One of our main tasks throughout our day was to find a new or familiar plant life and identify it from our nature books. Some of our finding were Queens Anne’s lace, Mustard Garlic, Buttercups, Dog wood, and many more! It is great to see our students taking the initiative to gain more knowledge and educate their fellow classmates on their findings. Our students also learned very quickly that it is hard to decipher between some plants due to many of them looking the same, as well as being unsure about whether or not a plant is safe to pick, or eat!

Staying true to our lesson, our afternoon consisted of digging into our seed library! We came across some cucumbers, mint, daises, peas, beans, lavender, spinach, zucchini, kale and sunflower seeds. Our students were given 6 decomposing containers and the opportunity to plants 6 of their favourite seeds. Active play was also a huge part of our afternoon, along with the whole class participating in a game of “Farmer and the Horse”. This game was one of the highlights for all of our students, and while some played this all afternoon, others played in their sit spots, became fire keepers, and identified more plants.