Free Spirit Forest and Nature School

Nurturing Connection with Self, Others and Nature

If we build it… they will have fun.

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Hey Everyone,

Some of our favourite days here at Forest School are our “Project Days”. In the past, we’ve built gardens, free libraries, kites, hammocks and much more. We often come into these days with a few ideas about projects we can work on – and as usual are blown away with where the students take it and the ideas they bring to the table. The Snowy Owl students were eager to get a lot of work done on their sit spots, and the painted turtles created secret forts of their own. A lot was accomplished over the past three days – some really cool individual projects, and other bigger group projects, too. Here are the highlights broken down by day:

Tuesday

Tuesday we had on and off again rain, which meant we had some time for indoor projects to do. Some students built massive lego towers, some painted our Kubb set, and others carved spoons. We even made a brand new bow-drill for the class. Some students collected a variety of wild edibles, took everyone’s order off the menu and served us a special treat. When we were able to take advantage of the dryer moments outside, we worked together as group and created a brand new rope swing at our campsite!

Our new bow drill

Wednesday

We had a beautiful sunny day Wednesday and took full advantage of it. While the Painted Turtles were off creating their “secret” place, Snowy Owls were trying to catch minnows in a trap and manipulate a flowing stream with dams and pipes – all before morning snack. After a bunch of time in setting up our sit spots, some fishing and finding a real painted turtle, students got dirty with clay and created a pottery factory. The afternoon was spent checking our trap, painting with natural materials, and trying out the bow-drill from Tuesday’s group. We also added a balance beam to our new obstacle course which included a lot of rope-swinging.

Thursday

The rain held off!!! Our big project today was building a couple potato planters – using straw, chicken wire and soil, students dove in and got dirty. There were also some new additions made to the rope swing and we spent some time in our sit spots. Some students even made a fire without a match! The afternoon was spent carving – mostly spoons, but some spears, arrows and bows as well.

Congratulations to all the bead recipients (and quite a lot!): 8 sit spot beads, 1 curiosity bead, 4 craft beads, 1 firekeeper bead, 1 Al’s bead, 1 peer-support bead, 2 show and tell beads and 4 storytelling beads!

Next Week: We are headed off-site for a hike! Kim and Matt will be away, but we will have amazing teachers (including Krista!) filling in for them.

Registration to the public opens up May 5th, please be sure to send us your intentions (fsforestschool@gmail.com) to ensure your spot asap!

Thanks,

Kim, Matt and Krista

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What do Turkey Nests, Sun Fires, Snapping Turtles and Leeks have in common?…

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…Forest School!!

Hey Everyone,

This week the classes learned all about Ecosystems. After our core routines, we started off by coming up with a working definition of what Ecosystems are and how they connect all over the world. It was awesome to lean on the prior-knowledge of our students – we’ve got a clever bunch!

After our lessons, we threw on our scientist hat and headed for the field to make observations and record data. Our objective was to mark off a rectangular section of “ecosystem”, measure it and search for all living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) things. The students jumped to the task with magnifying glasses in-hand and found some really cool things – robin eggs, insect eggs and nests, snails galore, mushrooms, and much more. After a “museum walk” to view everyone’s site, it was quite evident that there’s much more than meets the eye in a relatively small area.

After telling a legend, the afternoon had us exploring more ecosystems as we set out on a hike to the far edges of our property. More specifically, we were looking at the biodiversity between ecosystems, in the ecotones. It’s awesome what you can find when you slow down and take a look – the remains of a Northern Flicker, a Turkey nest, edible trout lilies, and that’s just to name a few.

You never know what you’re going to get at Forest School and different days saw many different things happen this week:

TuesdaY

Students were really engaged with ring toss yet again. They also got a chance to become the food chain in a serious rock, paper, scissors competition. This group was the first group to discover the remains of the Northern Flicker (and they chose to leave the beautiful feathers there for the other groups to see – yay LNT principles and nature lovers!). A big portion of them also started work on carving projects, and as always enjoyed some time in their sit spots.

Wednesday

A really cool thing happened on Wednesday – during our exploration one of the students noticed his magnifying glass warmed up his hand. And from there we naturally had to make a fire from it. So we tried and lo and behold, the char cloth caught quick. So we tried other materials – paper, birch bark, tree resin, wood – to see what would happen. We eventually were able to make a fire only using the sun!!!

During a game of camouflage, this group also accidentally (and quite literally) stumbled upon a turkey nest. The mama turkey flew off and we quickly left the area in hopes that she’ll return.

THURSDAY

Wow! What a hot day! So nice we even had to cool down in the spring, and had our first real day where we could take our shoes off this Spring. (And the lightning storms held off just for us!)

The students on Thursday jumped into the roles of Producers, Consumers and Decomposers for a better understanding of food chains. On a sadder note, we experienced this cycle first hand after discovering that our mallard nest was attacked by a hungry predator. We worked through these heavy feelings with the group and realized that this loss is an important part of the food chain. Soon after, we were treated when we discovered a healthy baby of another species – a snapping turtle!

Of course you may have noticed some stinky breath coming from your child after school this week… Tuesday we came across a Leek patch and of course the Wed and Thurs groups had to try!

Congrats to our bead recipients: 3 Leadership Beads, 2 Curiosity Bead, 3 Show and Tell, and 1 Craft bead (for homemade charcloth!)

Next week: Projects!!! We’re going to let our imaginations run wild.

Cheers,

Your Forest School Team (Matt, Kim and Krista)

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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

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Wild about Animals

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Hey Everyone,

We had a fun week at Forest School exploring the wonderful and intricate world of Animals. And we were SURROUNDED by them this week. A hare one morning, a groundhog, lots of squirrels, our resident chipmunk and even a bat that literally hung out on the school house all day. Oh and of course we were inundated with birds! We saw dozens of different types and listened attentively to all their songs – it’s getting us really excited for next week’s Bird focus. In prep for this we set up some big feeders to draw them in and made our own smaller Easter Egg bird feeders to put in our sit spots.

After some exploratory play and our morning routines, we took some extended time at our sit spots. These spots are really coming together – check out the pictures below for a sample of the cool shelters and creations our kids are making. The students are really becoming stewards of their areas and adding their own flare.

Back to the subject of the day: Animals. In the past, we’ve worked a lot with animals – tracking, identification, adaptations, fish, birds, insects and more – and we wanted to build on this knowledge. So we tested our knowledge on animals tracks and found out that we could use a little refresher! We took a first hand look at Aden’s paws and followed some tracks laid down by some local fauna. Afterwards, we really wanted to emphasize an understanding of the needs of animals and what better way than with a game of Survival? Students were herbivores, omnivores and carnivores and became part of the food chain. The only goal? To survive!!

Later on we built on this with a couple lessons on carrying capacity and limiting factors. As part of our lesson, chairs slowly started disappearing so students had to share, until ultimately there was not enough space (and thus we figured out our “Classroom Carrying Capacity”). Then we went outside and became deer fighting for resources. We graphed the results over a “15 year” period (yay math!) and drew out conclusions from our findings. We took this one step further by making predictions and looking at real world applications (ie 7 year hare/lynx cycle).

On Thursday we had an impromptu Easter Egg hunt when we came across an abandoned Mallard nest with an egg. Although this is unfortunate, we learned a good lesson in avoiding wildlife (some of our LNT principles). Since we know it has been abandoned for a while, we are going to see if it we can hatch it under a light.

All in all, a real fun day. Congrats to our bead recipients: 2 fire beads, 2 litterless-lunch beads and 5 fire keeper beads.

Next week:
BIRDS!! This is always a fun day and the property has an incredible amount of our avian friends right now. If you’ve got binoculars, please bring them!

Have a great long weekend and see you next week!

The Forest School Team
(Matt, Krista and Kim)

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Fire Keepers and Rainfall Warnings

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Hey Folks,

Firstly, a BIG welcome to our new students and their families this semester – Forest School is booming and we are so happy to have a growing community. Also, a BIG welcome back to our students from the Fall, and of course our courageous Winter semester crew! We’re in for a good season this Spring.

We started off our days learning how to set up tents (which were especially needed on Tues and Thurs with the rainy weather!) then continued like most days at Forest School – Free Play, Smudge and Check-ins. Afterwards we ventured off for an extended amount of time in our Sit Spots (if you don’t know what this is yet, follow this link to our Core Routines page). New students were on the hunt for a space to call their own and become stewards of for the next few months, while returning students added their personal touches to theirs: a new balance beam in one, a shelter in another, a wall in one more – anything to make it their own… even some fairy gardens! The students could’ve (and would’ve!) spent all day there.

Hanging out in our sit spots

Over the past few weeks, the classes have really been putting in time at our fire pit. We now have an incredible tree fort, a natural shelter, a storefront and a revitalized fire ring. As our goal this week was to learn new outdoor skills, what better place to spend most of the day? Our goal? To create a fire without a match or lighter.

On Tuesday, after a Fire Safety lesson, students eagerly got busy with different jobs – collecting wood, getting the fire ready, fetching water, making “nests” and setting up our ignition station. Students then jumped at the chance to try out our magnesium and steel. With charcloth in place and a nest nearby, we were ready to go. And we did it!!! Our very first “fire keeper” is a long-time Painted Turtle, the very first student in FS Forest School History to make a fire without a match… and he did it in the rain!

Magnesium and steel with charcloth

Wednesday was much the same, though we had much better weather and even more students were able to get their nests blazing without a match. Alas, we tried our best with the Bow Drill and came up just shy – at least we have a new goal for later in the spring (flint and steel proved quite difficult as well, but just another thing to look forward to!).

Working on our Bow Drill skills

The afternoon was spent in different ways on these two days. After exploratory play time, most student wanted to spend more time in their sit spots, or showing them off to others. We found out that tree sap (this was from a pine) can act like a torch and burn really well and long on the end of a stick. We also opened up the knife throwing pit on Wednesday for the Snowy Owls, which was a ton of (highly supervised!) fun. To finish off the day, the classes learned about the key components of a camp stove, how it’s put together and how to use it. And we made some cider/tea.

Our knife throwing pit

Thursday saw some of the craziest weather to date at Forest School. This put a kink in our fire plans, but not in our spirits! After an epic hike to Maple Forest, with some inevitable stops along the way (including finding 5 FROGS!), we were soaked and muddy! The students did a great job at keeping warm and layering up, so we made a fire, had some tea and roasted some marshmallows to celebrate our resilience. What unreal winter-like weather, and a great reminder that “April Showers” can be brutal – please remember to send extra clothes with you child or you can leave a labelled set at the school.

2 of the bigger frogs we found

The classes also brainstormed, voted on and came up with 3 new beads (one per class). Allow us to introduce the student-created:

Sit Spot Bead – earned by taking good care of your sit spot, spending quiet time reflecting in it, doing assigned tasks and making it your own.
Fisherperson Bead – earned by demonstrating new knowledge with fishing… bonus if you catch a fish.
Explorer Bead – earned by exploring somewhere new and stepping outside of your comfort zone.

And by popular demand from all three classes: Fire Keeper – creating and maintaining a fire without a match or lighter. (We have a few to give out next week!)

We will send home a fully updated bead list next week. Congrats to our bead recipients this week! 2 Fire beads, 1 teaching bead for a great lesson on Great White Sharks, and 1 Show and Tell bead.

Next Week:
All about animals!

Cheers,

Kim, Krista and Matt

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Good-bye Winter, Hello Spring

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Hey Friends!

This week at Forest School we spent our last day of Winter semester building shelters for our community, student led games and reflecting on our time spent with each other. A little fun was also spent around the fire-creating banana boats. Another epic day!

Our morning was spent discovering animals and natural objects around our fishpond, which naturally led into building chipmunk’s and fairy shelters. We then shifted our focus onto shelters for our school. Teamwork, communication and imagination were a huge part of this project. With the use of natural and man made objects our students created the start of their ultimate tree fort!

We also spent some time playing games that our students created, our kids have some amazing imagination!

Ancient Egypt Mummy Attack

Which consisted of two mummy’s and 5 relics.

Sunflower (gave life)
Painted rock (super strength)
Medallion (unlocks secrets)
Bandana (power to see the unseen)
Block with numbers (code)

The goal of the game is to find all the relics and get them to the safe zone before getting caught by the mummy’s.

Dead ants – All ants have to run to different safe zones without getting caught by the anteater.

A few other games were obstacle course and pass the barrier game.

These are awesome games and definitely will be played again!

To finish off our day we took some time to relax and reflected on our time at Forest School. We shared our favourite memories, skills we have gained and beads we have accomplished. Finishing off with report cards and our Winter semester video, which you can watch below.

Thank-you to all the students and parents for being apart of our FIRST Winter semester. All out students came to school ready for an adventure with lots of layers, snacks and happy faces! We had so much fun this semester and looking forward to Spring. Thank-you for taking this adventure with us!

Next Week – Our first day of Spring! Outdoor Skills and Thrills.

Until next week!!

Krista and Neal

Our Video

Celebrate Good Times

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Hey Everyone!

We celebrated the end of our semester with a little “spring cleaning” this week and spent some time outfitting our sit spots, exploring the “concrete factory” and updating the amenities at our camp sites. Naturally, students incorporated some slack lining and tree climbing too!

Over both days, it was awesome to watch creativity bloom. Tuesday we visited an area of our property known as the concrete factory – essentially a muddy and sandy area with a small amount of running groundwater. It was soon discovered that this mix turned into “quicksand” and suddenly students were stuck!! After a rescue mission, it was decided we should barricade this area off to warn other students, so we quickly made a fence from the down branches and grass (for cord) in the area.

While this was going on, other students were searching, opening and discovering hundreds of fossils. Everyone was on the hunt for Trilobytes and worked together to pry the rocks open at their “excavating store”. Even more students were damming up the flowing river and adding pipes and tunnels to direct it. It sure was a busy morning!

On Wednesday, we shifted focus to our campsite and soon enough a market was open, trading in bricks, tree bows, sticks and more. Eventually we had an entirely new shelter built, a (well-supervised!) knife throwing pit using homemade throwing knives one of our students created from old saw blades, and entirely new sit spots for some Snowy Owls.

After lunch on both days, we played our favourite game – Survival. Students became part of the food chain and had to survive for 30 minutes finding food, shelter and water. We are happy to report that everyone from both days survived – and we’ve never seen a more friendly and cooperative carnivore!

To finish off the day we had a bonfire and cooked some bannock. We shared our favourite memories from the Winter and appreciations for each other. Afterwards, we gave out report cards and watched our Forest School Winter Movies (which you can see below).

Lastly, a big appreciation for you – the parents!! Winter can be a tough time of year, but with your dedication, commitment and awesome layering work, we had a really successful semester! Thanks for taking part in this journey with us.

Next Week:
Spring Semester begins – Outdoor Skills and Thrills!

Cheers,

Matt and Kim

Videos:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

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Exploring the Bruce Trail

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Hey Folks!

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!

Until Next week!

Krista and Neal

Our epic day!

Ice Slides and Cave Dwellers (and sunny, sunny days!)

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Hey Everyone,

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!

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Archeologists and Town Planners… (or imaginations running wild!)

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Hey Everyone,

In the spirit of March Break we decided to skip out on school this week and head off to Wasaga Beach to discover new parts of our community. We started our adventure at the Nordic Centre in hopes of exploring some new trail systems and after a quick tree ID tag game we were off!

While on the hike, Tuesday’s group made an unanticipated discovery – a HUGE amount of ice among the trees and under the snow from the previous melt. They spent a good chunk of time clearing it off (some students even became official “Zambonis”), creating their own bases and then connecting this intricate network of rooms together. During a debrief/apple cider break, we found out that teamwork and cooperation were the biggest factors in creating this enormous project. (Ahh, emergent learning :)!)

Our Zamboni!

Wednesday we had a chance to swing by the Library before heading to Wasaga to check out some of the cool activities they had going on during March Break and buy some books for our Little Free Library. After we arrived at the Nordic Centre though, imaginations took over and it seemed that as soon as we began our hike we had already stopped to investigate something further. This time instead of ice, it was a giant tree that had fallen over with an exposed root system over 6 ft high. The students quickly got to work on their “archaeological” dig with “hammers” in hand, and sorted out different roles for everyone as they uncovered what lay beneath. We as teachers sat back and watched this magic happen, and eventually this led to a discussion around soil types (with a first hand look at how sandy the soil is in Wasaga) and new life from old. (Again, a big shout out to emergent learning!).

Our “archeological” dig

After a picnic lunch, we played a quick game of Eagle’s Eye and then headed off to the Wasaga Beach Free Spirit site, aka the soon-to-be home of our Little Free Library! While there, we made a a fire together, told stories and ate marshmallows – or rather marsh-ball-ows on Tuesday as they had all melted together in the bag. We took a quick peak at the Nottawasaga river in anticipation of paddling it in the spring, and then had to head back to the school house. Time flies when you are having fun!