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!
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!
This week we welcomed the rain, and while some of us may stay inside to stay dry, our students embraced the rain and discovered our soil ecosystem, which was full of life! We even learned a new song called Young and Wild – ask your child to sing it for you!
While some of our students started their day playing rain hockey/rain soccer, some were working on their powers that controlled the weather (wind), and discovered magical crowns, similar to what the fairies wear.
We then ventured to “hot chocolate mountain” and really began diving into the dirt, which brought extreme discoveries. Ranging from frogs, millipedes, HUGE worms, spiders, ant farms, magical willow monsters, and even a Red Spotted Newt! This was a great find for our students because it was new, and the second ever found on Bygone Days Property.
Along our adventure we even came across our pear tree, and we thought it was a great day to introduce our students into cooking over the fire, and we are so proud of the teamwork for stick collecting. We are continuing each week to work towards building our fire skills with our 3 D’s (Dead, Dry and Down) – which is even harder when it’s wet outside, but our sweet reward was worth the wait!
We love taking the time to sing, dance, get really muddy, explore and investigate even if it’s the roots of a plant! We love to give children the guidance and empowerment to try new things even if its letting a spider walk on their leg, and as one of our students said today, ” I’m scared of spiders but I’m trusting myself”.
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!
We are filled with gratitude for the wonderful welcome into the Wasaga Beach community from our new friends and families. Our day was filled with little moments that took us by surprise (literal surprise!.. aka spotted touch me not flowers), and big moments that brought us all together to build relationships.
We are very proud to say that all of our students have amazing Owl eyes (excellent vision) and identified plants and creatures that our teachers even missed. Our students were so eager to share their findings with their fellow peers and were constantly asking “I wonder” questions, which as educators we love as we want to keep those inquisitive minds pondering. We worked on mapping, tracking and our karate moves when we walked through unknown spider webs.
A lot of our students were new to this forested area, which made for lots of hiking and exploration. We were really looking to the ground for what Mother Nature had to offer and we were not disappointed. Some of the finding our student made were: Monarch Butterflies, Yellow Bears (Caterpillars), Huge Dragonflies, Inch worms, Tree Frogs, Fire Ants, Mushrooms, Ferns, Trees, oh and did we mention Millipedes? These friendly little fellas were abundant today showing us their legs, body and how they protect themselves. Our students were even lucky enough to have some firsts and felt what it was like to hold one. As one student said “it feels very ticklish and feels super cool”.
We want to thank you to all the students for coming into the Forest with us and exploring, wandering, playing and sharing their stories, we are very lucky to have spent our day with such awesome students.
Come back each week to see what we have been up to!
What an amazing day to welcome new and familiar faces back to Forest School, and our Chickadees didn’t waste anytime getting back into the swing of things. We had a busy morning filled with games, running, building, obstacle courses, a very talented band, and our returning students even helped with our morning fire!
Jumping into our core routines (opening circle, sit spots), our Chickadees were constantly practicing their Deer ears (excelling listening), Owl eyes (excellent vision) and Fox feet (being super sneaky). These skills were used while we found an abundance of small creatures only found by those who believe in the magic of the woods! Some of the smaller friends we found were Caterpillars, Spiders, Worms, Fire Ants, A Preying-mantis and Grass Hoppers (great job to all of those who caught one, and showing us that their pee stains your hands – But with a little hand sanitizer, cleaned right up!).
While bugs were the highlight of our day, mother nature provided moments for us to relax and learn about her other offerings, such as Plantain, Goldenrod and Walnut Seeds. Coming close to the end of our day we ended with an amazing and very skillful game of soccer.
We had a day full of laughing, adventure, exploring and first times, and we couldn’t have asked for a better group of chickadees to share our day with!
Thanks for stopping by,
Emily and Krista and the FNS Team.
Check out some pictures below to see how our day went!
What a hot and beautiful day we had! After our opening circle, we dove into (or rather quietly sat into) a sensory awareness activity that got us using all our senses. After some games and further core routines, we headed out for a lunch out a Grape Valley.
Students spent the day searching for critters in the water, building fairy communities, adding to their shelters and getting stuck in the mud! We headed out to be the first FNS group to explore the new trails in Maple Forest and found a lot of exciting things along the way. Edible trout lillies were everywhere and we took (sustainable) advantage as these delicious treats don’t last long! We meandered our way through the Forest, uncovering places we had never seen before. And before we knew it, it was time to head back. But one more treat on the way – a patch of Garlic Mustard! This is one tasty invasive!
Wednesday
Wednesday’s group was visited by a beautiful male Indigo Bunting during our opening circle. We took the time to just observe and see what he was doing, making note of appearance to identify later. After a sensory awareness activity, we were ready for the day!
After snack, the students took a lead role in our Tick Awareness by creating a student-led natural spray to help deter ticks from coming after us. And while we’ve never had a tick on our students at Forest School, we want to keep in that way and knowledge is power. After covering ourselves in it, we headed out to Grape Valley in Maple Forest for lunch.
While there, imaginations came alive, structures were built and the hunt for new creatures was on. We found some strange looking aquatic bugs we later identified as caddisfly larvae and big beetle known as a Meleo. We hiked all the new trails that have been developed which has opened up some awesome new areas to explore and then something really cool happened – the students self-organized to clean up garbage along it and ended up filling a whole bag. What group of environmental superheroes!
Throw in some delicious wild edibles – trout lily, leeks and garlic mustard – and a huge nesting site of bank swallows on Fossil Mountain, and we’ll call it a successful exploration!
Thursday
Thursday brought forth all sorts of emergent interests in our students. We started the day with some teambuilding by conquering the “chocolate river” by using “marshmallows” to cross it (ask your kids!). After our opening circle we spent some time on sensory awareness with our journals in a quiet place. This led us into our check-in and before we knew it, snack had arrived. After snack, we had a quick lesson on tick prevention and awareness before jumping into the role of Geese and learning firsthand some of the perils they face on their long journeys – not everyone survived! Some of our students were focused on birds throughout the whole day and we were able to identify new ones and wonder what they were up to. We even followed some circling vultures to see if we could find their target.
Another theme throughout the day was plants. We worked to together to get our gardens in place, plant the peas for our living tee-“pea” and students even took the initiative to build their own wild edible garden in their sit spots – complete with some of the plants we foraged: garlic mustard, wild strawberry, wild carrot (Queen Anne’s Lace), leeks and more.
And still we had some students dive into amphibians – frogs and toads to be exact. We found eggs and tadpoles and caught a whole bunch of different critters.
And still some other students were really into to building bug homes and making clay.
It’s awesome when we can all share one space, and follow our passions and interest together and apart!
Friday
We started off the day with a silent lava crossing teambuilding challenge and our students rocked it! After our opening circle and check-ins we spent some time building and playing in our sit spots. As it was a chillier day, some students took on the task of creating a fire with flint and steel and were successful!
Our next adventure began after lunch as we headed west to discover some new trails. Along the way, we caught some frogs and uncovered a mass area of toad eggs (now named Toad Egg Bay). Further along, we spotted a pile of bones that got us wondering what had happened.
As we started along the trails we focused our attention downwards and the many wild edibles that have sprung up. Students tried Garlic Mustard, sampled the ample trout lillies and uncovered big patches of leeks. And though not edible, we found that the trilliums are in bloom (so watched out step!) and even identified some Jack in the Pulpit sprouted up.
FYI: We’ve got an edible plant workshop with Naturalist Brian McLelland-Tuck coming up on Saturday June 2nd with a few spaces remaining. At Forest School, your children will be learning a lot about safe foraging and eating, and this workshop is geared towards parents and educators to help them get involved in this special learning. Email us asap if you’d like to register, we only have a handful of spots remaining ($20/person).
Worms and insects are out. Turtles and Frogs are sunbathing. Birds are singing and making nests. Spring is here and here’s the recap of our week, enjoy!
Tuesday
With emergent interests at the forefront, we were a little all over the place on Tuesday with an overarching theme of Spring – though it felt more like Summer! We began our day with some of our core routines and games, then jumped into plant ID. We set the stage – 8 mystery plants that need to be identified and limited time periods to peek at the master copy! Students did an excellent job of uncovering and naming various plants using just small pieces of them including clover, willow, dogwood and more.
Afterwards, we had to take advantage of the warm sun and headed out on an adventure, nets in hand just in case. We played around the big lake, dammed up our stream, climbed fossil mountain and found and caught an incredible amount of critters! Frogs, tadpoles, a blind fish, some green eggs and 2 Giant Water Bugs aka Lethocerus americanus. In addition, we found a kill site from what we guessed was last fall, and tried to unravel the mystery of what occurred.
In the afternoon, we got crafty and did some painting and made “seed” bombs. Seed bombs (clay, soil and seeds) are meant to be tossed anywhere and make flowers grow. Let us know how yours do! We finished up with a teambuilding initiative – choose the right path – and before we knew our day had flown by!
Wednesday
Similar to Tuesday, our Wednesday group was excited about searching for water creatures – and determined to find a Giant Water Bug. After a thrilling “Ring Toss” Tournament, we were on our way to the West side of the big pond in hopes of capturing some critters. We were able to snag some striders, a tadpole and frog pretty quickly, but as the rain began to roll in our hopes dwindled on catching a Giant Water Bug – until at nearly the last moment, a log was moved and we got one!
We decided to head back as the rain picked up, and along the way were treated to a nesting Morning Dove in a cedar. A big props to the student with the keen eyes! On our way to get dry however, the rain stopped (as was our day: rain, sun, rain, sun) so we stopped too to spend some quality time at our sit spots. It wasn’t long until students were drawn to a huge puddle – a bridge went up, frogs eggs were spotted and inevitably shoes came off to squish in the clay.
After lunch – and a quick thunderstorm that sent us inside for a bit – we dove into a teambuilding initiative (island hopping) and students did extremely well coming through with the fastest time to date!
After our story of the day (debrief) it was to say adieu for another week.
Thursday
The rain didn’t slow us down on Thursday as we lit ourselves a nice big fire to dry off and stay warm. In fact the wet weather actually inspired us to get building on our shelters in our it spots. And who can resist a giant puddle full of clay? And hundreds of striders – so much that our students shoveled out a section, built some walls and created a strider sanctuary. Some students even took on the initiative of building a tee-“pea”: a living garden structure designed to grow peas and provide shelter!
In the afternoon we ventured west with nets in hand. With the cold weather, we were sort of surprised to find a turtle out on shore, but happy nonetheless. And while we didn’t spot any giant water bugs, we did get up close and personal with a mama morning dove sitting on her nest in a cedar. As we ventured more, we uncovered tons of fossils, found that the bank swallows have returned to Fossil Mountain and followed some fresh deer tracks.
On days like this, we’re reminded that rain is a good thing as flowers are starting to bloom!
Friday
The morning clouds gave us a heads up – take advantage of the sun because we’d likely have rain later.
Our students set the stage today when they imagined a mini jungle life playing itself out in the grass – think “Honey I Shrunk the Kids”. Therefore after doing some core routines (smudge, animal forms, quiet time) we headed out to our Sit Spots to play, build and get up close a personal with bugs. Specifically we built a bug hotel! Complete with pine cone rooms, sumac rooms, bark rooms, and mud rooms. Holes were drilled in locks, mini hammocks were made and even a pool was put in for the striders. It turned into more of a 5-star bug resort, and students eagerly sought out bugs to add to it. Worms, Potato Bugs, Striders, Centipedes and even a Wooly Bear caterpillar (named Crawly) all checked in. With lunch looming, we headed back, just in time for the torrential downpour.
The sun made it’s return shortly after, and we continued with our bug theme shifting our focus to bees. After some students made some beeswax chap stick to take home, we chatted about threats to the bee population and the ramifications it could have. We explored pesticide use, habitat loss and other critical issues. And then we dove into the roles of bees in a macro-model we call “Bee-Safe” where bees must retrieve pollen without getting tagged by some of the “threats”.
After a final barefoot walk through the gigantic puddle, we called it a day. Happy May the 4th Star Wars fans!
Happy Tuesday! We had a great day with our Chickadee program today, and as the title suggests, we did a lot of building.
Right away, we watched imaginations come to life as an old driftwood root became a house for Fairies. Equipped with a door, chimney, balcony, hot tub and much more, students couldn’t get enough of finding places for all sorts of cool additions until it inevitably became a mansion for our magical friends.
While laying the “driveway” for the Fairy House, a surprise critter was uncovered – a woolly bear caterpillar. This cascaded into a whole new adventure – “Let’s build a home for him!” After trying to understand this creature a little better, counting its feet and realizing it was a pretty good climber, this home transformed turned into an obstacle course of pine cones and woodblocks. And my oh my could it crawl and climb!
Students today were inspired by one of our favourite books Everybody needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor and before we knew it we were on an adventure to find a rock of our very own. Taking advantage of the sun, we painted our rocks outside and later created pebble art of birds, caterpillars and ants.
And in between all that: more play, stories, music, hikes, games, fire making and more. It sure was a creative day.
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.
