Free Spirit Forest and Nature School

Nurturing Connection with Self, Others and Nature

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.

More Pics:

Sledding down “contour lines”

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Hi Folks,

We certainly had an awesome time this week at FNS! We learned about wilderness travel and the important parts of a map (making our own treasure maps around the site), honed our compass skills and navigated an orienteering course that some students worked hard to create for us! This course eventually led us to our dear Fossil Mountain – where we examined some contour lines up close… with our toboggans!

We had quite the range of weather this week, allowing us to get our mitts deep into some fun and creative snow structures. We built some epic snow castles and GIANT snowballs, livened up the designs with food colouring, and even raced down hills in our home-made sleds, GT’s and crazy carpets! By Friday, we could feel the sun trying hard to melt our creations, sparking imagination from our learners as they transformed a quinzee to an exploding volcano. It was a blast all week and our students were well prepared and eager to play in the first steady snow week.

Our students are already learning a lot about what it takes to brave the Winter. They are getting their practice at making and sustaining fires in the Winter, being prepared with their own Winter gear (and know the importance of back-up mitts and boots), and are especially making sure we keep hydrated, even though it’s cold out! Big thanks to everyone who made our first snow week such a success!

Speaking of all of this snow, don’t forget to sign up for our winter session! Click here to register!

Cheers,

Matt, Kim and Tamara

More Pics:

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Subnivean Cities

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Making our own Subnivean Zones

Hey Everyone,

What an interesting day we had for our ~~Winter~~, wait scratch that, Freezing Rain Survival days. We went into this expecting to create quinzees and spend all day in the snow, but who could’ve guessed our snow would turn to ice so quickly!? So what can we do but make the best of the situation?? And that’s exactly what we did.

Our day was focused on what animals do to survive during the winter. After visualizing and becoming the animal of their choice, students were asked what they would do to survive in the winter. Some said they would sleep, others would hunt and others said they would move to somewhere warm. This covered all of our bases and in essence they already knew: hibernate, stay active, or migrate.

After reading an incredible story (Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner – seriously check it out if you don’t have it) to set the tone for the day, the students designed their own “Subnivean Cities”. This under-snow layer captivated the imagination of students, and we were even able to explore the real thing outside once the rain subsided.

Over and Under the Snow

To get a little more in depth with hibernation, students were teamed up and given a jar half-full of water. Their mission? To ensure this water doesn’t freeze even after being left outside for a week. Students attacked this challenge head on and started to come up with super creative ideas to insulate and protect the water. The water jars became their “Frogs”, Snakes” or “Turtles”, and when the layers were complete they now needed a safe space to hibernate. Outside the students searched and found ideal places for their “amphibians” and “reptiles” to sleep… buried deep in the ground, insulated by debris, dirt and snow. We’ll see what happens next week!

Insulating our “frogs” for hibernation

Add in some time playing student-created games, tracking animals and one another, engaging in a creative Forest School buff fashion show, having a bonfire while reading legend, and completing an adventurous hike to find a geocache, and it seems we had quite a busy day.

And still the students returned to the classroom for one final challenge. In partners, they were given a particular bird species outlined like a Pokemon Card that showed their strengths, habits, diets etc. As this specific type of bird, students had to navigate a human-sized board game to show just how difficult migration can be and the potential threats that birds can face en-route. By the end, only a couple groups were able to migrate safely, but we developed really great insight about birds and their journeys during the winter.

(We had a request from a student for a copy of this game – it can be printed out by clicking here)

Migrating

Congratulations to our 3 Show and Tell bead recipients for bringing in a spider man web shooter, a handmade pair of moccasins and some awesome Polaroid pictures. We also gave out 2 musical beads for some stellar renditions of songs from the Lion King and a Bravery Bead!

Next Week:
Field Trip! We’ll be heading out to do some Cross Country Skiing!

We sure had practice with our balance on all that ice this week – here’s hoping for some snow next week.
Matt and Kim

More Photos:

Principal Jennie salting the driveway – thanks!

You are as wonderful as a snowflake

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Our Fall 2016 Video!

Hey Everyone!

On our last day of Forest School this year, the students’ skills were put to the test with an Amazing Race. Just like in the show, the classes had to work their way through Team Challenges, Road Blocks (completed by one person) and Detours (choice between 2 activities) while earning materials (tinder, kindling, a pot, etc) along the way for their final challenge of the day.

The Amazing Race encompassed almost everything we’ve covered this semester. Various challenges, like the tarp flip, human knot and blindfolded hikes, showed us just how well these groups worked together as teams. The group dynamic here was quite powerful! Other activities challenged hard skills (knots, compass and GPS use, and fire building) while knowledge tests showed us just how much they’ve learned and retained this year. We even called on skills we haven’t learned here, like clues being translated from French!

No matter the challenge, they rose to it. Throw in some snowshoeing, tobogganing, “skating” on the pond, and cedar tea made over the fire (the Final Challenge) and we’ll call it a day well spent outside.

In the spirit of the day, we spent a good chunk of it debriefing the year and looking forward to the next aspects of Forest School. Students were reflective when filling out their report cards and gathered all their stuff (sticker boards, journals and medallions) to take home. As many of you know, we wrapped the day up with a gathering at the Earthship for some drinks and a movie (see above for the movie!)

A big, big thanks to you, the parents, for believing in what we are doing and trusting in us to accomplish this. We couldn’t do it without your constant support. It’s been a real pleasure teaching, learning and growing with your kids. We are loving the sense of community that is developing with this program and are eager to keep it going! See you in the New Year!

Next year:
-If your child or children are returning, please send them back with their journals and medallions so they can continue collecting new beads.

-While we will still be using the property at Bygone Days, we are excited to be calling the Earthship our home for the Winter Semester! (How incredible is it that our classroom is in an Earthship?!) Drop off and pick-up will be there (633 Sixth St) at the same times.

– Please note that we’ve put up a tentative schedule for the Winter Semester on our calendar.

Enjoy the Winter break! Have a happy and healthy holiday and Merry, Merry Christmas!

Kim and Matt

More Photos:

Here for a good time, not a long time..

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Hi Friends!

Our first semester of Forest School ended just the way it started, AMAZING. Our jam packed day consisted of our students using the skills, and knowledge they have obtained here at Forest School. “The Amazing Winter Race” started with us using a map to navigate ourselves to 7 different checkpoints, which consisted of various team-building activities, a crazy spider web, snow lava rock wall, and more mapping with our “Santa candy cane hunt”. We spent so much time today talking about our favourite memories, and what we are excitied about for the Spring.

This morning brought us back to Animal tracking week! Aaron had a keen eye with finding these bunny tracks right beside the Greenhouse.

Izzy was kind enough to bring in a very special rock to show the class before our amazing race. She called it a “Peacock Rock” This picture does not give the colour within the rock justice. Thank you Izzy for bringing in such a special rock to share with us.

We tested our memory with our Forest School matching game. Everything that we had talked about within class was brought up in this fun game. It was challenging for all of our students but everything was matched up by the end of it! Great job everyone you worked so hard!

Enjoying some active play over lunch, and letting our imaginations run wild! Did I mention we have some beautiful minds?

It’s a good thing we know how to read a map, or we would be walking in circles all day long! Our map took us all around our spacious Heathcote property and let us create new memories to treasure, it’s pretty amazing where a map can take you.

Our last task was to create another fire! One fire was started by Alice, Jack and Emily. Our kids have gained the skills and knowledge to seek, build and start their own fires without any help at all! I am so proud of everyone and all their hard work. Finding down sticks under the snow isn’t easy.

I cannot thank you enough (parents and kids) for the incredible 1^st Forest School semester we just had, and jumping into this program with me! We have crushed our goals, gained knowledge, confidence and budding friendships through our laughter and tears. We are looking forward to the all the new ones we make this Spring!

Check out our bonus pictures below!

Have a healthy, happy holiday everyone! See you in the New Year!

Krista

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:

Learning Blocks and Compasses

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Hey Folks,

Another fun-filled week of productive play and learning at Forest School, with a special contribution from Collingwood’s Healthy Kids Community Challenge who brought us their mobile Imagination Playground. We spent a solid portion of our day working collaboratively using the block-based system to build, smash and recreate various castles, towers, bird’s eye views of small villages, buildings, cars, waterfalls – you name it! Your children unleashed their creativity to manipulate the foam blocks and noodles to modify existing target games – like baseball, horseshoe and other tossing games. They collectively built a large creative structure for lunch (with a moat all around us too one day). They met our team building “bobsled initiative” by working together to move a ball across the field using the “pipes”. And they enjoyed the social aspect of hands-on productive playtime. Keep your eyes open in parks and green spaces near your neighbourhood as the HKCC has dates booked in June to visit local parks with their mobile playground to encourage fun, active play outside – and it’s FREE! For more information, check them out here.

More exciting news for Forest School: Thanks to Free Spirit Gardens, we now have our very own raised veggie bed! We drew on our previous knowledge about species competition, plant needs and wants, and appropriate spacing. We measured, marked and planted multiple tomato and pepper seedlings! It was fun getting our hands dirty to grow our own food!

In the afternoon, we spent our day learning about all things related to maps and orienteering – Cardinal Directions, parts of a compass, how to travel. Using various hard copies of maps, we identified key components of maps (title, legend, directions, scale), then updated our Snowy Owl and Red Tail map of the property. Shortly after (on Wednesday), we ventured to our sit spots to create a bird’s eye map of their own area (Thursday they made classroom maps due to weather). If your child is asking for a needle, cork, and magnet, they are likely referring to the craft we made today to demonstrate how magnetic North works. Did you know you can make your own?

To earn our new Travel Bead (white), students were required to successfully navigate an orienteering course created on the property – all students were able to independently travel between points using their newly honed compass skills! Quite impressive! This hard skill will be of extra importance as we approach our culminating activity for our final day at Forest School (last week of June).

In addition to the Travel Beads earned this week, two students earned their Peer Support Bead – a very special bead designed to represent the consistent awareness and curiosity of others, empathy, and general support of one another through meaningful friendship and play! A very significant bead at Forest School. Congratulations!

As weather continues to warm up, a friendly reminder to bring lots of water, a sun hat, sunscreen – and even a change of clothes, swimsuit and a towel! We will soon be selling Forest School T-Shirts for those who are interested! ($10.00). Lastly, please remember to bring in your parent/student feedback forms, if you haven’t already. We would really love to hear from you!

Enjoy the rest of your week,

Matt and Kim (and Aden!)