Free Spirit Forest and Nature School

Nurturing Connection with Self, Others and Nature

Here sappy, sappy..

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Hi Friends,

Mother nature is playing games with us, she’s not sure if she want to leave like a lamb or go out like a lion, but that didn’t stop us from exploring the wonderful world of Maple syrup.

This morning was the start of whittling, and our students were super excited about the idea of using knives, and creating something from nothing. But with learning a potentially dangerous skill, we made sure to cover all of our 6 safety guidelines.

Do not share your knife
Safety bubble
Carve away from oneself
Carve for short periods of time
Wear a glove
Carve slowly

This allowed our students to practice their new skill in a safe, and supervised environment. Our contract has some pretty steep repercussions, so our kids made sure their listening ears were turned on, and everyone did an amazing job learning and memorizing all the rules! All of our students went home with all ten fingers and ten toes!

This afternoon we played a student created Macro Model game called Sappy Sappy, a spin off from the classic game Octopus, but with more role-play. The kids were acting as sap running from the crown of the tree to the roots, while the bucket in the middle could tag the sap and turn them into syrup. We also added another twist, the syrup got to move really s-l-o-w around the field to tag the running sap! Needless to say we held amazing games and a teacher even won a round!

After hands on activities about identifying Maple trees (winter and summer) and learning the fundamental steps of how Maple Syrup is made, we strapped on our winter hats and dove even further into learning by hiking out to our sugar bush. Did you know that within our sugar bush we host 83 tapped trees? With today’s unexpected weather, which was one of the coldest days this week, we naturally came across frozen sap within all the buckets, but that didn’t stop us from sneaking a taste.

We even had the chance to explore the sugar shack, and a huge thank you to Neal, one of our teachers who taught us all about the sticky goodness! Getting to look at the evaporator (papa pot, mama pot and baby pot), fire pits, filters, drills, spiles and buckets. Our students became more aware of all the work that goes into this Canadian trademark. Who knew it took 40 gallons of sap to make 1 liter of syrup!

We even had our first musical instrument show and tell today! Thank you Hazel for bringing in your recorder and playing “Mary has a little lamb” for all your fellow classmates. You wouldn’t believe she had been only playing for one week! We are looking forward to hearing more songs in the future!

By the afternoon the kids couldn’t wait any longer to try some syrup, and what better way to do so but with pancakes! Our students build an amazing fire, and with the help of our Chef and his assistant we ate fire-roasted pancakes covered in maple syrup. Our students also took time to practice their whittling, and explored the valley we set up camp in. Full bellies and happy faces at the end of our day – just the way we like it!

Huge congratulations to all the stickers and beads that went out today. 7 Winter Warrior Beads, 1 Cooking Bead, 1 Musical Bead and 2 Fire Beads. Our necklaces are become so colorful!

Next Week – We are going to be diving into Community Projects. We will be getting hands on, and helpful!

Friendly Reminder – With the warming weather we are going back to drop off and pick up at Bygone Days! So lots of extra layers, water and snacks just incase.

See you all next week,

Krista and Neal

Pancake Tuesday (and Wednesday!)

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Hey Friends,

With the temperatures rising, and the snow disappearing, our Winter semester is slowly melting away. The good news? Maple sap is-a-flowin’.

“Maple Forest”

We started our day off with a Macro Model we created called Sappy, Sappy. In this activity, students slid into the roles of sap collection in an epic sap flow vs spiles and buckets challenge. It’s an educational take on a classic game (Octopus) that students would have played all day if they could have! And a great way to dive into our Maple Syrup day.

After learning about the science behind sap flow, we wasted no time in rushing out to our sugar bush (aptly named Maple Forest) to meet up with our Maple Master “Uncle” Al, who taught us about all the steps in making syrup. The students eagerly navigated the 83 tapped trees, tasted the sap and explored the sugar shack to watch the boiling process in action. They even tasted Maple Syrup fresh from the tap.

Looking for sap!

We were able to sneak in a little math today as the students recorded findings about a tree of their choosing. They took out their yarn to measure the circumference of the tree and filled their measuring cups to discover how much sap their tree had yielded. After a tour and presentation of everyone’s trees, students made the connection of size of tree (and number of buckets!) to volume output (though we had a HUGE rogue tree that yielded basically no sap; which led to some interesting theories…). We also worked on ratios — 40:1 for Sap to Syrup (though Al likes his even sweeter and does 50:1). We helped collect wood for Al to keep the fires going then headed back to the school house for lunch.

Measuring Circumference

After some time for exploratory play (and inevitably more rounds of Sappy, Sappy), students created a Mokuk (a birch bark bucket) to mimic those historically used by some Indigenous people to collect sap. We also created some photo frames for our Class Photos taken last week.

Finally, it was our turn to indulge. We set out to our camp pit, built a fire (despite the rain) and cooked up some pancakes. And of course… we smothered them in Maple Syrup from our very own Sugar Bush!

Next Week:
Community Projects! We’ll be getting helpful and creative. If your child has a project they’d like to work on, please encourage them to bring it in to share.

With the nice weather, we are going to do drop-off and pick-up at Bygone Days. We’ll be sure to send out an email reminder.

Congrats to our Bead recipients – Everyone received their Winter Warrior bead for tackling Winter head on over the past couple months. We also gave out some cooking beads, litterless lunch beads and bingo beads! Congrats everyone!

See you next week,

Kim and Matt

More Photos:

A picture is worth a thousand words…

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Hi Friends!

This week brought another great day at Forest School, and today was all about Nature Photography and spending time looking at nature from different points of view. We also enjoyed games, our weekly check ins, reflection time and exploration.

A large portion of our day was spent playing around with cameras, and taking pictures of anything that caught our eye! We talked about composition, contrast, different landscapes and how a picture can tell a story. Thought out the day we brought our focus back on our 6 guide lines of picture taking– Getting close, Leading Lines, Rule of thirds, Natural Framing and Points of view.

After practicing with our cameras we ventured out to the Sugar Shack, which led our students into a Nature Photo Scavenger Hunt. Below are two photos our students took, and it was great to see what our kids saw through their point of view. We will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Shout out – We wanted to say HAPPY 7^th BIRTHDAY to our big man Layne!

You are incredibly creative, curious and very independent young man. You are a joy to have around each week, with all your jokes and stories, and we look forward to many more weeks to come! We hope this year brings more laughs, play and adventure! Happy Birthday!

Along with our photography theme, we also got creative and earned a craft bead today! Our kids got the chance to create a masterpiece of their choosing. They were given natural objects along with string, beads and paint. Dream catchers and magical sticks (painted sticks) were a big hit. The task was to set their art piece in nature and take a picture of it. Great job everyone!

Oh yeah – this happened today! We bumped into Al and he let us taste some of his Pure Canadian Maple Syrup, tapped right from our own backyard! Needless to say it gave the kids extra energy to run back to the Sugar Shack and check on all the Maple trees. Thanks Al!

Next Week – Due to the unseasonal weather temperatures, we will be switching some weeks around. We will learning all about tapping Maple Trees and tapping for Maple Syrup.

Side Note – If your child has a swiss army knife they are welcome to bring it, as we will be introducing whittling around the fire. We promise to send them home will all ten fingers, and toes!

Thanks for checking in this week!

Krista and Neal

Check out our amazing pictures our kids took….

Let’s go Skiing!

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Hi Friends!

We were expecting bitter cold, blowing wind, lots of snow, and we came incredibly prepared with our helmets, goggles, extra layers, warm socks and positive attitudes! But low and behold, we were graced with a beautiful, sunny day, light snow and lots of powder! Before we went skiing we wanted to take some time and celebrate Valentines Day with encouraging words and showing love for one another.

Our kids received paper with character traits we all possess. Examples were Playful, Funny, Leader and Confident. They had to choose one student for one trait, and by the end our students were pleased to read all the amazing things their peers think! We will keep all the papers on the wall to remind ourselves what we are, and what we could work towards!

Our adventure started with heading up to Scenic Caves Nordic Centre. Our new hard skill was to learn Cross Country Skiing.
“When we get to the top of the hill, you never know where it’s going to take you” – Lucy.

Our kids adapted very quickly to skiing and for those who had experience, it was a great opportunity for a student led lesson. Before we headed out onto the trails one of our Painted Turtles – Layne – took charge and taught his fellow classmates the do and don’ts about skiing. We covered falling, getting up, pole etiquette, putting skis on and off, hills (pizza plow and monster step) and of course how to tuck. Despite the information overload, we soaked it all up and headed out onto the trails!

Hills, hills and more hills, our kids couldn’t get enough of them! If you ever find yourself at Scenic Caves and you would like to see where we explored to go Easy Peezy, Lemon Squeezy, Lookout Point and Georgian View Return.

After a well-deserved lunch and hot chocolate break we then explored the Suspension Bridge! We hiked down into a valley where we got out of our comfort zones and earned some bravery beads, and crossed the 420’ bridge which stands 100 feet from the valley floor! A cool fact about the bridge is that it moves with the wind, so when we walked across we made it move even more! Great job to all who crossed it twice, we have some very brave kids in our class!

Congratulations to everyone who earned their beads and stickers today – Bravery, Leadership, Peer support, Respect and Love among many more!

Next Week – It’s a wild world and we plan on exploring as much as we can! We also will be looking into Nature Photography so if your child has a small camera to use for the day, please bring it along!

Have a great week everyone!

Krista and Neal.

What an amazing day!

These legs were made for skiing…

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Hey Everyone,

We had two great days at Scenic Caves this week! Tuesday we had sunny, warm weather and Wednesday we had some freshly fallen snow to ride in. After a quick lesson on how to ski and how to fall from fellow Forest School Teacher, Krista, we were off to the trails. We had varying levels of experience in our classes and it was awesome to see how everyone helped each other out. Though we had a lot of spills, we had even more laughs and that’s what it’s all about. Some students even pushed themselves to the scenic lookout!

After lunch, a warm fire, and “warm fuzzy” valentines, we hit the trails again… but this time on foot. Sliding down hills and exploring eventually led us to our goal – the suspension bridge. Students pushed themselves out of their comfort zone and together crossed the entire 420′ bridge – despite of shaking and swaying with the wind! After our return, we were able to spend a bit of free time navigating one of the coolest parks we’ve ever seen.

Congrats to our bead recipients: a couple Bingo beads, Litterless Lunch beads and a very special Peer Support bead for one of our Snowy Owls.

It’s a short blog today, but we’ll let the pictures speak for themselves!

Next Week:
It’s a wild world out there and we intend to explore it. Our main focus will be Nature Photography and looking at Nature through new perspectives. We will have a couple cameras to share, but if you have one your child can use, please send it along! Thanks!

A big thanks for all the valentine treats, and a another huge thanks to Ben’s parents for the midday hot chocolate break!

Cheers,
Kim and Matt

PS: One of our students is making lightbulb terrariums with the catchy slogan “Bring part of the outdoors into your home inside a lightbulb.” Our entrepreneur has previously donated some profits to the Ontario Federation of Cerebral Palsy (OFCP) in support of his friend. Only $5 each, let us know if you’d like to support him!

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We may all be different fish, but in this school we swim together

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Hi Everyone!

We don’t think we could have asked for a better winter day to enjoy our first adventure with Ice fishing! There was an abundance of emergent learning, along with some role play learning! This was another week diving into our “knot book” and taking the time to learn some key knots of the day! We tested our ability with the “clinch knot” (which we used later in the day) and the “fisherman’s knot” – single and a double. Our knot knowledge continues to grow each week, and our students have been catching on so quickly! We were all super excited about the idea of catching a fish, what would we do? Eat it or let it go? While we did not catch anything we did learn some valuable lessons. You need to be quiet around your fishing hole, you must have patience; different types of lures attract different fish, and never bet on catching anything! What an amazing day!

We started our day by looking at the appearance of a fish and learning key features. The task was to match up the words to certain body parts and while some were easier than others (eyes, mouth, gills, scales) others were a bit more challenging (dorsal fin, anal fin, percotral fin). Overall our students were able to identify 2- 4 body parts. You should ask your child which body part they remember!

Most of our students had never fished before, and those who had were great leaders! Before heading out onto the “Willow Pond” we made sure we talked about ice safety while creating boundaries.

Our kids were super stoked to immerse themselves in learning to create their own fishing poles (wood string, hook and bait – pepperoni sticks) while talked about lures, weights, hooks, jigging, and casting. Phew!

It’s a good thing we have some pretty strong kids in our class because they were introduced to the “Auger”! Drilling a hole through the ice is hard work, and the kids learned that very quickly! They all had the opportunity to create their own fishing hole, and getting to experience the feeling of breaking through the ice was such a relief. Between our busy day of fishing and drilling we had time to play games “fishy fishy”, make snow angels, huddle around the fire to keep warm, toboggan, soak up the sun, and oh yeah, build an ice rink! We are hoping that it stays cold enough so that we can check on it next week, and have a little fun!

The start of our Ice rink

Just like a lot of animals, fish live a life full of challenges and obstacles everyday and not all make it to adulthood. Our last task of the day was to look at the ‘Life Cycle’ of a fish! But we didn’t just sit down and talk about it, we wanted to become the fish, and for that we have to learn the ‘Forest School’ way! Outside, running, macro-model learning! Our students had to start as eggs and become adults while overcoming fast moving water, turbines, large predators, hurdles and man made objects such as fish ladders. The goal was to get back to the spawning beds to where they were born! Not all fish survived…but that’s the wild!

Great job to all our students today, we are super impressed with all their respect, love, honesty and wisdom stickers! There was also 4 Reflection Beads, 1 Peer Support Bead, 1 Craft Bead, 1 Colouring Bead and 1 Show and Tell Bead handed out, WAY TO GO!!!

Next Week – Field Trip! We will be heading to the top of the Escarpment and visiting Scenic Caves Nordic Centre. Cross Country Skiing is on the menu as well!

Thanks for checking in this week

Krista and Neal

Our wonderful day!

Here fishy, fishy… (or “they don’t call it catching!”)

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Hey Everyone,

We did not anticipate the extreme amount of excitement around fishing! Students arrived with their tackle boxes and rods in hand and were ready to go. As teachers, we couldn’t have been happier with that energy (and will now likely plan another fishing day in the Spring semester!)

With a few weeks of sub-zero temps, we were able to get out onto “Willow Pond” and have a go at ice fishing! But before heading out, we needed to cover the basics…

Our students had a lot of previous knowledge, skills, experience and fish stories this week. We quickly refreshed on the parts of a fishing pole and found sticks and pieces of wood to replace the rod and reel for our ice fishing needs. Students also learned a clinch knot today in order to attach their hook to their line. We then brainstormed ideas about what kind of fish live in the area, where the best spots would be to fish and different things to use as bait. Our bait today? Roe from a wild local Salmon.

Learning a clinch knot

And then we were off! We grabbed our auger, went over important ice safety rules and partnered up. On the ice, students had a chance to drill out their own holes, set up their lines and practice a LOT of patience. With games going on on the side and fire built to keep us warm (and warm cider!), the students kept a constant eye on their lines. There was so much excitement, students on Wednesday even decided to forego free play in order to continue fishing. Although we did get a few nibbles, and fish could be seen below the ice, unfortunately no catches. Next time though!

Everyone was drilling holes!

After fishing, we decided to become fish. Students became local Salmon, traveling down the Beaver or Pretty River trying to make their way to the Bay, then back again to the spawning grounds without being caught by predators or fisher-people. All this while jumping “waterfalls”, avoiding turbines and climbing the fish ladders, in a macro-model we like to call Hooks and Ladders. This was followed by a great debriefing session with some thoughtful insights from our students.

“Hooks and Ladders”

Our last task of the day: creating emergency fishing kits to add to our survival kits. These kits include a small amount of line, a hook and a small balloon to use as bobber.

Emergency Fishing Kit

Congratulations to our bead recipients: 1 Bingo Bead, 3 Show and Tell Beads and 2 Knot Beads!

Next Week:
Field Trip: Cross Country Skiing!

We had a lot of fun this week, and we’ll leave you with this photo when students were asked to create their own fish. This is “The Donald Trump” Fish:

“Donald Trump” fish

Cheers,

Matt and Kim

More Photos:

Snow, Snow and more Snow!

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Hi Everyone!

Our first toboggan of the day.

Today we welcomed back winter with open arms, excited to spend our whole day exploring the snow. It couldn’t have been a more perfect time because this week, our topic was “Snow”. We also welcomed our guest Tomoko visiting from Barrie, and moving to Japan for 2 years. She participated in our morning routines (check ins, fire starting, smudge circle and shelter building).

She was kind enough to bring us a gift (paint and paint brushes), so we thought we would show her the Forest School way and return the favor with a gift of our own. We made Tomoko her very own medallion to keep as a reminder of her time with us. She received Fire, Friendship, Shelter and Travel Beads for going outside of her comfort zone, learning new skills, and being such great company to us all. Thank you Tomoko for visiting us it was a pleasure to have you!

With the start of our day challenged by puzzles, games, looking at different types of snowflakes (needle, column, prisms, and dendrites), and building inventions, we thought we would begin with a fun “Snow Hypothesis”. Our task started with 3 mason jars and some snow. We packed our jars with snow, and recorded our observations and measurements. The conclusions varied from student to student, but we all agreed that the water level was at least half of the snow we packed.

Jar #1- 6 cups of snow – hard packed to the top

Jar #2 – 3.5 cups of snow – loosely packed to the top

Jar #3 – 2.5 cups of snow – Very loosely packed to the top

We then thought back to a couple of weeks ago when we discussed animal survival, and keeping warm in the winter. The long awaited “Quinzee building” was the perfect activity to get hands on and build shelters similar to those of wild animals in our area. We learned very quickly that many hands make light work, and it takes a lot of muscle power, and endurance to collect all the snow. But that’s what were here for – to learn, be a team, and have fun!

Thank you Luke for helping out your fellow peers and telling us what you know about Quinzee shelters. After diluting food colouring and water our students connected to their inner creativity and made their house a home! So much teamwork went into all of our buildings – 4 in total and all the kids were very proud of their shelter bead.

Taking time in-between building, and decorating our Quinzee shelters, we took advantage of all the fresh powder, and I mean POWDER!…. 3 feet was the deepest we found. Everyone strapped on some snowshoes, grabbed a toboggan and headed to Fossil Mountain to enjoy the beauty of the untouched, fluffy snow. We worked up a sweat hiking, tobogganing, more hiking and even more tobogganing.

Thank you Dax for bringing in your Show and Tell item – home made bouncy ball. Something we will have to try later in the semester.

Big week for stickers and beads 2 Fire Beads, 1 Litter-less lunch Bead, 1 Show and Tell Bead, 7 Shelter Bead, 1 Leadership Bead, 1 Winter Wonderland Bead and our first “Al” Bead for kindness and humility.

Great job to Lucy for starting your first fire today with ONE match!

Next Week – “1 fish 2 fish red fish blue fish” All about fish and maybe if were lucky and have some good bait we can catch a fish!

Thanks for checking in this week!

Neal and Krista

The rest of our day pictures

Snow is warm(!?)

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Hey Everyone!

Finally some snow for us to play in! We took full advantage of it this week by diving into it (figuratively and literally). Our day focused on different scientific aspects of snow. To start the day, we wrote down everything we knew about snow on paper, then we crumpled them up and had a “snow”ball fight.

After we shared what we already knew, we shifted gears to discover new things. We debated why snow appears white; we studied the anatomy of snowflakes with magnifying glasses in hand; we even made a bit of snow by throwing boiling water in the air (though this works better at colder temps). We also made predictions about melting and how much water would remain from 3 cups of snow (FYI Snow-water equivalent varies with temperature – we found about a 6:1 ratio on both days). Later in the day we were able to apply this to real life in our sit spots, noticing that the ice levels were up due to the early January melt.

After a few games and some core routines, we asked ourselves – So, how is snow warm? We took a look at snow as an insulator and built on our past knowledge of animal survival in the subnivean zone by creating a village of Quinzees. We even diluted food colouring in water to make “paint” for the snow and have the most colorful Quinzees in town.

Colourful Quinzee City!

Of course, with emergent learning our focus there was always time for the establishment of a “firework” factory (pylons filled with snow, then colored) to open up and sell “fireworks” in exchange for snow balls. Oh, and of course a first hand look at avalanches with snow tumbling off roofs!

Congratulations to our bead recipients! 3 Bingo Beads, 5 Litter-less Lunch Beads for 4 weeks straight with no waste in their lunches, 1 Teaching Bead for a wonderful lesson on building a Quinzee, 1 Bravery Bead, 1 “Al’s” Bead for consistent kindness and humility, 5 Shelter Beads, and 2 Curiosity Beads.

Also, a big THANKS to Natasha for stepping in for Kim this week as she was on a Winter camping trip.

Next Week:
Fishing – most likely this won’t be ice fishing as we were hoping due to the lack of sturdy ice. We will, however, still learn about fish and get a chance at fishing!

Until next week,

Matt and Kim

More photos for you:

Let the games begin!

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Hi Friends,

Lighting our torches on fire.

You could smell the team spirit in the air today! We hosted our first annual “Winter Olympics” and the Weather Gods were on our side bringing us snow! Our students were put to the test today, mentally and physically and came out on top! Before our games started we had to decide which countries our groups were going to represent, Canada or Switzerland! We then proceeded with the games by running around our pond in a relay race style torch run! “Let the games begin”.

Start of our torch run.

Team Switzerland

Team Canada

Our first game of the day was Broom ball! It was a perfect way to introduce teamwork, hand eye coordination and communication to our day. It was a great challenge for all and a great way to see some of our hockey players use their sweet skills. It was a tight match full of suspense, highs and lows, close calls and amazing goals. A well played match by all and to no surprise the score ended up being Canada 2 and Switzerland 1.

After broom ball, we traded our braun for brain power and played an intense game of human size “X’s and O’s”. This game brought challenging times to our younger Painted Turtles, but created some friendly competition and leadership opportunities for the older Snowy Owls to swoop in to assist our wee ones with another Canadian win ! Canada 5 – Switzerland 2.

Our next challenges consisted of Super duper slip and slide – having a run way of 60 feet into a slide of snow. After a couple trial runs and learning that jumping on our knees didn’t get us anywhere we got the hang of it. The longest distance was 6 feet. We also tested our physical ability with long jump and limbo.

Switzerland coming into the lead.

If you have never played Kubb (similar to Viking chess), you need to! It’s an awesome game based on pure luck – so don’t be a sore loser. Our students caught on quick and the game was full of cheers. We had a bunch of lucky students knocking over all the pegs and were left to knock over the King for the win!

Our last challenge of the day was bobsled. We used PVC pipe cut in half and small wooden balls. Our challenge was to work collectively as a team and start the ball high, and aim for the buckets. After a lot of brainstorming, many attempts and new strategies later, we nailed it! We are so proud of everyone working together!

Out of all the games we ended with a TIE!

Our closing ceremony was a great way to end our day with a few last words, and to congratulate our amazing team players. It was wonderful to see how we all worked together, communicated and challenged ourselves by stepping out of comforts zones. Many laughs were had, and memories made during our Winter Games. One of the many highlights of the day: Lara putting the fire out. She miss judged the strength of her arms and tossed water on the fire and half of it hit another student instead of the fire. Somebody’s been eating their veggies!

Congratulations to all the new beads earned Fire and Show and Tell, with an abundance of stickers, 4 layers, love, respect and a huge high five to Lucy for earning the first bravery sticker, for getting out of her comfort zone and participating in our morning smudging ceremony.

Also a big thank you to Kaysa for working on her survival kit and showing the class what she added: a knife, flashlight, duct tape, hand warmers, tin foil, and of course more chocolate.