As most of you know we went off property this morning and headed to one of Forest Schools favourite area – Metcalfe Rock! Located just beyond Blue Mountain we tucked ourselves away right beside natural rock formations and some of Ontario’s best rock climbing.
Our students challenged themselves through rock climbing and caving, along with meeting our sister school from Collingwood. Our older students discovered how courageous they were caving in the Ice Cave, while our smaller students explored caverns and smaller caves. We are so proud of everyone who pushed their comfort zones, made new friends and new memories. We took an extra pictures this week to capture everyones experiences, we hope you enjoy!
Imagine yourself a sly fox, tiptoeing through the dewy grass, senses on high alert. A flash of movement catches your attention, you take off, sprinting after the small mouse. It dives into a tiny hole just as you are closing in on it! Foiled this time, but you know it won’t be long before you sense another mouse scurrying along.
This is how we started our morning, in an epic capture the flag style battle of the foxes and mice. We continued our embodiment of woodland creatures as we gathered stores for winter (we were feeling the chill this morning!). All the way to Grape Valley, we collected what we thought squirrels and chipmunks might stash away, and then created “cupboards” to hide our treasures in. After taking a short walk, each woodland critter was given the challenge of finding their way back to their cupboard. Navigating back to their cupboards was no problem, but we may need to observe the real chipmunks and squirrels a little more closely to determine what they actually stash away for winter!
After we ate our actual human lunches, painting and fire making got into full swing as we enjoyed the afternoon sun.
Thanks for a thoughtful, energetic and imaginative day Chickadees!
We had a fun week again in Collingwood that saw us venturing all over the map – building fires, eating pears and grape jelly, getting stuck in mud, running from hail, epic burr battles, new songs (Aster and Goldenrod – maybe you’ve heard it?!) and even some archery. It was a jam packed week!
Our overarching theme for all days was deepening our sensory awareness. While this happens regularly through our Core Routines and play, we were deliberate this week in removing dominant senses to get more intimate with the Forest. We tried out a classic – blindfold tree walk. Student’s were led (more like zigzagged and spun – an exercise in trusting as well) by a partner to a random tree in the Forest with the inability to see. They had to use their other senses to get to know the tree and it’s location, before being led back, unblindfolded and let loose to find it. It was remarkable to watch the hunt unfold and debrief the tactics used to locate the trees – and more often than not students were successful! We scaffolded this with other sensory awareness challenges, sit spots and games, and got to practice moving quietly through the Forest with our fox feet, listening closely with our Deer Ears and eventually using our Owl Eyes to see as well.
Thanks to all those that made it out to the Meet The Teacher night. We hope you got to explore some of the special places your kids have grown to love and now have a better understanding of where all their stories take place.
Have you ever pretended to be a raccoon, exploring the world around you in the dark? Or embodied a fox, chasing mice through the fields? Or spent valuable time with a tree, getting to know it personally? All in a day’s work at forest school!
As the leaves begin to change, the students are getting a solid lay of the land at Memorial Park. The connection the students feel to the forest is more apparent each week. The question “when are we heading to the woods?” starts getting asked at ~8:50am. A favourite place is “The Forts” (as they marked it on our big map), and they can now easily lead us to this spot. The journey there is never direct though as it always involves many an interesting plant and creature sighting! Caterpillars and spiders are abundant and crowd pleasers, and the salamanders have not disappointed us yet with a sighting each week.
Thank you to all who came out to “Meet the Teacher”! We will see everyone next week for some new adventures!
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”.
What a week of sunshine we had! And to celebrate the changing of seasons and prepare for the Fall Equinox next Monday, we took advantage of this warm weather and created a new ritual we like to call “Fall into Fall”. It’s simple – take a ride in our giant voyageur canoe on the big pond, head out to the deeper water and challenge ourselves to jump in! We had a blast all week as students made the leap, saying a final goodbye to Summer.
As is the case with all weeks, our days vary quite a bit – too much in fact to summarize all the magnificent little details here (be sure to check out the whiteboard at the end of the day which highlights some group-specific fun). However, we did have some moments we’d love to share!
Our plant of the week was the Rose this week, and what better way to get connected with it then to make something yummy from the rose hips – tea! Over the course of the week, students collected, chopped, and boiled to make a sweet tea unlike any other over the fire. We also set some aside, dehydrated them and made tea bags as we prepare a warm pick-me-up for chillier days this winter.
Students also received their journals this week and got to work filling them with inspiring thoughts, new findings and lots of cool observations. Journaling is one of our core routines – something we will visit weekly – and is so important. One of our Meaford teachers summed it up nicely: “By the end of the semester we hope the journals will be full of observations and stories weaved into a bigger picture of nature connection.”
And of course, there’s everything else: swimming, infusing oils, charcoal art, fire building, the continuing of caterpillar mania, natural ropes, a Blue Heron grad ceremony, hikes and adventures, sit spots, pine resin torches, songs, carving and more.
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!
The sun was out and so were the critters, both the children and the animals that is! We worked on finding stillness and sharpening our senses while playing camouflage, skills that came in handy while searching for life in the forest later on. A salamander, toads, many caterpillars and bugs, and even two pileated woodpeckers were spotted by our keen owl eyes. Time was well spent getting into journaling, which was taken on keenly by the group. Today’s recordings were things that we noticed in our immediate surroundings. By the end of the semester we hope the journals will be full of observations and stories weaved into a bigger picture of nature connection.
With the summer winding down we took full advantage of the warm weather and spent the afternoon at the beach. Swimming was a highlight, and likely last dip in the bay of 2019 for many! A memorable day for sure.
We look forward to exploring nature again with you next week!
……..All were a major part of our day as Chickadess at Forest school today!
Serious construction got under way as soon as we got to Lakeside, where the students spent time looking for frogs, fashioning fishing apparatus, digging rivers and burying pipes to observe the water flow. Teamwork was abundant in carrying the heavy buckets of water, and all were fascinated when the water came shooting out of the pipe systems. We also built a fire, found caterpillars and bugs, and made some dirt cakes.
After lunch we took a trip to the “magic dirt mountain” and searched for magic stones, which we decorated with paint and glitter! We made sure to thank the earth for our stones, as we read a story about giving back when we take from the environment.
We also found a mysterious jawbone on our travels. Who can tell us what it might be from next week?
A big welcome to all our new families, and welcome back to our old friends at FSFNS this year! It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come and how much we’ve grown since day one, and as we enter our 5th year as a school we are more excited than ever! At the end of each week we’ll have a post up about some of the highlights from our Painted Turtle and Snowy Owl programs. Follow along all year, and without further ado, here we go.
We had a great week with all our students connecting with the land, ourselves and each other and really starting to get to know the area. For some of our students, it was a chance to notice many changes and reconnect with old favourite places. For others, it was an opportunity to discover and explore pieces of our wonderful space. Our days were filled with getting to know one another and reminiscing – and of course fires, hikes, play, imaginations running wild, storytelling, nature breaks, bugs (especially caterpillars!), wild edibles and plants, music, fishing and so much more.
Given our approach to education, our days varied immensely with each day unfolding the way it needed to, given the interests and emergent opportunities. From fires to fishing, caterpillars to toads literally everywhere, thunderstorms to hot sunny days, we took the time to just settle in this week and get familiar with some of our core routines and our new community. We look forward to uncovering all there is to see and learn this year!
