Free Spirit Forest and Nature School

Nurturing Connection with Self, Others and Nature

Morning Teas and Nature Cafes

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Hey Folks,

Aside from our core routines, our days varied a lot this week (as they typically do) so check out the highlights below!

Tuesday

On Tuesday we embraced a beautiful day and celebrated a special birthday. After our morning circle, check-ins and sit spots, we were off for a lunch out to the wonderful Mysterious Forest. We learned a new game about fur trading that let our students jump into the roles of Europeans and Indigenous Peoples around the time of contact. We did this to build off prior knowledge and while the game was incredibly fun, the more important part was the thoughtful and inspiring debrief with our students. (Behind the scenes this is part of our Core Teaching – Heritage Species: Wisdom of the Ancestors). And of course we had some time for climbing trees, and reading and making up poetry as well.

Wednesday

We started our Halloween with pumpkin carving and cooking the seeds over a fire… they turned out a little burnt, but tasty considering we had no oil! After our core routines and an impromptu Halloween Costume fashion show, we headed out on a wander. At a place called “Mushy Beach” (aptly named as we pulled sinking people out) we invented a new game: Crow’s Nest. It was all about sneaking, moving quietly and “channeling our inner weasel”, as a student put it. (Behind the the scenes, this targets our indicator of awareness of Quieting the Mind, and core routines related to Animal Form, Questioning and Tracking, and even Sit Spot.)

Later in the afternoon, we returned to the ruins of our dam from a month ago. This time it was reinforced with a spillway (pipe) to let out any overflow. It was awesome to watch ideas come to life and young minds work together to create something epic. And we got a first hand look at erosion and alluvial fans from the debris of the “river”. We also had some students make some cool clay creations.

Thursday

From tea on the fire (and a new tripod cooker built), to human knots, to snakes on the trail and our new fur trading game (see Tuesday for explanation) – the Thursday group was super busy!

One fun and creative moment that unfolded that we want to share with you occurred with our newly updated Mud Kitchen. It started in the morning with a couple students creating “recipes” for nature soups, drinks and salads and writing them down in their journals. Fast forward to Free Play in the afternoon and suddenly the whiteboard is out with “Nature Cafe” written across it. Before long, there are more cooks, servers and patrons of the restaurant and inevitably a currency system. And eventually pretty much the entire group is involved. It was magical! (Behind the scenes: this is a great example of symbolic and socio-dramatic play!)

Further, and what really made us as educators so proud, was that the “ingredients” for the recipes were specific plants that we have learned to identify over the last few years. And each recipe was pretty complex, requiring at least 8 different plants!

Friday

We started with tea over the fire again (catnip and cedar) and got ready for a wet and cool day! If the weather was an issue, the kids didn’t let on as they embraced the day. We headed out on an adventure that led us to Mysterious Forest. We played a huge game of Sardines where one person hides and the others hide alongside that person when they find them. Playing in such a big space that is so well treed gives us the sense of being lost or at least being away from others and alone. (Behind the scenes: this one of our pillars of risky play)

We made our way back, pretty wet and ready for a warm-up and lunch. After lunch we read a Nootka legend from the Pacific Northwest called Octopus and Raven. The students then created or interpreted their own legends in dramatic form. They were inspiring tales! (Behind the scenes: Storytelling is one of our fundamental Core Routines)

If you’ve read all this (thanks!), you can see we had a pretty fun week. Every group we have is so different and we are so thankful to have the space and freedom to follow the interests of our kids – it really makes for unique days. A big thanks to our student’s parents and guardians for knowing the value in this!

We are CAVING next week for our Painted Turtles, Snowy Owls and Blue Herons! Please dress to get wet and muddy.

Cheers,

Matt, Aislinn, Michelle and Krista

Pics:

A stir-fry and damselflies.

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Hey Folks,

We got up to a lot of different adventures this week, check out the recap below.

Tuesday

As we explored our senses by taking away sight in a few games throughout the day, we gained a better understanding of how animals survive in the wild. We also sang our hearts out on Tuesday and even wrote our very own song – which rippled its way through the whole week. Some students put on their builder caps, too, and made a giant xylophone to hang from a tree!

When the rain cleared up, it was time for fun by the pond. And, as we were especially sneaky and quiet, we were able to temporarily catch and observe turtles, frogs and thousands of tadpoles. We even caught a snake in the Northern (“Unknown”) Zone!

Wednesday

We took some time in the morning to jump into the role of being a chicken (and a frantic one at that!) This, ironically, set us up for a quiet reflection: students got their journals, observed some real birds and got really creative with what they thought the birds’ conversations would be. This took the form of comic strips, full on scripts, birds with names and much more.

After snack, off to sit spots where we used over 250ft of donated burlap to beef up our shelters (a big thanks to our friends who donated it!). Our next task was to lend the folks at Bygone Day’s a hand by recovering their submerged boat in the pond. Students eagerly volunteered and we were eventually able to flip it – only to uncover that dozens of Rock Bass were hiding underneath and now trapped in the boat! Everyone got a chance to catch them.

At the same time an epic trench was being dug and a full on workforce was organized. Every person had their job -my personal favourite being Prime Minister (Me!). The socio-dramatic play became so immersive, that there was even a group meeting at lunch to discuss plans and details.

With the excitement around being in the Lakeside Area, we just had to return after eating. We laid out different options for students to follow their interests, with many choosing to continue work on the trench. Some grabbed their nets though and caught (and successfully identified) damselfly and dragonfly nymphs, while others harvested some Garlic Mustard and made a delicious pesto!

Thursday

Our students were really excited to spend time in their sit spots Thursday morning and spend time interacting with all sorts of critters. We were easily (and happily!) distracted by all the bird action – orioles, swallows, red-wing black birds, grackles and much more. We were captivated by the sounds and songs (and fights!) of these birds, Students were equally interested in the aquatic critters. In total, we discovered five baby painted turtles, found out what damselfly nymphs looked liked and of course caught some frogs. And this all before snack.

We decided to have a lunch out in Grape Valley where we played and hiked our day away. We checked in on the toad eggs we discovered last week – and now there are thousands of tadpoles! We brought a few back to the class to watch them grow (and a few lucky parents now have some of their very own!).

Friday

Our focus Friday was learning about plants and what’s good to eat – and what to avoid! We headed out to the far West of property to forage and collect what we could. We hiked around both Maple Forest and Mysterious Forest (and played some games in between) and found lots of leeks, garlic mustard, dandelions, wild carrots (Queen Anne’s lace) and trout lilies. We also successfully identified and imprinted in our minds our nemesis poison ivy (eek!) as well as stinging nettle (although also edible!).

After our huge success, including identifying huge patches of Canadian ginger, we headed back. And all the hard work paid off as we celebrated with a feast at “The Fort” fire pit. Students volunteered to chop, grind and gather the veggies as we collectively created a delicious stir-fry over the (flint and steel lit!) fire. Some students also made a tasty pesto from the Garlic Mustard – check out a recipe on our Facebook Page!

And now a shameless pitch:

Want to know more about the plants your kids are learning about so they (and you!) can safely eat at home? We have Only 4 spaces remaining for our Wild Edible Workshop on June 2nd from 1-4pm with local Naturalist Brian McLelland-Tuck. For more info visit here.

See you next week!

Matt and Krista

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Tasty Treats and Hiking Trails

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Tuesday

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).

Have a great weekend,

Matt and Krista

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May the Forest be with you.

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Hey Folks!

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!

Cheers,

Matt and Krista

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Trees in Jars and Natural Hammers

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Hey Everyone,

This week at Forest School our main goal was to learn a little bit more about plants. After our morning core routines we jumped into the role of plants in a macro-model to learn about cycles and needs of a plant. We then became explorers tasked with the mission of the uncovering a new plant, naming it and then learning all about it. After making a journal (T-Th), they were off. Collectively, we learned about mushrooms, flowers, trees and shrubs, the history of these plants and any uses they may have.

Friday our focus shifted to trees, where we collected samples in a jar, identified and labelled them. We then “adopted” a tree in our sit-spots – a tree we’ll take care, watch as it changes over time and learn as much as we can about. We spent time as “bees” as well in a macro-model about pollen and pesticide.

As it does, our unstructured time took many different shapes. Imaginations came alive using our “loose parts”, where anything from a relay race to an intergalactic space war and store happened. Students also had the option to make natural hammers from spruce or willow trees. They sawed and carved them out as we begin to hone this skill. We even had bunnies on Thursday (thanks to our students who brought them in!).

We had many fires over the week, with an average of 2 a day to keep warm as the temps being to drop. Which meant we gave out a bunch of fire beads and had a few treats! Some groups harvested and had rose-hip tea, others made some popcorn over the fire.

Next Week:
We are stoked to be doing Archery next week!! It’s also “Show and Tell” if your child would like to bring anything in to share with the class.

As the temperature is cooling down please remember to pack extra layers for your children, including mitts and hats. You can leave a set at the school if you would like. Warm, waterproof footwear is also essential and a back up pair can’t hurt if you have them! Thanks.

Cheers,

Kim, Matt and Tamara

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Helping Hands

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Hey Folks!

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.

Cheers,

Matt, Kim and Krista

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Photo’s from TUES group last week:

Welcome Summer!

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Hi friends,

Working on our “Selfie”

We welcomed our last day of Forest School with positive vibes and though all students were sad to leave, we knew summer break had to come at some point – and who doesn’t love summer!? Last week we asked our students “What would you love to do for our last day?” which was a super exciting question because this led to a full day of activities and play directed by students. Our ideas ranged from games, building objects, testing our skills, learning more about wild edibles and team bonding. Being Forest School students the rain and ominous clouds didn’t wash them out, it actually gave the students more excitement, energy and a day full of messy, mucky play!

A huge thank you for all our students who showed and shared some amazing things today! We had Izzy show us her Earth Ranger badge! She is one of many students protecting painted turtles and their habitat – amazing! If you would like more information about becoming an Earth Ranger please visit www.earthrangers.com. We also had Alice show us her favourite vest that was hand made by her Grandma, Emily introduced us to her wolf stuffy named “Snow” and Taven gave us a sneak peek into his tooth and rock collection! We also headed out to a new spot by the Beaver River for most of our day, this burned off some energy. Along the way our kids found wild grape tendrils, wild black caps (not ready to eat) and the start of crab apple trees.

Within our afternoon some students worked on whittling their arrows, while some tested and practiced with the “maze game”. Students also starting building a HUGE birds nest! This project was taken home by Aaron, who we know will continue to build upon it and make a great home for birds. This afternoon we tested our kids with 3 tasks. Our first task was to make it through our “maze game” all students helped each other along the way, which made it easier to make it to the end. Our second task was communication and hand eye coordination with “throw me the water balloon” game – we have some great water balloon tossers as it turns out! Our last task was our scavenger hunt! Our kids had 19 things to find, which came easy for some – it was great to see the different things our students picked and noticed.

Thank you to all our students who participated in Forest School this year, as well with all the parents for driving your young ones to our program! We had another amazing semester full of laughter, tears, self discoveries, learning new things every day, building upon our skills and too many memories to count! Remember to keep exploring and discovering new things!

“Congratulations today is your day. You’re off to great places, you’re off and away. You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re off on your own and you know what you know, and you are the one who will decide where to go.” – Dr. Seuss.

Have an amazing summer break!

Krista and Vicky

And they say kids don’t like vegetables…

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Hey All,

What an amazing week we had exploring ! The students had the opportunity to spend time looking at the forest through a different lens – and a delicious lens at that! Our energy this week focused around the question: What can we eat??? We brought in Brian, a local wild edible and plant ID expert, to help us uncover the treasures that were literally growing right in front of us!

Our morning objective was to get out and ID/harvest as many different types of edible plants as possible. And over three days, we grew quite the impressive list:

Dandelion (or as Thursday group came to learn the “Pusteblumen” in German)
Wild Carrots
Grape Tendrils (or the “arms” of the grape – sourly delicious)
Cattails
Clover (but not too much!)
Thistle!
Bladder Campion
Daisy
Bass Wood
Cedar
Catnip
Pineapple Weed
Leeks
Burdock
Curly Dock
Strawberries
Pepper Grass
(GIANT) Asparagus
..and much more!

Medicinal:
Plantain – chew it up and put in on cuts, stings and bites
Yarrow – helps stop bleeding (and nose bleeds!)
Willow – like Tylenol for toothaches or cankers

We spent the afternoon by the lake, where epic tunnels were dug, gardens were built, clay factories were opened and overall people were just covered in mud – including a sweet puppy visitor on Thursday. We wrapped up our day by gathering around the fire, where we cooked up some delicious wild veggie stir-fries, with a salad as an appetizer, and shared some steeped loose leaf teas from foraged greens and roots. Things taste so much better when you collect them yourself!

Congratulation Bead Recipients:
A whole bunch of Nature Lovers, 2 Al’s Beads and 1 Cooking Bead!

A BIG thanks to Brian! He brought an enormous amount of knowledge and great energy to the groups, and made the learning so accessible and inspiring for the kids. (He does edible nature walks as part of his job, if you are interested in doing one or you’d like to get in touch with him, send us an email – it’s totally worth it!)

Next week:
We are paddling!!! Please remember bathing suits and a towel. We’ll have everything else, but if you want you can BYO-PFD. (and water shoes are good choice!).

Reminder: Days are getting HOT! Please remember to bring a water bottle and a hat to protect from the sun. Sunglasses is a good idea, too.

We’ll leave you with a quote from one of our student’s:

“It’s so strange. It’s like I see the world and plants differently now.”

Happy Harvesting,

Krista, Matt and Kim

Wild edibles and plants

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Hi Friends,

It is amazing what rain, sun, and a few weeks will do for our Heathcote property. The shrubs and flowers have grown so much that we almost couldn’t find some of our sit spots. Our day consisted of the learning and widening our knowledge about wild edibles and plants! With so much to talk about we focused on the famous poison ivy, along with it’s friends poison sumac and oak. We also focused a lot on expanding our imagination, teamwork, communication and respecting those attributes. Check out our wicked day!

A couple of weeks ago our students started their potato gardens, which have now started to sprout amazing leaves – soon enough we will be able to cook up those home-grown spuds! A toad hunt served as an excellent addition to all the excitement today, which included our respectful catching and releasing rituals. Midway through our hunt, Taven came across, what we believe to be a rat skull, YUCK! (but it was pretty cool!) To add to our discoveries through out the day we even came across two baby moles hiding in our compost area. We are hoping to see them again next week!

One of our main tasks throughout our day was to find a new or familiar plant life and identify it from our nature books. Some of our finding were Queens Anne’s lace, Mustard Garlic, Buttercups, Dog wood, and many more! It is great to see our students taking the initiative to gain more knowledge and educate their fellow classmates on their findings. Our students also learned very quickly that it is hard to decipher between some plants due to many of them looking the same, as well as being unsure about whether or not a plant is safe to pick, or eat!

Staying true to our lesson, our afternoon consisted of digging into our seed library! We came across some cucumbers, mint, daises, peas, beans, lavender, spinach, zucchini, kale and sunflower seeds. Our students were given 6 decomposing containers and the opportunity to plants 6 of their favourite seeds. Active play was also a huge part of our afternoon, along with the whole class participating in a game of “Farmer and the Horse”. This game was one of the highlights for all of our students, and while some played this all afternoon, others played in their sit spots, became fire keepers, and identified more plants.

Today there were 4 respect beads earned, along with 2 litter less lunches, 1 shelter, 2 show and share and 6 curiosity beads. Great job to everyone!

Next week – Field Trip!

Until next week,

Krista

Hikes for days..

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Hi everyone!

While Matt and Kim are away, Forest School gets off property to play! Through out our week all of our students embarked on two brand new trails located on the Bruce Trail called the Pretty River Trail and Loree Forest. We also welcomed with open arms our substitute teachers Carly and Noa. We had amazing weather, which gave our students positive vibes and lots of energy each day. After our core routines and student led games, our kids started the day with lots of energy and ended with tired legs and great memories. Check it out!

TUESDAY

We sprung the question “How has Forest School changed your life outside our classroom?” With some time in our sit spots to reflect our students had some very deep answers varying from improved self confidence, bravery, pushing comfort zones and in general just happier! It’s always great to see where we had started and how far we’ve come. After our morning student led games, our day was full on! While hiking in a sea of Trout Lilies and Trilliums, we came across Fox holes, Toads, Mud monsters, Spiders and tested our river jumping abilities. A huge Thank you to Rowan for bringing in a special gift for his fellow classmates, which was bubbles, and who doesn’t love bubbles.

WEDNESDAY

We brought out one of our favourite games – Kubb! We also spent some time building our sit spots and reflecting on our past week. Our Painted Turtles even came across a Bat flying around, deciding to name it seemed appropriate so Patty or Batman were the final two contenders, though we never did come to a conclusion. Everyone was eager to head out on our hike, which led us to familiar plants and animals. Students loved getting dirty today with all the clay we found, so much so that they turned into clay makers. Some of our masterpieces were bowls, cups and sculptures. We also found snow! Students loved “skiing” down the hill, and didn’t even mind the hike back up!

THURSDAY

Our students we excited and super prepared for our field trip, so we sprung into the van and headed to Loree Forest first thing. We challenged the kids to find just 1 Salamander, and they blew us away with a total of 60! We couldn’t believe it, but it’s true! We are so proud of all the dedication they had, and all of the excited screams never got old. We also discovered many new bugs, plants and some of the juiciest worms we have ever seen. If the kids were not making wild salads, they were playing with mud, snow and just enjoying our hike!

Congratulations to all our students who earned Respect, Love and Humility stickers! We also want to thank Carly and Noa for subbing in for Matt and Kim this week, we would love to have you back!

Next Week – By popular demand – Fishing!

Until next week,

Krista, Kim and Matt, along with Carly and Noa

More Pictures!

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