Hey Folks!
Now, at Forest School, we learn to love all sorts of weather – rain, snow and even hail – but 
Afterwards during our check-in today where students share how they are feeling, why, and any goals they have, our plan was laid out right in front of us. One student made it her goal to find some dinosaur bones. And sudde
Afterwards, w
Ah what fun we have!
Cheers,
Matt and Aislinn
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This week at Forest School was special in that our classes had planned in advance their “perfect” Forest School Day and we set out to achieve these goals. Thus we had some very different looking days this week, and here’s a quick recap.
Our overarching theme of the day was camping out and so after some impromptu rafting on the huge puddles and a game of ga-ga ball, students strapped on their backpacks with lunches and we hiked out to the elusive mysterious forest to begin development. We built a fire place, learned how to saw wood safely and purified water. We teamed up and made natural and tarp shelters, boutiques, meditation rooms and even traps with pulley systems – the students were only limited by their imaginations. In the end, a whole little community developed in our once little-known forest.
Other than our infrastructure development, students got lost in a world of play – cops and robbers with a twist (doughnut launchers!) and creating natural treasures such as ballerinas made of pine needles and leaves. We also were introduced to a new game called Fox and Mouse, a soon-to-be classic (think capture the flag meets freeze tag).
Time slipped by and before we knew it, it was time to have a marshmallow and hike out!
Thursday was all about Fire! We learned about the basic needs of a fire: heat, oxygen, and fuel and effective ways to create them. A big thanks to our student teachers who led this lesson!
Next we were off to “Lakeside View” where, after a quick lesson in material gathering and fire nest-making, students were tasked with the mission of creating a fire without using a match. After much preparation and anticipation (and a lot of learning from our mistakes and successes) everyone was able to light a fire using only flint (magnesium) and steel! And everyone earned their Fire Keeper Beads.
In the afternoon, we launched a rocket and headed out to sit spots for some upgrades and more fire building. Out next goal is to make a fire with a bow-drill!
Friday was a day of construction where we headed out early in the rain to “Lakeside View” and “The Fortress” to get creative in and around our sit spots. Students used reclaimed wood to make additions to the their sit spots after having a lesson on sawing techniques, hammering and drilling. We even built a tree bridge as the beginning of a bigger tree house project we hope to add to in the future,
and by adding climbing holds, we’ve realized it’s the beginning of the ultimate outdoor playground!
After lunch and some fun and games, we opted to return to our sit spots for some more upgrades and imaginative play as the sun came out. A day well spent!
Thanks to all the students for their wonderful ideas which made this week a very special one!
Next Week: One of our favourites – PROJECTS!
Cheers,
The Forest School Team
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Happy Tuesday! We had a great day with our Chickadee program today, and as the title suggests, we did a lot of building.
Right away, we watched imaginations come to life as an old driftwood root became a house for Fairies. Equipped with a door, chimney, balcony, hot tub and much more, students couldn’t get enough of finding places for all sorts of cool additions until it inevitably became a mansion for our magical friends.
While laying the “driveway” for the Fairy House, a surprise critter was uncovered – a woolly bear caterpillar. This cascaded into a whole new adventure – “Let’s build a home for him!” After trying to understand this creature a little better, counting its feet and realizing it was a pretty good climber, this home transformed turned into an obstacle course of pine cones and woodblocks. And my oh my could it crawl and climb!
And in between all that: more play, stories, music, hikes, games, fire making and more. It sure was a creative day.
Cheers,
Matt and Kim
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Wow – what a great week we had with our Project Theme! Students took this opportunity to let their imaginations run wild and built so many different types of projects, including pencil and candle holders, carving projects, crossbows, creative signs for new home décor, an ice fishing stand, a giant cat bed, a home-made fidget spinner, a windmill, a wooden race car, and even new doll clothes from repurposed fabric. Students worked together to build community projects too, including a new swing, a gold panning mine from slides, buckets, nets and pipes, a raft and sail boat, some toboggans and a pulling sled from old skis (which will sure be handy with this fresh white stuff)! Some students even created signs to highlight some of our favourite places on site (like our not-so-secret forts, various campsites and the new “Wal-Matt” wild edible store!
We had a blast working safely and respectfully with tools, sharing equipment and helping one another out with the various projects being constructed. It was extra fun to have a chance to use some projects immediately, like the toboggans, boats and fishing gear. We visited many different spots on the property this week, including Fossil Mountain, where we tobogganed down the Concrete Factory (sand-bogganing on Thursday; snow by Friday!), Riverside, Lakeside and “The Original” Campsites where we had many fires to warm us up. We also explored the other side of the pond, where we found our first ever red-spotted newt on-site!
Some projects that were constructed went beyond physical creations and focused more on community and teambuilding – continuing on previous play, some students focused their energy on continuing their wild edible store and sharing their delicious creations (including a hot soup this time!), some students spent time building forts together and establishing new and improved shelters. It was an awesome week and full of adventure and play.
Without a doubt, you’ve noticed the dip in weather –and while we welcome the snow and all the joy it brings – please remember to bundle up! Pack extras (hats, mitts, socks), wear layers (fleece is great!) under your snowsuit, and don’t forget a thick neck warmer too! It’s also a great idea to have some hot food or drinks at lunch – soups and teas or cider are great this time of year. A HUGE props to the Friday group’s parents for layering up their kids – nobody was ever too cold and we were able to dive in and enjoy our first snowfall of the year!
Thanks for another week of fun!
Your Forest School Team,
Matt, Tamara and Kim
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Hey Everyone,
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
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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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.
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.)
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!
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:
Hi Friends,
Izzy being zen
We had another super busy day at Forest School and though our blog will be short it is full of sweetness! Mother Nature sure gave us a lot of rain this past weekend, so much that our property was over run by water! It was amazing to see what the water moved and brought into the property, water sure is powerful. This week at Forest School we planned on working on some existing and new projects, but instead we decided to venture out in to 3 stage which hosts hiking and biking trails.
After we checked in on our 2 bird nests (with baby birds chirping away), there were lots of stickers earned and given out. Today we had our first Bingo bead, as well as 1 peer support, 4 litter less lunches, 1 story telling bead, 2 curiosity beads and 1 Al bead.
Next week – We will be buzzing around the topic of Bees.
Until next week,
Krista
Hey Everyone,
Some of our favourite days here at Forest School are our “Project Days”. In the past, we’ve built gardens, free libraries, kites, hammocks and much more. We often come into these days with a few ideas about projects we can work on – and as usual are blown away with where the students take it and the ideas they bring to the table. The Snowy Owl students were eager to get a lot of work done on their sit spots, and the painted turtles created secret forts of their own. A lot was accomplished over the past three days – some really cool individual projects, and other bigger group projects, too. Here are the highlights broken down by day:
Tuesday we had on and off again rain, which meant we had some time for indoor projects to do. Some students built massive lego towers, some painted our Kubb set, and others carved spoons. We even made a brand new bow-drill for the class. Some students collected a variety of wild edibles, took everyone’s order off the menu and served us a special treat. When we were able to take advantage of the dryer moments outside, we worked together as group and created a brand new rope swing at our campsite!
Our new bow drill
We had a beautiful sunny day Wednesday and took full advantage of it. While the Painted Turtles were off creating their “secret” place, Snowy Owls were trying to catch minnows in a trap and manipulate a flowing stream with dams and pipes – all before morning snack. After a bunch of time in setting up our sit spots, some fishing and finding a real painted turtle, students got dirty with clay and created a pottery factory. The afternoon was spent checking our trap, painting with natural materials, and trying out the bow-drill from Tuesday’s group. We also added a balance beam to our new obstacle course which included a lot of rope-swinging.
The rain held off!!! Our big project today was building a couple potato planters – using straw, chicken wire and soil, students dove in and got dirty. There were also some new additions made to the rope swing and we spent some time in our sit spots. Some students even made a fire without a match! The afternoon was spent carving – mostly spoons, but some spears, arrows and bows as well.
Congratulations to all the bead recipients (and quite a lot!): 8 sit spot beads, 1 curiosity bead, 4 craft beads, 1 firekeeper bead, 1 Al’s bead, 1 peer-support bead, 2 show and tell beads and 4 storytelling beads!
Next Week: We are headed off-site for a hike! Kim and Matt will be away, but we will have amazing teachers (including Krista!) filling in for them.
Registration to the public opens up May 5th, please be sure to send us your intentions (fsforestschool@gmail.com) to ensure your spot asap!
Thanks,
Kim, Matt and Krista
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Hey Everyone,
This week at Forest School we took a look at Community Building. We started off with some team-building games then brainstormed all sorts of ideas about what is community and what makes a community. There were a lot of interesting insights, from thoughts about our Forest School community, to our Collingwood (and beyond) community and even a discussion around our global community. The students starting rhyming off cool initiatives that are happening here – community gardens, food banks, adopt-a-highway, trail-systems and green spaces, Coldest Night of the Year, and much more – so we decided to explore!
“Ants” on a log – teambuilding
Lava Pit – teambuilding
We got out our map of the city and the students found the best route to some key places to check out in our town. We went on a tour of Little Free Libraries – if you’ve never heard of this it’s worth checking out the website here. It’s simple: take a book and leave book! There are at least 3 of them in Collingwood – one that we didn’t even know about until students told us about it and we checked it out.
Little Free Library at Kinsmen Park
Little Free Library on Bush St.
With the Tuesday group, we went on a hike afterwards, but not just any old hike. This was a Story Walk that began at the Collingwood Museum. Every few hundred meters was another page to read, until we finished the book. This is another thoughtful initiative executed by Healthy Kids Challenge Collingwood.
Story Walk
With the Wednesday group, we decided to check out the community gardens and then head to a local green space to play around and reflect on the benefits of having parks in the community.
Free Spirit Gardens Community Garden
Forest inspired Playground
After being inspired by these projects, we returned back to the School. After a quick lunch, we jumped into our own projects. Some students made community hammocks for our school and mittens with the sewing machine, and others worked hard on developing our very own Little Free Library with reclaimed materials. Others designed their own parks or wrote their very own stories to put in the Library or eventually create their own Story Hike – we had a lot of options for our projects. And on Wednesday, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get out the kite kits and take advantage of the wind. Since the kites didn’t do so well, plastic bags became the kite of choice, and we even had a giant tarp up it the air. It was a creative and inspiring day to say the very least.
Making a hammock!
Both groups combined to start our own LFL from reclaimed materials
Writing a story for our LFL or our own Story Walk
Congrats to our bead recipients: 1 Show and Tell Bead and Winter Warriors.
Next Week:
We are running during March Break and since we have already done a Maple Syrup day, our programming is still TBD – you can bet we’ll be outside though.
If you have any old books you’d like to donate to our Little Free Library, that would be greatly appreciated! Any genre and for any age. Thanks!
Cheers,
Matt and Kim
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***This is an archived post from 2017 – our programs are still suspended until further notice – March 2020***
Hey Folks,
Students had the opportunity this week to play around with photography. We got up close and personal with nature and had the chance to see things through a completely new lens. We started the day by playing around with cameras, learning how to work them and testing them out. This led us into various activities, including a “find my picture” hunt and inevitably a full on Nature Photo Scavenger Hunt.
In the afternoon, we went on a long hike around the property and took our photography one step further. We learned about and integrated some different tricks and tips for nature photography:
We learned about “Getting Close”, and seeing the world through a macro lens:
We learned about the use of “Leading Lines”, likes trails or fences, to lure the viewer into the photo.
We learned about the “Rule of Thirds” and how to better place things in a photo.
We learned about “Natural Framing” to capture a photo inside the photo and frame our pictures a little differently.
And finally, we learned about using different “Points of View” in our photos – stepping into a worm’s or ant’s eyes, or seeing like a bird.
Thanks to all the parents who were able to dig up a camera for their child to use. With your help, we were able to equip everyone with their own camera for the day!
Next Week:
Although the nice warm days made photography a lot of fun, it also melted the rinks! So because of the weather, we will not be skating next. The positive side to this is that the warm days and cool nights have the Sugar Maples flowing, so we will be doing our Maple Syrup day in lieu of skating.
See you next week,
Matt and Kim
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