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!
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!
Today was packed full of exploration, curiosity and new skills! With our focus on wilderness survival we decided to gear our day towards learning about our furry little friends and how they survive our harsh, Canadian winters. Our students decided to start their day by working towards a new bead – “starting a fire without a match”. What a great way to start our day. Thank you Lara for bringing in your show and tell item which also acted as a tool for our fire. This hand held flint and steel was a challenge for some but after lots of persistence and determination we were able to start our fire.
“This is the best fire I have ever seen” -Izzy
After reading the book “Over and Under the Snow” by Kate Messner our students had the opportunity to visit the back bush and search for evidence of our little friends living under the snow. We found animal prints, animal holes, tunnels and fur under the snow. We also had a lot of fun “skating” and dancing on the ice that was left over from the storm earlier this week. This activity touched on three elements for animal survival – Hibernation, Migration and Keeping Active!
Hibernation (also keeping warm) is a huge part of survival; it is also something we strive for every day at Forest School. One of our goals of the day was to get the kids to brainstorm and idea. How would they would keep a jar of water warm and from losing heat in the cold? The challenge was accepted by all! We spent some time pretending our jars were animals and the outer layers (rubber pads, cloth, bubble wrap) were the fur and fat. We buried our jars in snow and will check on them next week just like the wild we believe that some will survive and others will not.
We took a moment out of our day to act like birds for the “Amazing Bird Wilderness Survival Game”. We paired up and each team received a “Bird information card” which included information about their diet and habitat. Their goal was to migrate through this large scale board game while coming across man-made and natural obstacles such as high winds, oil spill, clean windows, BB guns and other predators. We started with 12 birds and only 6 survived.
With all of this talk about animal survival, we then spent some time discussing how we would survive in the winter. We started our first survival kit that we will continue to add to over this semester. We continued to improve on our shelter building skills and some of our students tried their hands at a new skill – the bow and drill. We learned it was harder than it looks and when it starts to smoke, it smells like marshmallows!
With all that was going on we still found time to learn yet another new skill from one of our students. Thank-you Dax for showing your fellow classmates how to make a “slip knot”, and all of our students were able to complete one knot after the demonstration. Congratulations for earning the Teaching bead!
What a day for stickers and beads! Our stickers included 10 Respect, 8 Wisdom and 1 Bravery, and our beads included 1 Teaching, 3 Fire, 10 Shelter and 1 show and tell. Congratulations to everyone!
On our last day of Forest School this year, the students’ skills were put to the test with an Amazing Race. Just like in the show, the classes had to work their way through Team Challenges, Road Blocks (completed by one person) and Detours (choice between 2 activities) while earning materials (tinder, kindling, a pot, etc) along the way for their final challenge of the day.
The Amazing Race encompassed almost everything we’ve covered this semester. Various challenges, like the tarp flip, human knot and blindfolded hikes, showed us just how well these groups worked together as teams. The group dynamic here was quite powerful! Other activities challenged hard skills (knots, compass and GPS use, and fire building) while knowledge tests showed us just how much they’ve learned and retained this year. We even called on skills we haven’t learned here, like clues being translated from French!
No matter the challenge, they rose to it. Throw in some snowshoeing, tobogganing, “skating” on the pond, and cedar tea made over the fire (the Final Challenge) and we’ll call it a day well spent outside.
In the spirit of the day, we spent a good chunk of it debriefing the year and looking forward to the next aspects of Forest School. Students were reflective when filling out their report cards and gathered all their stuff (sticker boards, journals and medallions) to take home. As many of you know, we wrapped the day up with a gathering at the Earthship for some drinks and a movie (see above for the movie!)
A big, big thanks to you, the parents, for believing in what we are doing and trusting in us to accomplish this. We couldn’t do it without your constant support. It’s been a real pleasure teaching, learning and growing with your kids. We are loving the sense of community that is developing with this program and are eager to keep it going! See you in the New Year!
Next year:
-If your child or children are returning, please send them back with their journals and medallions so they can continue collecting new beads.
-While we will still be using the property at Bygone Days, we are excited to be calling the Earthship our home for the Winter Semester! (How incredible is it that our classroom is in an Earthship?!) Drop off and pick-up will be there (633 Sixth St) at the same times.
– Please note that we’ve put up a tentative schedule for the Winter Semester on our calendar.
Enjoy the Winter break! Have a happy and healthy holiday and Merry, Merry Christmas!
With winter finally here we decided to stay close to home and focus our day on fire, shelter and cooking! The windy weather did not slow our students down..I think it gave them more energy! It was also great to see the kids imagination play unfold with each other, from turning the sleds into a train (stops and pick up included) to being reindeer, and gathering food. This bonding time is extremely important for our kids to connect with eatchother and create memories! To earn our cooking bead this week, we decided to challenge ourselves with bread, and a sweet treat with chocolate chip cookies!
Question of the day was: How burnt does the food have to be before you do not eat it?
As per usual our day started with our smudging ceremony, check-ins, and of course our amazing show and tell items that our students brought from home. A huge Thank-you to Alice for bringing in a seagull skull (it was incredibly clean as well), and Adam brought in a fully intact bees nest…no bees included.
We are so proud of Aaron for rocking his first fire today! Aaron used minimal amount of tinder and dead, dry and down sticks from our area. The fire kept us super warm all day! Thanks buddy!
We focused on a different type of shelter today, which was the “Quincy”. This common winter shelter is a snow mound that will be dug out to be able to fit one or two students at a time. We started in the green house with an in-class discussion about this type of shelter, and then took our learning outside to create this structure. We are hoping that the snow fall this week will add to our shelter and help make it bigger!
These awesome little people were working hard on earning their cooking bead today, and if you didn’t eat the burnt part of the bread, it was pretty amazing! Butter makes everything better…or so they say!
We took a break from our winter wonderland to create some Christmas ornaments from natural, and man made objects. Our students have amazing imaginations and at the end we came out with some awesome creations to take home.
Cookies…..need I say more?
High Fives all around for all our students who worked so hard today with Quincy building, fire starting, cooking and active group play! There was a lot of beads and stickers earned today: 3 cooking beads, 3 storytelling beads, 2 respect stickers and 1 honesty.
Next Week – We cant believe how fast the time has gone and how sad it will be to say “goodbye” next Wednesday at our final week of the fall semester! We will be putting our students to the test on our Winter wonderland “Amazing Race” challenges. Let the games begin!
We’ll do a breakdown by day this week, as the days seemed to unfold with some variance this week!
Tuesday After our usual ceremonial start to the day, students were tasked with the challenge of setting up a tarp structure nearby – large enough to fit everyone in it and sturdy enough to weather the storm (ie. Matt with a bucket of snow). They’ve been learning about natural structures throughout the semester and had the opportunity to sew their previous knowledge together for this activity. Because of their incredible teamwork, creativity and resourcefulness, this was a huge success for our students.
Making a tarp shelter
Thanks to Mother Nature, snowshoeing is our new preferred form of locomotion when we are traveling around the land. So we ventured into the woods where we made char-cloth, practiced our flint and steel sparks, shared stories, contributed to our existing natural shelters, listened to a teaching bead about fire nests and simply enjoyed our first real snowfall at Forest School… all around our student-made fire!
Earning a teaching bead: teaches us how to make a fire nest to start the fire.
Wanting to warm ourselves up, we tapped into a local resource we have and used the Youth Centre space for lunch! What a great space to play low-organized games and take part in cooperative learning! Students also had a nice warm place to master some new knots that will be helpful moving forward! Some students were able to master multiple knots, including the bowline, double figure-eight, truckers-hitch, half-hitch, slip and more.
We finished our day off back at By Gone Days after another snowshoe out to our far campsite. Here we filled out fire-kits, recognized some peer appreciations and enjoyed some active play in our shelters. We just love seeing your children engage with one another outside using their incredible imaginations – some being waitresses using sheets of crisp snow, others spending snow-money to buy material for their nature-house, and others still just climbing and falling into the deep snow-covered ground.The benefits of child-initiated play are vast – including motor skill development, healthy social development and increased activity level. But sometimes, it’s as simple as hearing the giggles and laughs, and watching the creative play unfold. The way that they connect with one another and interact so fully with their environment surely shapes how they will see nature for the rest of their lives.
Wednesday The students on Wed couldn’t wait to jump into the snow. They dropped off their packs, suited up with snowshoes and were off to take advantage of the fresh, untouched powder! After our usual morning routines (smudge and check-ins, done inside because of the weather!) the students were given the challenge of setting up a tarp they could all fit under. Because we’ve made numerous natural shelters already, this was the very last challenge in order to earn their shelter beads. With huge gusting winds and drifting snow, they sure did earn them!
As the winds picked up even more, we moved inside and practiced other hard skills. Students created their long-awaited fire kits (thanks for the jars everyone!) with birch bark, saw dust, candles, cattails and more. We created and tried using a bow drill. It was hard, tiring work but with the friction we were able to make smoke and we are confident that next time we’ll be able to start a fire from it.
working hard to catch a spark!
Students were also given the chance to earn their Knots bead today. The mission was to learn a Bowline knot – see if your child can recreate it at home! Some students were able to master other knots as well including the double figure-eight, truckers-hitch, half-hitch and more.
After lunch, a couple fantastic Craft Bead presentations, and some exploratory-time, the Sun finally came out and we were off to brave the conditions again. Students got on their snowshoes and off we went – straight into the wind! We cut across the field and found shelter in the trees. Once out of the wind, students built their own shelters and we finished the day gathered around a small fire.
Congrats to all Shelter and Knot bead recipients, as well a Travel Bead, Teaching Bead (for teaching compass skills), Nature Lover Bead, 2 Craft Beads, and some Reflection Beads!
Next Week:
Hard to believe it’s our final week of the Semester! We’ll be having some fun in a Winter Wonderland “Amazing Race” style challenge.
Afterwards, we invite every to our Final Celebration at Bygone Days farm is the weather is good and if it is freezing, windy and or snowy then we will host it at the Collingwood Earthship 633 Sixth street at 3:15 pm.
A big thanks to all the parents for having everyone dressed perfectly for the conditions this week! We’ve noticed that a scarf or neck warmer, second pair of gloves and extra socks would be a great addition to the winter clothing list.
The rain didn’t have us singing the blues today! Our busy little beavers were focused on tools, projects and problem solving. We were lucky to have one last week with warmer temperatures which gave us a lot of flexibility in our active play.
It’s been really incredible watching the growth and development in each child with their motor skills, confidence and teamwork…way to go everyone!
There was a ton of enthusiasm, laughter and fun this week! Here’s a “behind the scenes” look at all of our highlights and accomplishments of the day!
We started the day off by using our muscles and jumped into tearing down our shelters we made last week then built new ones. Last week fire was a big hit so our students wanted to take some time and work together and start a group fire. We learned very quickly that starting a fire is not as easy as it sounds. After all their hard work our fire was started and stayed hot until lunch time.
A big thanks to Emily for bringing in her rock/crystal collection. All the kids got to take a look at “golden tigers eye”, ” black lava stone”, “agate stone”, “rose quartz” and “fools gold”.
Everyone showed off their hammering skills with real hammers and nails! Every child went home with all ten fingers intact!
Later in the afternoon our students spent some time creating music with our homemade kazoos. Also, we apologize for the crazy weather today, we were on a roll with our creativity and made our very own rainmakers!
Our sit spots are a time where our students can reflect on their day and today was no exception. Our question of the day was – “Give 5 examples of how we treat people and how you want to be treated.” Some of the amazing answers were – “be kind, be respectful, help each other, love, like, hold someones hand, give people flowers when they are not happy, tell jokes and make someone smile.” Needless to say we have some seriously amazing little humans on our hands! Way to go parents for raising these sweet, genuine children that we get the pleasure of spending time with once a week.
We always save the best for last!! The main focus today was designing and building their very own bird houses! It was amazing to see how different all of our designs were.
Alice yelled from the Garden ” I heard a Wolf call!!” That’s all it took for our kids to run down to the Beaver River howling for coyotes with the hope of finding a wolf! Good news is no other animals called back!
To no surprise, there were lots of “Honesty” and “Respect” stickers earned today as well as:
1. Storytelling bead. Congratulations to everyone, you all worked so hard for them.
Next Week: We will be joining Collingwood Forest School for a BIG hike up to Loree Forest! Make sure to have an energizing breakfast to keep you fired up, and ready to explore!
This week we challenged our students to see how they would survive a night lost in the woods. The morning had us off to our old campsite to take some quiet space alone to reflect on what it would feel like to be lost – what would you be thinking? What would you do? What could you use around you to stay safe?
During our debrief around the fire, we uncovered that immediately your psychology and attitude are a huge aspect to dealing with a survival situation. We called this S.T.O.P. – Stop, Think, Observe and Plan.
We then dove into the 4 Core attributes to Survival which, on both days, students were able to brainstorm on their own through discussion. Shelter, Fire, Water, Food – and in that order. The most important thing is staying warm (which we had first-hand experience with this week – and thanks to you, the parents, for all the great layers you sent your kids with!)
We had a lot of fun putting the 4 Cores into practice and students realized that they already had a lot of the skills needed. We made fires, shelter and did some exploratory hiking (and even “Sand”boggoning on Wed). In teams, we played out a scenario involving a plane crash and prioritized 12 items we would need and why – there were no wrong answers, just a need to justify. Oh, and how could any Survival day be complete without a little Animal Survival game?
Congrats to our Peer Support Bead recipient, 2 Reflection Beads, 1 Craft Bead and an amazing Storytelling Bead!
Next Week: We’ll be having some fun and getting creative making projects!
We had another fun-filled Wednesday at Forest School! Our students spent a large portion of their day braving the cold, and gaining the skills to survive the outdoors. With the colder weather arriving, we focused on shelter building and becoming more confident with our fire skills. There was so much creative thinking, problem solving and collaboration today. We are so proud of all of our students for all their hard work!
Check out how incredible our students are!
Thanks Aaron for bringing in your personal sled today! So much fun was had running around the garden taking turns enjoying the ride and pulling each other around, it was definitely a hit!
Before our smudging ceremony our students had fun constructing their very own teeter totter. It took Jack, Aaron and Taven to lift me off the ground. What super strong young men we have at Forest School.
While we were out hiking and collecting our tinder and kindling, Alice came across some wonderful wild mint. All our kids got to try a piece, some of us even tested our breath to see if it smelled better.
“A Frame”, “Tee-pee”, “Tarps” and “Lean To” were some of the shelters we talked about today. Izzy and Emily worked together and built a “Tee-pee” shelter, while the other kids built “A frame” and “Lean To” shelters. Great teamwork today guys and gals!
We thought this week instead building fires with dry tinder (mostly due to the wet tinder in our area), we would change it up and create our first TNT fire starters. The students were given a toilet paper roll and the choice of birch bark, cotton balls, dried maple sap, newspaper or dryer lint. Packed all together this makes a great fire starter, and something that can be packed in a survival kit!
There was so much success with our fire skills this week, we are proud to say that all 7 of our students were able to start their own fires, and keep them going strong enough to roast marshmallows. High Fives all around!
A lot of beads and stickers were awarded today, wisdom and respect stickers were given out, while EVERYONE earned their shelter and fire beads. Congratulations to all our students.
Next Week:
Projects and Tools! Planning, construction and teamwork are just some of the skills to look forward to next week. Stay tuned.
Reminder:
You child can bring in one tool that could assist them within their projects.
“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 in any direction you choose” – Dr. Suess
Our focus this week was mapping! Giving our students the ability to read and understand a map gives them opportunities for growth, confidence, amazing memories and fun! We kept our adventures close to the Thornbury area visiting the Craigleith Heritage Depot and an awesome hiking trail in Clarksburg.
Check out our day!
This morning we started the day off with show and tell. We had a range of special items from homemade natural art, home made medallion drawings, finger puppets, rocks and a Pokémon ball. There was no Pokémon in this ball.
Before we headed out on our adventure, we took time to discuss how to read a map. We looked at titles, legends, symbols, roads, trails, names and so much more.
Our first stop was the Craigleith Heritage Depot. Some of our students went right to the library to read “Charlottes Web” and “A funny thing happened on the way to school”. Some ventured to the museum and learned about Trilobites, the First Nations Petun tribe and the Train station. While others took some time to search for images of Wolves. If you have never been to this location before please take advantage of the incredible learning opportunities here. You won’t regret it! A big shout out to the Craigleith Depot for being such a great host!
On our second stop we found this amazing shelter! We took some time to play a game called “hunter and wolf”but by the end of the game it turned into “Cops and Robbers”. While we were exploring this new hiking trail we came across a rock mountain. We took time to search for fossils and found more great hiking sticks!
In the afternoon we started with a challenging scavenger hunt. Our students were given a map with check points to visit. At every check point there was a question about Forest school that they had to answer. Along with every question they gathered materials for their own personal fire. It was great to see teamwork arise and our older students even helped out our younger ones with sounding out words and making sure they all got the right answers! Great work guys and gals!
We finished our day with a riddle which led our students to a treasure! Make sure you asked your child how much treasure they found and what they got to keep!
Our riddle was:
“Into a fort you go where the treasure is aflow. Better hurry up and run because the treasure is a ton.”
We gave away 2 craft beads today and everyone is getting very close to getting a prize for their respect stickers. Great job everyone!
Next Week: Survival Week! We will focus on shelter, drinking, food, fire…it’s going be a busy day next week!
