Free Spirit Forest and Nature School

Nurturing Connection with Self, Others and Nature

Uncovering our Curriculum… literally.

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Hey Folks!

As often happens at Forest School, we head into the day with a plan – and sometimes it gets mostly ditched due to emerging interests and opportunities. What a pleasant surprise this week when we discovered that the loss of all our snow from the wavering temperatures last week resulted in an epic ice rink!

Our planned Science activities were put on the back burner, or at least shifted focus the minute we uncovered the rink. While we still did a few experiments – the water volume of snow, snow as an insulator, water and ice density, snowflake formation and even snow volcanoes – suddenly our days were focused on ice: it’s creation, how to travel on it safely, and inevitably it’s destruction. (Sidebar: It’s amazing how much kids love destroying ice!)

We watched as our rink turned into many different things over the week – from balancing acts to sliding competitions; broomball rink to human curling; and full on skating rink by Friday – it became our central focus over the week and was so much fun. Thanks for the flexibility of our parents in sending their kids to school with skates!

When we weren’t on the rink, we were off exploring the property and marveling at the changes that occurred with the wacky weather. One of the greatest things about Forest School is the repetitive exposure to the same places. Students make genuine connections to the land and have a vested interest in their creations and special spots. We got to see how our snow trenches didn’t survive the thaw, but our snow caves did (albeit smaller)! We were able to drill holes through the ice of the big pond and check it for safe travel while learning about potential dangers while making shortcuts. We discovered that our “Riverbed” campsite is aptly named and is covered in half a foot of ice and water now!

And all of this spawned from a simple question by a student – “Hey, can I clear off that patch of ice?”

Next Week:
We have a regular day at Bygones Tues-Thurs, and Fridays group will be going Cross Country Skiing at Highlands Nordic! Please bring skis if you have them, otherwise we have you covered.

Please remember to let us know your intentions for the Spring Session as spaces are filling up!

Cheers,

Kim and Matt

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Snow Trenches, Snow Caves and… rain?!

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Welcome Back to Forest and Nature School!

We welcomed our FNS friends back at Bygone Days this week and dove right into some fun winter activities! After opening our day with a ceremonial smudge, our morning circle and some teambuilding icebreakers to get to know one another, students were keen to lean into learning about all things SNOW.

One of our favourite stories this time of year is called “Over and Under the Snow” by Kate Messner. It certainly set the stage for our snowshoe (or hiking) adventures and helped draw students’ attention to the little things along the way. Whether we ventured around the pond, to Ducky’s Campsite, or all the way to Fossil Mountain, we recognized the magical world that exists underneath the snow in the subnivean zone and were excited to discover it firsthand! We found various tracks, scat and other signs of animals surviving this wild winter along the way too!

After identifying some of the ways animals survive the winter (migrate, hibernate or stay active), students were tasked with the mission of keeping their own “animal” safe during the winter (ie. ensuring their jello didn’t harden when left in the cold). Using some of the learning from earlier in the day, combined with their own creativity, students hid, burrowed, or simply insulated their “animals” in the snow. Some even huddled with other containers of jello to keep warm, like deer mice! Ask your child what technique they used and whether or not it survived!

We further explored some important safety considerations about adventuring in the winter and took an in-depth look at ways to stay prepared to prevent some of the nasty, but realistic consequences of winter – like frost bite or hypothermia. We discussed ways to prevent and treat these concerns and packed our own survival backpack, filled with important gear to keep us safe and prepared while out in the elements.

During Wednesday and Thursday, students had the opportunity to build emergency shelters. We had some creative and thoughtful designs – like a collaborative snow trench (which turned into an awesome snow-village among the sumacs), and individual snow caves that were dug into the side of Fossil Mountain using mostly just snowshoes!

Kudos to students on Friday who were able to brave the wind-whipping snow and hail! It’s a good reminder for students to be prepared for FNS – including a fleece neck warmer, extra mitts, hats and thick socks, and even extra boots if you have them! You can’t have too many layers at FNS.

We had an AWESOME first week at FNS and made some great new friends each day! We look forward to another season of learning, exploring, laughing and playing with new friends!

Cheers,

Kim and Matt

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Winter Solstice, an Epic Hunt and Giant Tubes

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Hey Everyone,

We had a wonderful last week of FNS and enjoyed adventuring around our nature playground in the freshly fallen snow. Of course, what better way to say good bye to some of our favourite places than by spending some quality time in them! Throughout the week, students enjoyed visiting various places, like Riverside Campsite, Ducky’s Campsite, Mysterious Forest, or circumnavigating the pond. It has been quite powerful to hear stories and reminisce about so many positive experiences and memories from the fall along the way. Your children have truly built a deep connection to the land and to one another.

On Tuesday, students spent some time building new snow castles and tapping into their creativity and imaginations to play and work together with their natural loose parts. They collaboratively moved the large pipes from our obstacle course to build an incredible human-size subnivean zone, and of course this also became an incredible new space for creative play and our new favourite competitive game, ga-ga ball! This treat was used and appreciated all week by other classes.
On Wednesday, we were treated with the presence of a metal detector brought in by one of our students. We went on treasure hunts and were rewarded with the uncovering of a lost tool from earlier in the Fall. Students also extended our collaborative loose parts to build a giant slide behind the school house, which is only getting more and more fun with the coming snow!
A significant experience arose for us on Thursday, as we were on our way to Mysterious Forest. Students followed some interesting tracks that led us to an up close understanding and investigation of the life-cycle. We uncovered the story of a fox vs. rabbit battle scene, including a sacrificed rabbit, scavenger prints from crows, and happy solitary fox prints trotting across the newly frozen pond. Students were captivated by this experience and truly intrigued by the layers that could be unpacked from a successful, natural hunting experience. Students brainstormed that the fox (and other scavengers) gain food for themselves/their family; birds could use the remaining fur for nests; and overall we gained a deeper understanding of predator-prey relationships and population size. And although we mourned the rabbit, we thanked her for her sacrifice and remembered our significant “Blueberry” experience from 2 years ago, where after a discovering a similar scenario, a few weeks later we were graced with the presence of four little fox pups, allowing for a more thorough and deeper understanding of the life-cycle.

Friday we spent time adventuring out to our Riverside Camp Site and around the big pond, following tracks, and creating stories. We enjoyed creating challenges and working together (or competing) to gain our personal bests, and even had time to explore the buildings of our village.
Throughout the week we also celebrated Winter Solstice with the lightning of ice candles, looking into the science behind shortest day of the year and its significance, and learning about some traditions from different cultures (looking at the pomander, an oranges studded with cloves) and other stories from the past. This is a very important day of the year for us and marks a new beginning.
We closed our fall session by gathering in a fire ceremony and sharing our favourite memories and experiences together. What a fun and thoughtful way to kick off the holidays!

We wish everyone a wonderful holiday, filled with joy, family, friends, adventure and play! Thanks for taking part in this Fall Adventure with us and we look forward to seeing you in the Winter!

Matt, Kim and Tamara

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Snow Cities and Snowshoes

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Hi again folks!

What a wonderful snowy bluebird week!! We are so thankful for all of the snow and had a blast building and creating our new snow village! All week students spent time building quinzees and mini igloos, connecting tunnels, fashioning snow seats and creating wind walls around our outdoor fire pit. It feels like a special snow community, especially knowing all of the hands and hard work that has gone into it’s creation!

Most days students were also very keen to check out the snow on fossil mountain and of course we just had to toboggan down! We had so much fun zipping down, working together to build jumps, and learning about snow cornices and avalanches!

Thanks to FST, we have added a new classroom set of snowshoes and spent some afternoons breaking trail and exploring animals tracks along the way. What a fun way to travel around!

A special thanks to two students who brought in sweet grass to start our morning smudge on Thursday!

Reminder:
Next week is our final week at FNS before the Christmas break! Our winter session resumes the week of Jan 8. There are still a few spots left to register. We look forward to seeing you this winter!

Cheers,

The Forest School Team

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Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Sledding down “contour lines”

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Hi Folks,

We certainly had an awesome time this week at FNS! We learned about wilderness travel and the important parts of a map (making our own treasure maps around the site), honed our compass skills and navigated an orienteering course that some students worked hard to create for us! This course eventually led us to our dear Fossil Mountain – where we examined some contour lines up close… with our toboggans!

We had quite the range of weather this week, allowing us to get our mitts deep into some fun and creative snow structures. We built some epic snow castles and GIANT snowballs, livened up the designs with food colouring, and even raced down hills in our home-made sleds, GT’s and crazy carpets! By Friday, we could feel the sun trying hard to melt our creations, sparking imagination from our learners as they transformed a quinzee to an exploding volcano. It was a blast all week and our students were well prepared and eager to play in the first steady snow week.

Our students are already learning a lot about what it takes to brave the Winter. They are getting their practice at making and sustaining fires in the Winter, being prepared with their own Winter gear (and know the importance of back-up mitts and boots), and are especially making sure we keep hydrated, even though it’s cold out! Big thanks to everyone who made our first snow week such a success!

Speaking of all of this snow, don’t forget to sign up for our winter session! Click here to register!

Cheers,

Matt, Kim and Tamara

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Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Builders, creators, and sledders.

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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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Exploring the Bruce Trail

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Hey Folks!

This week at Forest School we wanted to take our kids off the property and explore some of the Bruce Trail that is located right in our own “backyard”. Words could not express how much fun we had today exploring a new part of the Bruce Trail, some of our hiking goals were to discover “Standing Rock” and find the newly renovated “Frank’s Lime Kiln”. Let the adventure begin!

Before we headed out on our journey, we took a slight detour to “Fossil Mountain” to take time to uncover some fossils by peeling apart layers of shale rock. The discoveries made were amazing! Our students got their hands dirty and found different types of rock, fossils, shells, seeds and ice.

Our first trek started at the Nottawasaga Lookout, located just outside of Duntroon. The “Standing Rock” trail is a 1.2 km side loop that encompasses flat and rocky terrain, including caves and crevasses. Bravery and Leadership beads were earned all throughout our afternoon escapade. Our kids ducked, crawled and slid down 5 ice slides, it gave them an easy head start for the rest of our hike!
Before we headed back to school, we wanted to let the kids explore a 150-year-old kiln. This kiln had been built in 1860 and was restored in 2015 – the outcome is beautiful. The kids also had a great time learning a little bit about our local pioneer history.

It was great to see our class being so cohesive through out the caves. Our comfort zones were tested, and challenge-by-choice was presented. Moving slowly, and communicating was top notch today! We also worked towards leadership, peer support, spotting, encouraging one another and trust. We are so proud of everyone, you all worked so hard.

Beads and Stickers were abundant today! 8 Bravery Beads, 1Show and Tell Bead, 1 Travel Bead, 1 Leadership Bead, 2 Peer Support, 1 Curiosity Bead and 1 Nature Lover Bead. As usual love, respect and wisdom stickers were earned as well.

Next Week – This will be our last class for the Winter semester, can you believe it!? We will be doing a recap of everything we have learned over the semester, with lots of laughs, fun, and games. We are excited for the spring semester to start and to meet all the new faces!

Until Next week!

Krista and Neal

Our epic day!

Welcome March Break

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Hey Folks!

We had an amazing day at Forest School this week, and with it being March Break we wanted to take advantage of inside and outside activities, even if it was -18 with wind chill!

We touched back to a topic we focused on last week, which was all about our community, and headed back to the Collingwood public library, for some fun and games. Our focused activity was a 9 hole indoor mini putt! Our kids are excellent putters and played an awesome round of golf! Congrats to Hazel for her hole in one! Gotta love the shocked hole in one face! We were all winners in this game!

We also challenged ourselves with a game of eye spy

“ Eye spy a duck, a pigeon, a belle of the ball, 4 rabbits, 9 T’s and a truck comes when you call. A runaway mouse, a marine band and more, three cameras, two monkeys and a pig for money to store”

After finding all the objects we put our name into a draw for a secret prize, were crossing our fingers we get a call!

Spending time reading to each other was a great way to start our afternoon, also a great way to practice our reading skills. Some of the books that we shared were:

“Tyrannosaurus Drip” by Julia Donaldson and David Roberts
“Duck! Rabbit!” By Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenheld
“Farm Animals Ponies by Heather C. Hudak and
“If you hold a seed” by Elly MacKay.

We hope you get a chance to read them!

We could have spent all day at the library reading books, playing games and hosting puppet shows, but alas, the sun came out and the woods were calling us!

We visited a new place today located in Wasaga Beach, a local Nordic Centre called “Blueberry trails”. After mapping out where we wanted to explore, we headed down the blueberry trail and trekked our way through a forest of deer tracks and cedar trees. We found a great spot to relax, while some students worked on their ‘Fire bead’, others worked on snow art. All students enjoyed hot apple cider and the sunshine.

Thank you to Hazel for bringing in her show and tell items. Coming from Puru – ‘Chestnut’ her lama stuffy made with REAL llama fur, and her Guinea Pig ‘Taco’ made with real alpaca fleece. Needless to say those were the softest stuffies we have had at Forest School!

We hope that everyone has/had a safe, healthy and of course fun March Break! Looking forward to hear about all the adventures our students got up to.

Next Week – We are going to keep it active and full of exploration!

Until Next week!

Krista and Neal

Check out our day!

Let’s go Skiing!

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Hi Friends!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Have a great week everyone!

Krista and Neal.

What an amazing day!

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

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Hi Everyone!

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

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

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

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

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

The start of our Ice rink

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

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

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

Thanks for checking in this week

Krista and Neal

Our wonderful day!

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