Category Archives: Spring Fun

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!

  1. 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

 

 

 

Kayak or Canoe…..

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Hi Everyone,

We enjoyed another awesome field trip this week to the Beaver River located in Heathcote. This river is a local favourite of ours, especially if we want to see an abundance of wild life!

 

Each week at Forest School we are reminded of how much of a caring community we have, and field trips bring out the best in us! After our morning routines each class bounced into the vans anticipating the excitement of our last trip before summer break. Kayaking and Canoeing were the options for the day, and while some felt more comfortable leading their own boat, others took turns paddling and looking for wild life.  Some of the amazing finds were painted turtles, leeches, birds, frogs, slugs, toads, and snakes.

Our week also brought mixed weather, which didn’t slow anyone down! Within our afternoon our students took advantage of what the Heathcote property had to offer. Some students ate wild strawberries, worked on their slack lining skills, climbed the willow trees and had an epic frog hunt! Our students showed off their creativity by building lego towers and life sized lego men and  even created a student led game called “capture” (which was a huge hit). We also took a crack at attempting to solve  some of our wooden puzzles, which turns out are a lot harder than they look. 3 out of 5 were accomplished!

A HUGE thanks to Carley and Tamara for stepping in this week for Matt and Kim! We would love to have you back!

Next week – Helping hands!

See you next week!

Matt, Kim, Krista, Carley and Tamara

Row, row, row your boat!

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Hi Friends,

This week we welcomed Collingwood’s Forest School students  to join us on our adventure down one of our favourite rivers – the Beaver River. Sadly, no actual beavers were spotted today. However, we would like to send out  a huge thank-you to Brian – our local plant ID expert, for showing the students some wild edibles this morning. Our students had the chance to eat black lochs flowers (full of flavour and a sweet “pop”), and grape tendrils (“grape arms” that are a bit sour) and mint (ahh, refreshing). We highly suggest trying these wild treats, OH – and our potato towers are are becoming taller than us, and will be ready to pick by the end of summer!

This afternoon during our group paddle down the Beaver River, our students came across frogs, lots of different birds, a cool water beetle, leeches, fish, crayfish, a garter snake, and even a painted turtle! We challenged and pushed ourselves out of our comfort zones, which earned some students very well deserved beads. Nearing the end of our day we said good-bye to our new friends, and focused on one of our favourite activities – frog hunting! We must say, our students are becoming experts at catching frogs, it’s a good thing we don’t eat them – or there would’t be any left to catch! Today there were 7 peer support beads, 1 bravery bead, 2 litter less lunches, 1 Al bead and 1 leadership bead.

Next week – Summer Celebration!!! Our last day of Forest School will consist of games, challenges and amazing memories! What a bittersweet day we have to look forward to!

Until next week,

Krista

 

Hiking, lookouts and reflections

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Hi All,

We made it to the top!

Another great day in the books with our amazing students, this week at Forest School was all about reflection and hiking! After our morning smudge circle, our class raced to the van and headed to one of our favourite Brue Trail hike spots – Loree Forest. The past two rainy days gave us a great opportunity to find animal tracks in the soft mud (fox, deer and dog..or maybe wolves), the kids earned some beads as well!

Our students also came across huge patches of poison ivy, salamanders, garter snakes, caterpillars, centipedes, worms, slugs and an abundance of “Jack in the pulpit” flowers.

Our hike took us to the top of the Georgian Peaks, and after our snack and check ins, we had an in depth discussion about bullying. It was amazing to see our students support each other, there was no shortage of great advice, thats for sure. Sometimes we forget how hard it is to be a kid these days, but the courage to ask for help makes it a lot easier. Afterwards, we took some time to relax in the beautiful sunshine and reflect on our past week.

 Within our afternoon our kids kept super busy by revisiting their favourite game “Farmer”, while some went for an epic frog hunt (17 in total), and others spent time building animal shelters. Sticking with our reflection theme, we thought back to our morning hike and wrote down what we saw, smelled, heard and touched. Our class is becoming incredibly independent and creating self-led activities. We are SO proud!

Today we formed even stronger bonds with each other by sharing advice, and encouragement. All of the support our students recieve goes along way outside of out classroom. Students gained more show and share beads, litter less lunch beads, fire beads, animal tracking beads and everyone deserved an exciting Al bead. Congrats!

Next week – We are going to be paddling the Beaver River.

Until next week,

Krista

You Rock.

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Hey Everyone,

We had an awesome field trip this week to Metcalfe Rock in the Kolapore Uplands.  This is one of our favourite places to visit for hiking, caving and best of all, CLIMBING!  This week rocked!

There’s not much for us to write about this week except how proud we are of our students for stepping outside their comfort zones and trying a challenging, risky and new (for some people) activity.  As teachers, we are thrilled to see everyone give it their best and encourage each other along the way.  It’s quite the supportive community we’ve all built here at Forest School.

After our initial round of climbing, students had free, exploratory play in the beautiful surrounding forest.  Some built shelters, others played one of our favourite games: camouflage, and some even made our now infamous leek and trout lily salad.  A few eager students even spent their time climbing some more routes.

In  total, 6 different climbs were conquered by our climbers.  Check out the photos below, they say a thousand words.  (If you’d like a better digital copy, send us an email at fsforestschool@gmail.com).

Congrats to our Bead Recipients:  Everyone earned an Explorer Bead and a Bravery Bead!

Oh, and if you’re wondering why your child(ren) may have come home with a new special rock, it may have been inspired by our story: Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor

Next Week: Wild Edibles… yummy!

Happy Trails,

Kim, Matt and Krista

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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

            

 

“Bee”ware!

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Hey Everyone!

We had a good week celebrating and exploring the wonderful lives of bees with all the students.  After our core routines (and some lessons on Poison Ivy ID – that time of year…) we jumped into discussion on bees.  There was a lot of prior bee knowledge from our students.  We looked at needs, benefits and risks as a class.  The students really had a solid understanding of just how important bees are to the environment and food production – and also what we can do to help them.

Throughout the day, we jumped into the roles of bees in two separate games.  The first was a spin on a classic game that we like to call Capture the “Honey”, with two bee colonies competing against each other in what is essentially the classic Capture the flag (which everyone always loves!)  The second was a macro-model we dubbed “Bee”ware, where students became a bee and had to maneuver through “pesticide” and “loss of habitat” areas without getting caught in order to get the sweet, sweet nectar. What better way to learn about bees, than to become a bee! We shared many great reflections and insights together after playing these activities.

We also had the chance to get up close and personal with our magnifying glasses and examine real nests and honeycombs.  And afterwards, we tried some very sweet local honey.

In the afternoon, we had our daily experiential time where students decide what they’d like to do.   We saw a large variety of activities over these three days – some students built towers, carved spoons, collected seeds, others caught hundreds of tadpoles, followed bees from flower to flower or made up stories and games.  We even had one group build a bat house (inspired and led by one of our students!) while another opted to play more “Bee”ware…. Oh and our new giant teeter-totter!

Towards the end of the day, we used another product from bees – beeswax.  We put together a camp stove, melted down the ingredients, and made some chapstick (check it out under “Recipes from our classes”).  On a couple days we even had time to make cedar tea with honey in it.

Congrats Bead Recipients:
4 Litterless lunch
1 Craft
4 Colouring
2 Sit Spots

Next Week:
ROCK CLIMBING at Metcalfe Rock! All gear will be provided! Chances are it will be buggy, so please wear layers!

All in all, a sweet day!

Matt, Kim and Krista

PS – Did you know that storytelling is an integral part of our program at Forest School and we often tell and read them together?  This week we read a great book called Mr. Bumble – By Kim Kennedy

More Photos:

“Water” you waiting for?

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Hi Everyone,

Our kids catching fish

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime” – Chinese proverb

We enjoyed another awesome day at Forest School, and with the highly anticipated fishing day, our students were all super excited to get their day started! Throughout our morning we taught each other about frogs, turtles, fish and fun/interesting facts about water. One of our favourite parts of the day was creating worm bubbles, which  left us with more happy memories to remember for a lifetime. Staying on the topic of worms, our students quickly realized they needed worms to fish! Finding the perfect spot to dig for worms was super easy, and though not all students wanted to touch them, we all worked as a team to collect what we needed.

 

After lunch we relaxed by the Beaver River all afternoon, while most of our students didn’t have a fishing pole, this gave us the opportunity to create our own. Searching for that perfect stick, rolling up the fishing line and attaching the hook, are some skills we hope stick with our kids. After going over safety rules we spent the rest of the day working towards 3 goals. Our first goal was to hook 2 worms onto our hook (thank you to everyone who helped each other out on this one!) Our second goal was to work on our pond study. Each student had to find 2 creatures, and identify them from our books. We have some great detectives in class, we found Water striders, Dragonfly nymphs, Minnows, Tadpoles, Crayfish, Whirling beetles and a huge leech! Our third goal was to catch and release 2 frogs each. We love a good frog hunt – I mean, who doesn’t!?

Thanks to those for bringing in their show and share gems, we love to see these items and learn something new each week! Our kids earned an abundance of stickers along with 1 Leadership bead, 1 Bingo bead, 6 Peer support beads, 1 Al bead and 2 Bravery beads.

Reminder – Our registration is now open for the start of September 2017.  With more days available and new age groups!

Next week – We are going to be planting food, and looking into wild edibles!

Until next week,

Krista

                            

Bee-ware of the Bee’s

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Hi Friends,

Our students becoming Bee’s

We had an amazing dose of vitamin D while enjoying the summer weather today, and all the heat and humidity didn’t slow our kids down one bit! This week we touched on the topic of bee’s, while still enjoying our regular routines. We started our day with a student led game “Bee-ing Human” similar to tag, but this got us working up such sweat that we had to cool down with blowing bubbles! And who doesn’t love bubbles! While sitting in on our check in’s, the question “If you had a superpower that could help change the world, what would it be?” This got our kids thinking all about bad guys, controlling the weather and the ability to help end world hunger with ‘Mother Nature’ capabilities.

        

While our Painted Turtles were working on their sit spots, some of them decided to get their hands dirty and make mud pies and cakes. They even took the time to decorate them with dandelion’s, but for some reason, no one seemed too interested in tasting it.

 Our morning discussions brought us to our first lesson about bee’s. We buzzed over to our journals and started writing and drawing all the information we knew, and our students know a lot! We even looked at the ‘Honey Bee’ anatomy. Last Spring, we were lucky enough to find an abandoned bee’s nest, and had the chance to dry it out and were able to feel the outside (which feels like really thin paper) and the honey comb inside. Getting up close to the nest really put things into perspective for our students. After our lesson it naturally led into our bee themed game! Called “Get to the Honey” this game included 2 Bee guards, 2 Bee forgers, 1 Queen Bee, and 2 Bears! The goal was for the bears to find the hive and get all that honey, but wait! You don’t want to get caught by the guards (their stingers really hurt). While the guards are protecting their home, the forgers are buzzing around trying to find nectar and pollen. Phew! Our students quickly discovered there is never any down time for a bee whether it’s, foraging, protecting, feeding the larva, or building upon the hive. The truly discovered the meaning behind the phrase “you’re a busy bee”.

      

With a high of 32 degrees our afternoon was fairly relaxed. Between frog hunting (6 in total and a bullfrog which got away!), making lip chap (which was super easy and only consisted of bee’s wax, coconut oil and peppermint oil) we enjoyed finishing off our day with a well deserved river dunk.

Thank you to Emily and Taven for your Show and Share, as well to all of our students who showed respect and love for one another! Our day was full of recognition! 4 littler less lunch beads, 1 bravery bead, 1 storytelling bead, 2 fire beads and 1 bingo bead! We are even getting super close to winning some prizes for our stickers! Keep being awesome Painted Turtles and Snowy Owls!

Next Week – Water!

Thanks for a great day everyone, 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!