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.
This morning we worked on our green thumb and planted our first of 4 potato towers. Getting into pairs our students were eager to get their hands dirty to dig holes, plant potato seeds and hang out in the compost. Each tower has 4 potatoes and we are super excited to see there growth each week. We can’t wait for french fries!
We were also super lucky with the amazing weather today, and it makes everyone so excited for summer. This weeks hike took us to a brand new location for Forest School – 3 stage – located just outside of Gibraltar. Hiking deep into the woods gave our students the opportunity to remove any pent up energy, while finding new discoveries along the way. Everyone came across many familiar plants and noises, and while moving rocks to discover life underneath, we found our first salamander! Some of us hugged trees, became zen with yoga poses and played hide and seek. This was an amazing hike, and we hope that our students take their friends and families to explore this part of the Bruce Trail.
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.
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
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
Wednesday
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.
Thursday
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!
This week at Forest School was dedicated to continuing our education about our feathred little friends, Birds! With our in-class lessons and hands on games, we packed our day full of physical activity. This morning we put our students to the test, and worked together to start a fire without a match! Thanks Aaron for sharing your flint and steel, and great job to Jack for starting it, we even timed it at 7 minutes and 49 seconds. Between our fire starting and teaching each other how to fish, we discovered our second Beaver! We even found 3 bird nests with mommy protecting her eggs, which fit our curriculum perfectly. Check out our epic day!
Our day was too beautiful to be inside, so we only spent one lesson indoors. There was a big discussion about what makes a bird, a bird! Is it their feathers, wings, beak, hollow bones or just their great personality? Either way birds are pretty cool animals and getting the chance to not just discuss them, but feel their feathers, and get up close an personal with their nests is a great opportunity to invoke more curiosity. While we spent some time on our journals, we also took a moment to create our “Forest School Binoculars” out of toilet paper rolls. Through out our day we saw many Canadian Geese, Robins, Chickadee’s and Turkey Vultures.
Our students dove right into their role of Canadian Geese for the game “Canadian Geese Migration” this morning. Our little birds had to migrate down South safely, and be aware of all the risks associated with migration. Our flock of birds had to fly from each resting stop, making their way through beautiful landscapes full of clean water and food , natural disasters, oil spills and landfills and a SURPRISE from the hunters! Our students discovered some of the challenges these birds face on a daily basis, and that nature isn’t nice all the time. It was sad to say not all Canadian Geese survived, with starting with 9, and ended up with 2!
This afternoon we let our creativity take over, and made natural bird feeders with peanut butter, honey, bird seed, pine cones and sticks. Some of our students even made “human-feeders” with bracelets and necklaces made from Cheerios and pipe cleaners which led us into our bird feeder game, and then into the ultimate “Chickadee Vs Blue Jays”. It’s not always easy being a bird, our little Chickadee’s had to fly to the bird feeders and take their food back to their nests, but WAIT! Those pesky Blue Jays are trying to steal food from the Chickadee’s nest! All of our little birds worked so hard to fill their nest with food, but the Blue Jays won the battle, flying away with 25 pieces of food. Good news is all birds went home with some food in their nests!
Today there was an abundance of Love, Wisdom and Respect stickers earned! We are getting close to some prizes and Bingo beads! Thank you to Izzy for bringing in your Whale book, it was super awesome to look at all those pictures, Congrats on the Show and Tell Bead!
Next Week – We will be working on some new, and unfinished projects!
This week the classes learned all about Ecosystems. After our core routines, we started off by coming up with a working definition of what Ecosystems are and how they connect all over the world. It was awesome to lean on the prior-knowledge of our students – we’ve got a clever bunch!
After our lessons, we threw on our scientist hat and headed for the field to make observations and record data. Our objective was to mark off a rectangular section of “ecosystem”, measure it and search for all living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) things. The students jumped to the task with magnifying glasses in-hand and found some really cool things – robin eggs, insect eggs and nests, snails galore, mushrooms, and much more. After a “museum walk” to view everyone’s site, it was quite evident that there’s much more than meets the eye in a relatively small area.
After telling a legend, the afternoon had us exploring more ecosystems as we set out on a hike to the far edges of our property. More specifically, we were looking at the biodiversity between ecosystems, in the ecotones. It’s awesome what you can find when you slow down and take a look – the remains of a Northern Flicker, a Turkey nest, edible trout lilies, and that’s just to name a few.
You never know what you’re going to get at Forest School and different days saw many different things happen this week:
TuesdaY
Students were really engaged with ring toss yet again. They also got a chance to become the food chain in a serious rock, paper, scissors competition. This group was the first group to discover the remains of the Northern Flicker (and they chose to leave the beautiful feathers there for the other groups to see – yay LNT principles and nature lovers!). A big portion of them also started work on carving projects, and as always enjoyed some time in their sit spots.
Wednesday
A really cool thing happened on Wednesday – during our exploration one of the students noticed his magnifying glass warmed up his hand. And from there we naturally had to make a fire from it. So we tried and lo and behold, the char cloth caught quick. So we tried other materials – paper, birch bark, tree resin, wood – to see what would happen. We eventually were able to make a fire only using the sun!!!
During a game of camouflage, this group also accidentally (and quite literally) stumbled upon a turkey nest. The mama turkey flew off and we quickly left the area in hopes that she’ll return.
THURSDAY
Wow! What a hot day! So nice we even had to cool down in the spring, and had our first real day where we could take our shoes off this Spring. (And the lightning storms held off just for us!)
The students on Thursday jumped into the roles of Producers, Consumers and Decomposers for a better understanding of food chains. On a sadder note, we experienced this cycle first hand after discovering that our mallard nest was attacked by a hungry predator. We worked through these heavy feelings with the group and realized that this loss is an important part of the food chain. Soon after, we were treated when we discovered a healthy baby of another species – a snapping turtle!
Of course you may have noticed some stinky breath coming from your child after school this week… Tuesday we came across a Leek patch and of course the Wed and Thurs groups had to try!
Congrats to our bead recipients: 3 Leadership Beads, 2 Curiosity Bead, 3 Show and Tell, and 1 Craft bead (for homemade charcloth!)
Next week: Projects!!! We’re going to let our imaginations run wild.
This week at Forest School we looked at our Eco System, and tied in some fun games along the way! It also brought opportunities for new discoveries, and an activity we haven’t done since last September, frog hunting! After our morning routines, our day started with an intense football game to get our blood pumping. We also challenged our kids with food-chain games along with an Eco System freeze tag! We were so active enjoying the beautiful spring weather, and a little too clean – so we had to get a little dirty, or it just wouldn’t be Forest School.
Our main lesson of the day was to learn about our Consumers (Animals and Humans), Producers (Plants that grow from the ground), and Decomposers (Slugs, Snails and Worms). We tested our knowledge with a skill testing questions, a mix and match game, and though it came challenging for all at the end of the game, we all had a better understanding of each topic. With all the hard work we did, it paid off and we got a fun game out of it!
So while we were on our hike surrounded by tons of producers, looking for evidence of consumers (Racoon tracks, Beaver and Canadian Geese) and finding decomposers (Snails, Worms and centipedes) we spotted our FIRST Beaver of the season! We now have a better idea of who is chopping down all those trees! It was a beautiful day to relax and so we spent a large part of our afternoon working on our sit spots where we reflect, write in our journals and explore our 5 senses. Using the knowledge from our earlier lesson, we brainstormed examples of Consumers, Producers and Decomposers and used our imagination to write a story about their favourite animal along with a food chain associated with them.
With all of the beautiful sunshine and heat today, we were over joyed to see our first frog of the season as well, which lead into an impromptu frog hunt! Our kids didn’t lose any agility over the Winter to catch our little friends, and in total we caught 11 Frogs! All frogs went back home safe and sound. Along with this fun activity, we even had time at the end of the day to do some fishing. Unfortunately we didn’t catch anything this week, but we are looking forward to our next opportunity.
Our Morning Glory starting to sprout
This week was full of Wisdom stickers, Respect sticker and Love. Exciting news – we are getting close to some prizes! There was also 1 Al bead earned, 4 Litterless Lunch and 2 Show and Tell Beads.
Next Week – We are going to be looking into the fun and exciting world of Birds!
Today our kids were all prepared for rain clouds, and maybe even some thunder and lightning, but the Thunderbird (mythical bird who controls the weather) must have been sleeping because we got the complete opposite! Sun, light, wind and maybe a couple rain drops..Feww! So we headed off property and explored more of the Bruce Trail, along with a new hiking path that connects to Loree Forest.
But before we marched into a new landscape, we got a fun introduction into planting! The top picks were Kale, Spinach, Lavender, Peas and Morning Glory flowers. We also had fun exploring our compost area (for soil), and who knew so much life was happening in the dirt! We found so many decomposers (snails, worms, millipedes and spiders). We will update on how our first attempt on our plants are growing!
We have to give credit to all our students for hiking ALL day through the overcast, sun and the heat. Everyone kept such a positive attitude, and supported each other along the way. We couldn’t have been more proud! With our kids exploring a new area these are just a few of the topics that brought discussion.
Hundreds of Trout Lily leaves (too early for the flower)
Escaping sap on a tree (great for fires)
Wild leeks (taste and smell so good)
Wild mushrooms (did not eat)
Hiking sticks
Fungi and Moss
Different types of rocks
Mud puddles (yup we got dirty)
Deciphering trees among many more!
There were many earned beads and stickers today, as well with some students getting pretty close to getting a Bingo Bead! We also caught up on some missed beads from last week. 10 Respect stickers, 2 Peer Support Beads, 1 Bravery Bead, 4 Show and Tell Beads, 2 Litter Less Lunch Beads and 1 very special Al Bead – for kindness, love and support.
Next Week – We are going to look at the relationship between plants and animals! Ecosystems here we come!
Side note – We actually hit 10,000 steps or more today! Our little legs worked hard.
We had a fun week at Forest School exploring the wonderful and intricate world of Animals. And we were SURROUNDED by them this week. A hare one morning, a groundhog, lots of squirrels, our resident chipmunk and even a bat that literally hung out on the school house all day. Oh and of course we were inundated with birds! We saw dozens of different types and listened attentively to all their songs – it’s getting us really excited for next week’s Bird focus. In prep for this we set up some big feeders to draw them in and made our own smaller Easter Egg bird feeders to put in our sit spots.
After some exploratory play and our morning routines, we took some extended time at our sit spots. These spots are really coming together – check out the pictures below for a sample of the cool shelters and creations our kids are making. The students are really becoming stewards of their areas and adding their own flare.
Back to the subject of the day: Animals. In the past, we’ve worked a lot with animals – tracking, identification, adaptations, fish, birds, insects and more – and we wanted to build on this knowledge. So we tested our knowledge on animals tracks and found out that we could use a little refresher! We took a first hand look at Aden’s paws and followed some tracks laid down by some local fauna. Afterwards, we really wanted to emphasize an understanding of the needs of animals and what better way than with a game of Survival? Students were herbivores, omnivores and carnivores and became part of the food chain. The only goal? To survive!!
Later on we built on this with a couple lessons on carrying capacity and limiting factors. As part of our lesson, chairs slowly started disappearing so students had to share, until ultimately there was not enough space (and thus we figured out our “Classroom Carrying Capacity”). Then we went outside and became deer fighting for resources. We graphed the results over a “15 year” period (yay math!) and drew out conclusions from our findings. We took this one step further by making predictions and looking at real world applications (ie 7 year hare/lynx cycle).
On Thursday we had an impromptu Easter Egg hunt when we came across an abandoned Mallard nest with an egg. Although this is unfortunate, we learned a good lesson in avoiding wildlife (some of our LNT principles). Since we know it has been abandoned for a while, we are going to see if it we can hatch it under a light.
All in all, a real fun day. Congrats to our bead recipients: 2 fire beads, 2 litterless-lunch beads and 5 fire keeper beads.
Next week:
BIRDS!! This is always a fun day and the property has an incredible amount of our avian friends right now. If you’ve got binoculars, please bring them!
This week Forest School brought us another day packed full of learning, exploration and discovery. When our students arrived this morning, we were shocked to discover the difference in the landscape on our property from last week. It was amazing to see how high the Beaver River rose, but with the river taking away some of hiking paths, it gave us an opportunity to explore new areas.
Our topic this week was all about our local animals, we spent our morning playing games like “Ocelot tag” which was led by Emily, one of our fellow students. Some highlights of the day were making nests, continuing building our shelters and working towards starting fires without matches. We also brought out our collection of animal prints, and took time to learn 5 new footprints to add to our journals, as well as playing a footprint matching game to test our knowledge! Our big winner was Taven for getting 6 out of 9 correct.
While we explored the great outdoors, we tried to live like animals. Imagination play, and working on our imitation animal calls provided great opportunities for our students to have a good laugh. Some of us pretended to be beavers, dinosaurs, wolves, and sloths – and some even hugged trees! Our 3 epic games of “camouflage” was a great way to mimic animals hiding from their predator, and an awesome segway into our main lesson of learning, and teaching their fellow peers something new about their favorite animal. We dove right into our animal books, and found all we could about our furry, and not so furry little friends. Some of the animals we learned about were the Pig, Fox, Armadillo, Yellow Jacket, Wolf, Chickadee, Red headed Woodpecker and Coyote. Great job everyone for all your efforts in researching the animals you wanted to learn more about!
Our last fun activity of the day, in light of the holiday fast approaching, was to have an Easter egg Hunt! All were found except 2! Maybe well find them next week as a little treat!
We would like to send out a BIG thank-you for all the show and tells today – 4 in total! We had a cool branding piece brought in on some wood, wolf information books, flint & steel, and a super neat rock with crystals inside called a geode! We are SUPER lucky that we all love to share, and teach each other new things! Watching our students be so intrigued by the information each individual possesses is incredible! Each, and every one of our amazing Forest School kids teaches us something valuable, and interesting each day!
This week was full of support! 8 Respect and Love stickers, 5 wisdom stickers, along with 1 peer support bead.
Next week – We will going off property to explore more of the Bruce Trail! Get ready for some hiking!
Firstly, a BIG welcome to our new students and their families this semester – Forest School is booming and we are so happy to have a growing community. Also, a BIG welcome back to our students from the Fall, and of course our courageous Winter semester crew! We’re in for a good season this Spring.
We started off our days learning how to set up tents (which were especially needed on Tues and Thurs with the rainy weather!) then continued like most days at Forest School – Free Play, Smudge and Check-ins. Afterwards we ventured off for an extended amount of time in our Sit Spots (if you don’t know what this is yet, follow this link to our Core Routines page). New students were on the hunt for a space to call their own and become stewards of for the next few months, while returning students added their personal touches to theirs: a new balance beam in one, a shelter in another, a wall in one more – anything to make it their own… even some fairy gardens! The students could’ve (and would’ve!) spent all day there.
Hanging out in our sit spots
Over the past few weeks, the classes have really been putting in time at our fire pit. We now have an incredible tree fort, a natural shelter, a storefront and a revitalized fire ring. As our goal this week was to learn new outdoor skills, what better place to spend most of the day? Our goal? To create a fire without a match or lighter.
On Tuesday, after a Fire Safety lesson, students eagerly got busy with different jobs – collecting wood, getting the fire ready, fetching water, making “nests” and setting up our ignition station. Students then jumped at the chance to try out our magnesium and steel. With charcloth in place and a nest nearby, we were ready to go. And we did it!!! Our very first “fire keeper” is a long-time Painted Turtle, the very first student in FS Forest School History to make a fire without a match… and he did it in the rain!
Magnesium and steel with charcloth
Wednesday was much the same, though we had much better weather and even more students were able to get their nests blazing without a match. Alas, we tried our best with the Bow Drill and came up just shy – at least we have a new goal for later in the spring (flint and steel proved quite difficult as well, but just another thing to look forward to!).
Working on our Bow Drill skills
The afternoon was spent in different ways on these two days. After exploratory play time, most student wanted to spend more time in their sit spots, or showing them off to others. We found out that tree sap (this was from a pine) can act like a torch and burn really well and long on the end of a stick. We also opened up the knife throwing pit on Wednesday for the Snowy Owls, which was a ton of (highly supervised!) fun. To finish off the day, the classes learned about the key components of a camp stove, how it’s put together and how to use it. And we made some cider/tea.
Our knife throwing pit
Thursday saw some of the craziest weather to date at Forest School. This put a kink in our fire plans, but not in our spirits! After an epic hike to Maple Forest, with some inevitable stops along the way (including finding 5 FROGS!), we were soaked and muddy! The students did a great job at keeping warm and layering up, so we made a fire, had some tea and roasted some marshmallows to celebrate our resilience. What unreal winter-like weather, and a great reminder that “April Showers” can be brutal – please remember to send extra clothes with you child or you can leave a labelled set at the school.
2 of the bigger frogs we found
The classes also brainstormed, voted on and came up with 3 new beads (one per class). Allow us to introduce the student-created:
Sit Spot Bead – earned by taking good care of your sit spot, spending quiet time reflecting in it, doing assigned tasks and making it your own. Fisherperson Bead – earned by demonstrating new knowledge with fishing… bonus if you catch a fish. Explorer Bead – earned by exploring somewhere new and stepping outside of your comfort zone.
And by popular demand from all three classes: Fire Keeper – creating and maintaining a fire without a match or lighter. (We have a few to give out next week!)
We will send home a fully updated bead list next week. Congrats to our bead recipients this week! 2 Fire beads, 1 teaching bead for a great lesson on Great White Sharks, and 1 Show and Tell bead.
Fresh spring air, and a brand new semester welcomed back all of our fellow Forest School students today, as well as a few new faces! This week at school we dove right back into our regular routines (smudge, check ins) and were all super excited with reconnecting with everyone.
Our morning was all about exploring our grounds, and discovering passions, and curiosity within us. There was also an abundance of tree climbing, shelter building, making new friends and imagination play. We also found an abandoned bees nest!
During our morning hike we came across a large piece of land that was taken out by Beavers! We couldn’t believe the destruction one little furry friend is capable of! This also opened up an awesome discussion, and got the kids using their critical thinking skills. How strong are their teeth? How many Beavers took all the trees down? Where did they build their dam? How long did this take them? We did come across a pile of trees…there might have been a Beaver spotting…it was unclear but we will re visit this site for more investigation.
We also took time to reflect back to the fall, and revisit our fire starting skills, to work towards the Fire bead! It was awesome to see how many students remembered what a fire needs to survive (fuel, oxygen and heat), different types of fuel (tinder, kindling and logs) and how we put fires out (water, stomping and sand).
Our first day back came with lots of love and respect stickers. Along with 2 peer support beads, 2 fire beads, 1 show and tell bead and 1 animal-tracking bead. Great job to all our students! What a way to kick start our spring semester.
