As most of you know we went off property this morning and headed to one of Forest Schools favourite area – Metcalfe Rock! Located just beyond Blue Mountain we tucked ourselves away right beside natural rock formations and some of Ontario’s best rock climbing.
Our students challenged themselves through rock climbing and caving, along with meeting our sister school from Collingwood. Our older students discovered how courageous they were caving in the Ice Cave, while our smaller students explored caverns and smaller caves. We are so proud of everyone who pushed their comfort zones, made new friends and new memories. We took an extra pictures this week to capture everyones experiences, we hope you enjoy!
Thanks for stopping by to read about another great day at Forest School, and we had such a mix of weather from heat, sun, rain, thunderstorm, lighting, chilly wind, hail and then back to sun, our students are getting used to what Fall is all about.
This morning our students warmed up by our new fire pit (Thanks Jennie), and with some familiar games that kept us working up a sweat, we also introduced a new skillful game called scout. This was child invented, and quickly became a favourite of ours that we plan on continuing to play and work towards becoming skillful scouters, hiders and planners.
Today was also the start of our natural first aid kits, and we are lucky enough to have a HUGE patch of Spotted touch-me-nots or Spotted Jewelweed right by our building. Our students harvested some and put the stems in a jar and covered it with oil. Within 4-6 weeks we can then strain the contents and make a salve – this will become a remedy for Poison Ivy. We continued to wonder through the forest and found more gems like our friendly neigbourhood Garter Snake, which welcomed more questions and firsts for some, journals, sit spots, lots of construction with forts and plant identification – with our new I.D cards (Thanks Matt).
A big Thank you to all the students who helped out with making our Pear Sauce, and while having too much fun we ran out of time to cook it, but we are happy to report all pears were still eaten raw, coated in cinnamon, ginger and vanilla – YUM.
Reminders – We are going a Field Trip to Metcalf Rock, and we couldn’t be more exited to show all of our students a new space and a place where they take their families!
This week we welcomed the rain, and while some of us may stay inside to stay dry, our students embraced the rain and discovered our soil ecosystem, which was full of life! We even learned a new song called Young and Wild – ask your child to sing it for you!
While some of our students started their day playing rain hockey/rain soccer, some were working on their powers that controlled the weather (wind), and discovered magical crowns, similar to what the fairies wear.
We then ventured to “hot chocolate mountain” and really began diving into the dirt, which brought extreme discoveries. Ranging from frogs, millipedes, HUGE worms, spiders, ant farms, magical willow monsters, and even a Red Spotted Newt! This was a great find for our students because it was new, and the second ever found on Bygone Days Property.
Along our adventure we even came across our pear tree, and we thought it was a great day to introduce our students into cooking over the fire, and we are so proud of the teamwork for stick collecting. We are continuing each week to work towards building our fire skills with our 3 D’s (Dead, Dry and Down) – which is even harder when it’s wet outside, but our sweet reward was worth the wait!
We love taking the time to sing, dance, get really muddy, explore and investigate even if it’s the roots of a plant! We love to give children the guidance and empowerment to try new things even if its letting a spider walk on their leg, and as one of our students said today, ” I’m scared of spiders but I’m trusting myself”.
Thanks for stopping by for another great day at Forest and Nature School, and with all this beautiful weather we didn’t waste any time. We welcomed all of students with the sound of ukuleles, which led to lots of singing and our students even playing their own tunes this morning. We are always encouraging our students to express themselves through song, dance, art or story telling, and we welcome more instruments every week!
Our students were in full swing this morning playing child led games, working on our hunting and hiding skills, which make our students amazing trackers and are even starting to build relationships that embody respect, communication and genuine empathy. We have so much to learn from each other and this is why we encourage our older students to spend time with our younger students, which naturally happens and the learning is abundant!
Today we challenged our younger students and continue to wander and explore our new Forest School home, and while all of our students work on core routines, each students day unfolds differently. Some students focused on the little things like catching new creatures (tree frogs, millipedes, caterpillars, cicadas, and one legged grasshoppers!). Plants were a big topic today from ground mushrooms to acorns falling from the sky, along with which animals we can catch (chipmunks and squirrels). Some of our other students worked on construction projects, identification, journals, art work, ultimate hiking, tracking and we even started collecting Cicada exoskeletons!
We continue to build our school map which lead us to all of our amazing finds and continue to make the Blueberry trails our own personal magic forest. We look forward to seeing everyone next week to make some more music!
We are filled with gratitude for the wonderful welcome into the Wasaga Beach community from our new friends and families. Our day was filled with little moments that took us by surprise (literal surprise!.. aka spotted touch me not flowers), and big moments that brought us all together to build relationships.
We are very proud to say that all of our students have amazing Owl eyes (excellent vision) and identified plants and creatures that our teachers even missed. Our students were so eager to share their findings with their fellow peers and were constantly asking “I wonder” questions, which as educators we love as we want to keep those inquisitive minds pondering. We worked on mapping, tracking and our karate moves when we walked through unknown spider webs.
A lot of our students were new to this forested area, which made for lots of hiking and exploration. We were really looking to the ground for what Mother Nature had to offer and we were not disappointed. Some of the finding our student made were: Monarch Butterflies, Yellow Bears (Caterpillars), Huge Dragonflies, Inch worms, Tree Frogs, Fire Ants, Mushrooms, Ferns, Trees, oh and did we mention Millipedes? These friendly little fellas were abundant today showing us their legs, body and how they protect themselves. Our students were even lucky enough to have some firsts and felt what it was like to hold one. As one student said “it feels very ticklish and feels super cool”.
We want to thank you to all the students for coming into the Forest with us and exploring, wandering, playing and sharing their stories, we are very lucky to have spent our day with such awesome students.
Come back each week to see what we have been up to!
Everything, absolutely everything, tastes better cooked over a fire. Period. End of sentence.
Over the past couple weeks we have put our groups’ culinary skills to work and created some delicious masterpieces.
In the outdoor world, learning to cook over a flame is a key skill to know when venturing into the wilderness. Moreover, it helps develop many important and highly transferable skills. It’s a creative outlet that practices reading and basic math (measuring). It’s following a plan and seeing a project through. It helps develop patience, improvisation and risk management (knives, fire). It gives an appreciation for real food and a sense of pride in one’s work. It’s also a needed life skill and helps build relationships with others. And most of all, it’s fun!
Most of our meals were made directly on a fire over the past couple weeks, but some were cooked over a camp stove (new skill!) and others were even cooked on a homemade stove made of tin cans. Here’s what our folks came up with:
Mac and Cheese
Boil water on a camp stove, and then add pasta, let it cook then add the rest! Simple and delicious.
4 cups of water
Salt
2 cups pasta
3-4 Tablespoons of margarine
1 cup of diced cheese
4 tbsp of powdered milk (or in our case powdered Mac and Cheese)
Soup (“Mac and Everything but Cheese Soup”)
Boil water over fire, chop and add harder veggies first, bouillon, then macaroni. Carve a spoon and stir. Voila!
Half pot of water
2 cups pasta
Veggies – any you want (we used carrots, potatoes, onion)
1 can of Chickpeas
Veggie Bouillon cubes (3-4)
Soup (“Onion and Bean – Don’t forget the bouillon!”)
Cooked on a homemade tin can stove! Boil water and add everything – stir)
Half pot of water
2 cups pasta
3 onions
Green Beans
Veggie Bouillon cubes (Don’t forget em like we did!)
Cheddar & chive scones
Mix flour and butter until it resembles bread crumbs. Add salt and milk, and mix into dough. Fold in chives and cheddar and place in greased cast iron pot, then cover with coals in the fire.
3 cups flour
1 cup buttermilk
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup chives
1/2 cup cheddar
1/4 cup butter
Apple CrisP
Slice and fry apples in a bit of butter. Add everything else and cook until soft!
½ cup oats
6 tbsp flour
3 tbsp brown sugar and ¼ cup sugar
Some cinnamon
2 tbsp butter
Mac apples
Aside from our core routines, our days varied a lot this week (as they typically do) so check out the highlights below!
Tuesday
On Tuesday we embraced a beautiful day and celebrated a special birthday. After our morning circle, check-ins and sit spots, we were off for a lunch out to the wonderful Mysterious Forest. We learned a new game about fur trading that let our students jump into the roles of Europeans and Indigenous Peoples around the time of contact. We did this to build off prior knowledge and while the game was incredibly fun, the more important part was the thoughtful and inspiring debrief with our students. (Behind the scenes this is part of our Core Teaching – Heritage Species: Wisdom of the Ancestors). And of course we had some time for climbing trees, and reading and making up poetry as well.
Wednesday
We started our Halloween with pumpkin carving and cooking the seeds over a fire… they turned out a little burnt, but tasty considering we had no oil! After our core routines and an impromptu Halloween Costume fashion show, we headed out on a wander. At a place called “Mushy Beach” (aptly named as we pulled sinking people out) we invented a new game: Crow’s Nest. It was all about sneaking, moving quietly and “channeling our inner weasel”, as a student put it. (Behind the the scenes, this targets our indicator of awareness of Quieting the Mind, and core routines related to Animal Form, Questioning and Tracking, and even Sit Spot.)
Later in the afternoon, we returned to the ruins of our dam from a month ago. This time it was reinforced with a spillway (pipe) to let out any overflow. It was awesome to watch ideas come to life and young minds work together to create something epic. And we got a first hand look at erosion and alluvial fans from the debris of the “river”. We also had some students make some cool clay creations.
Thursday
From tea on the fire (and a new tripod cooker built), to human knots, to snakes on the trail and our new fur trading game (see Tuesday for explanation) – the Thursday group was super busy!
One fun and creative moment that unfolded that we want to share with you occurred with our newly updated Mud Kitchen. It started in the morning with a couple students creating “recipes” for nature soups, drinks and salads and writing them down in their journals. Fast forward to Free Play in the afternoon and suddenly the whiteboard is out with “Nature Cafe” written across it. Before long, there are more cooks, servers and patrons of the restaurant and inevitably a currency system. And eventually pretty much the entire group is involved. It was magical! (Behind the scenes: this is a great example of symbolic and socio-dramatic play!)
Further, and what really made us as educators so proud, was that the “ingredients” for the recipes were specific plants that we have learned to identify over the last few years. And each recipe was pretty complex, requiring at least 8 different plants!
Friday
We started with tea over the fire again (catnip and cedar) and got ready for a wet and cool day! If the weather was an issue, the kids didn’t let on as they embraced the day. We headed out on an adventure that led us to Mysterious Forest. We played a huge game of Sardines where one person hides and the others hide alongside that person when they find them. Playing in such a big space that is so well treed gives us the sense of being lost or at least being away from others and alone. (Behind the scenes: this one of our pillars of risky play)
We made our way back, pretty wet and ready for a warm-up and lunch. After lunch we read a Nootka legend from the Pacific Northwest called Octopus and Raven. The students then created or interpreted their own legends in dramatic form. They were inspiring tales! (Behind the scenes: Storytelling is one of our fundamental Core Routines)
If you’ve read all this (thanks!), you can see we had a pretty fun week. Every group we have is so different and we are so thankful to have the space and freedom to follow the interests of our kids – it really makes for unique days. A big thanks to our student’s parents and guardians for knowing the value in this!
We are CAVING next week for our Painted Turtles, Snowy Owls and Blue Herons! Please dress to get wet and muddy.
Just a quick post this week but wanted to share some of the highlights from our adventures.
The majority of our older groups this week spent a significant time in Maple Forest, even having a few “lunch outs” on our drier days. In Maple Forest, we have a special spot we call “Grape Valley”. This has become a hub for our imaginative play, construction and exploration. Students built shelters, swung on vines, created complex “Hotel Management” systems using some of the shelters and sticks as currency, built fires, whittled wood and much more. We also made Bannock over the fire and learned about it’s history and cultural importance. There are so many wonderful stories that unfold when the students are given the time, space and maybe some prompting ideas to run with.
We developed a new game as a school this week that we like to call “Scout” or the “No name name game”. It’s a mix between capture the flag and camouflaging, and with the groups’ feedback we think we have come up with a great version. Ask your kids about it and they’ll probably have a lot of tactics and stories to share. As for us, there is always a method to our madness and this is so much more than a game. In this game, we jump into many of our core routines throughout – Animal Forms, Sit Spot, Expanding our Senses and Quieting the mind. And it’s fun – the joys of play-based learning.
Our younger folks had a fun time exploring this week and learning about new wild plants, playing in the sand and building epic structures, painting flags, creating obstacle courses with our loose parts and much more!
A big thanks to our Wednesday Group who were eager to help set up our Winter Prospector Tent!
What a hot and beautiful day we had! After our opening circle, we dove into (or rather quietly sat into) a sensory awareness activity that got us using all our senses. After some games and further core routines, we headed out for a lunch out a Grape Valley.
Students spent the day searching for critters in the water, building fairy communities, adding to their shelters and getting stuck in the mud! We headed out to be the first FNS group to explore the new trails in Maple Forest and found a lot of exciting things along the way. Edible trout lillies were everywhere and we took (sustainable) advantage as these delicious treats don’t last long! We meandered our way through the Forest, uncovering places we had never seen before. And before we knew it, it was time to head back. But one more treat on the way – a patch of Garlic Mustard! This is one tasty invasive!
Wednesday
Wednesday’s group was visited by a beautiful male Indigo Bunting during our opening circle. We took the time to just observe and see what he was doing, making note of appearance to identify later. After a sensory awareness activity, we were ready for the day!
After snack, the students took a lead role in our Tick Awareness by creating a student-led natural spray to help deter ticks from coming after us. And while we’ve never had a tick on our students at Forest School, we want to keep in that way and knowledge is power. After covering ourselves in it, we headed out to Grape Valley in Maple Forest for lunch.
While there, imaginations came alive, structures were built and the hunt for new creatures was on. We found some strange looking aquatic bugs we later identified as caddisfly larvae and big beetle known as a Meleo. We hiked all the new trails that have been developed which has opened up some awesome new areas to explore and then something really cool happened – the students self-organized to clean up garbage along it and ended up filling a whole bag. What group of environmental superheroes!
Throw in some delicious wild edibles – trout lily, leeks and garlic mustard – and a huge nesting site of bank swallows on Fossil Mountain, and we’ll call it a successful exploration!
Thursday
Thursday brought forth all sorts of emergent interests in our students. We started the day with some teambuilding by conquering the “chocolate river” by using “marshmallows” to cross it (ask your kids!). After our opening circle we spent some time on sensory awareness with our journals in a quiet place. This led us into our check-in and before we knew it, snack had arrived. After snack, we had a quick lesson on tick prevention and awareness before jumping into the role of Geese and learning firsthand some of the perils they face on their long journeys – not everyone survived! Some of our students were focused on birds throughout the whole day and we were able to identify new ones and wonder what they were up to. We even followed some circling vultures to see if we could find their target.
Another theme throughout the day was plants. We worked to together to get our gardens in place, plant the peas for our living tee-“pea” and students even took the initiative to build their own wild edible garden in their sit spots – complete with some of the plants we foraged: garlic mustard, wild strawberry, wild carrot (Queen Anne’s Lace), leeks and more.
And still we had some students dive into amphibians – frogs and toads to be exact. We found eggs and tadpoles and caught a whole bunch of different critters.
And still some other students were really into to building bug homes and making clay.
It’s awesome when we can all share one space, and follow our passions and interest together and apart!
Friday
We started off the day with a silent lava crossing teambuilding challenge and our students rocked it! After our opening circle and check-ins we spent some time building and playing in our sit spots. As it was a chillier day, some students took on the task of creating a fire with flint and steel and were successful!
Our next adventure began after lunch as we headed west to discover some new trails. Along the way, we caught some frogs and uncovered a mass area of toad eggs (now named Toad Egg Bay). Further along, we spotted a pile of bones that got us wondering what had happened.
As we started along the trails we focused our attention downwards and the many wild edibles that have sprung up. Students tried Garlic Mustard, sampled the ample trout lillies and uncovered big patches of leeks. And though not edible, we found that the trilliums are in bloom (so watched out step!) and even identified some Jack in the Pulpit sprouted up.
FYI: We’ve got an edible plant workshop with Naturalist Brian McLelland-Tuck coming up on Saturday June 2nd with a few spaces remaining. At Forest School, your children will be learning a lot about safe foraging and eating, and this workshop is geared towards parents and educators to help them get involved in this special learning. Email us asap if you’d like to register, we only have a handful of spots remaining ($20/person).
Worms and insects are out. Turtles and Frogs are sunbathing. Birds are singing and making nests. Spring is here and here’s the recap of our week, enjoy!
Tuesday
With emergent interests at the forefront, we were a little all over the place on Tuesday with an overarching theme of Spring – though it felt more like Summer! We began our day with some of our core routines and games, then jumped into plant ID. We set the stage – 8 mystery plants that need to be identified and limited time periods to peek at the master copy! Students did an excellent job of uncovering and naming various plants using just small pieces of them including clover, willow, dogwood and more.
Afterwards, we had to take advantage of the warm sun and headed out on an adventure, nets in hand just in case. We played around the big lake, dammed up our stream, climbed fossil mountain and found and caught an incredible amount of critters! Frogs, tadpoles, a blind fish, some green eggs and 2 Giant Water Bugs aka Lethocerus americanus. In addition, we found a kill site from what we guessed was last fall, and tried to unravel the mystery of what occurred.
In the afternoon, we got crafty and did some painting and made “seed” bombs. Seed bombs (clay, soil and seeds) are meant to be tossed anywhere and make flowers grow. Let us know how yours do! We finished up with a teambuilding initiative – choose the right path – and before we knew our day had flown by!
Wednesday
Similar to Tuesday, our Wednesday group was excited about searching for water creatures – and determined to find a Giant Water Bug. After a thrilling “Ring Toss” Tournament, we were on our way to the West side of the big pond in hopes of capturing some critters. We were able to snag some striders, a tadpole and frog pretty quickly, but as the rain began to roll in our hopes dwindled on catching a Giant Water Bug – until at nearly the last moment, a log was moved and we got one!
We decided to head back as the rain picked up, and along the way were treated to a nesting Morning Dove in a cedar. A big props to the student with the keen eyes! On our way to get dry however, the rain stopped (as was our day: rain, sun, rain, sun) so we stopped too to spend some quality time at our sit spots. It wasn’t long until students were drawn to a huge puddle – a bridge went up, frogs eggs were spotted and inevitably shoes came off to squish in the clay.
After lunch – and a quick thunderstorm that sent us inside for a bit – we dove into a teambuilding initiative (island hopping) and students did extremely well coming through with the fastest time to date!
After our story of the day (debrief) it was to say adieu for another week.
Thursday
The rain didn’t slow us down on Thursday as we lit ourselves a nice big fire to dry off and stay warm. In fact the wet weather actually inspired us to get building on our shelters in our it spots. And who can resist a giant puddle full of clay? And hundreds of striders – so much that our students shoveled out a section, built some walls and created a strider sanctuary. Some students even took on the initiative of building a tee-“pea”: a living garden structure designed to grow peas and provide shelter!
In the afternoon we ventured west with nets in hand. With the cold weather, we were sort of surprised to find a turtle out on shore, but happy nonetheless. And while we didn’t spot any giant water bugs, we did get up close and personal with a mama morning dove sitting on her nest in a cedar. As we ventured more, we uncovered tons of fossils, found that the bank swallows have returned to Fossil Mountain and followed some fresh deer tracks.
On days like this, we’re reminded that rain is a good thing as flowers are starting to bloom!
Friday
The morning clouds gave us a heads up – take advantage of the sun because we’d likely have rain later.
Our students set the stage today when they imagined a mini jungle life playing itself out in the grass – think “Honey I Shrunk the Kids”. Therefore after doing some core routines (smudge, animal forms, quiet time) we headed out to our Sit Spots to play, build and get up close a personal with bugs. Specifically we built a bug hotel! Complete with pine cone rooms, sumac rooms, bark rooms, and mud rooms. Holes were drilled in locks, mini hammocks were made and even a pool was put in for the striders. It turned into more of a 5-star bug resort, and students eagerly sought out bugs to add to it. Worms, Potato Bugs, Striders, Centipedes and even a Wooly Bear caterpillar (named Crawly) all checked in. With lunch looming, we headed back, just in time for the torrential downpour.
The sun made it’s return shortly after, and we continued with our bug theme shifting our focus to bees. After some students made some beeswax chap stick to take home, we chatted about threats to the bee population and the ramifications it could have. We explored pesticide use, habitat loss and other critical issues. And then we dove into the roles of bees in a macro-model we call “Bee-Safe” where bees must retrieve pollen without getting tagged by some of the “threats”.
After a final barefoot walk through the gigantic puddle, we called it a day. Happy May the 4th Star Wars fans!
