Another pretty awesome week we had, starting off with a pretty epic mud kitchen, some hard core obstacle course construction and our imagination even helped us become local farmers.
With all the rain this morning, our students were lucky and discovered 3 rainbows. We pondered about rainbows and why they appear after a rain storm. We all came to the conclusion it was a beautiful sight to see after the dark clouds moved past. This also allowed us to find all the Green Trees (Pine, Spruce, Cedar and Hemlock), which hold magical properties and special medicine. Mother Nature is pretty fascinating!
Our Chickadees ventured to a new part of the forest this week and discovered the Mysterious Forest which led into time spent alone, group play, magical powers of the world, new paths, train stations along with courage, patience and awareness of one self and the natural environment. Ending our day with an amazing puddle discovery full of splashing, jumping, running and laughing.
What an incredibly creative day we had! We were very curious students today and started looking at different types of creature and plants such as :
Red Spotted Purple (Butterfly)
Emerald Ash Borer
Wooly Bear American Dagger
Northern Oriole
We also love rain days because it gives our students the opportunity to dive into their imagination and creative side. We were big builders and inventors – from the tallest tower, pumpkin stoves, painting pictures and 3D replicas.
From carving pumpkins to eating toasted seeds, we even continue to get to know our forest. Finding new mushrooms, Downy Woodpeckers, Salamanders and new plants. We started to focus on the Green trees today, and used our owl eyes to find Spruce, Pine, Hemlock and Cedar. Some were easier finds than others, and we are still on the hunt for the Pine tree!
Imagine being a baby squirrel and accidentally falling out of your drey (tree squirrel nest). Now imagine being an eagle flying over the forest and with your keen eye, you see an unprotected meal right for the taking? Our students looked at this scenario from both perspectives today and while some thought playing the squirrel was stressful others realized playing the predator was also tricky, and not as easy as some might think.
As much as we love the rain, we were lucky enough to see some sun finally! Some students revisited our colour walk from last week and talked about the magic of change and the gifts Mother Nature provide us with. We found some pretty magical leaves and recreated them on our magical flags and wands. We also revisited our “nests” again to see if their nature offering were taken. We worked as a team this afternoon and collected an enormous amount of acorns, and we mean enormous – our educated guess was roughly around 600 total, who knew this nut was so popular!
Our older students ventured into the forest today and discovered a family of salamanders, forest wands, building bio-domes, and even had some time time to start working on their carving skills. What an incredibly busy day that flew by! Until next week friends.
We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and we were excited to hear all about your child’s long weekend stories! Our question of the day was: What have you noticed in our environment? And we love hearing the answers because they always vary so much. Ranging from the colours of the leaves, no birds or sun in the sky, that it feels colder, or that they didn’t see any animals running around. This led into a great day full of imagination and role play.
We used our childlike wonders and jumped right into the role of animals that either hibernate or collect and store their food for the winter, but still stay active. Our day consisted of scavenging, predator and prey, den building and story telling through games and child-led activities. As per usual while on our journey we decided to take a “Colour Walk” which was to discover all the many colours Fall has to offer us and nature provided in abundance.
We also found 3 Red Backed Salamanders, discovered new land and invented a new breed of mammal – Egglets. Please ask your child about them, or even better ask them to show you!
This week our chickadees jumped right into action playing games, digging for treasures and discovering a hidden gem just outside our classroom – a chestnut tree! This brought so much interest from why does the seed pod have spikes?, What’s inside?, What animals eat this and how do we open it up? This gave our students the opportunity crack open their findings and take their seed home to plant their very own chestnut tree! We even gave our little chipmunks the chance to act out their animal and scurry to find all the hidden chestnuts and bring them back to their den before the Prey (Fox and Honey Badger) could catch them! Well done everyone.
Our afternoon was filled with so much imagination which was surrounded by finding the wild wolf that was let loose in Bygone Days along with fort building, tree identification, bracelets and necklaces, fire bundles, mud construction and a very popular Wooly Bear Hotel. Everyone was so thoughtful making sure these caterpillars were safe, had lots of food, bedding, shelter and even a tanning room.
Due to Thanksgiving falling on a Monday this year, everyone at Forest School wishes all our students and families and very happy and safe Thanksgiving! We will see you all in two weeks!
Happy Spring Everyone, and welcome back (or for the first time!) to Forest and Nature School. We had a great week at Bygone Days exploring our property and reaping some of nature’s sweet benefits!
All week long our main focus was Maple Syrup leaving students with first-hand experience and a better understanding of the science behind this Canadian staple, the parts of the process and set-up and some students now even know how to identify Maple Trees that are good for tapping by their leaves (round edges). And while our goal was to explore the Sugar Shack area, emergent interests took us in all sorts of directions!
After initial free-play and our core routines (smudge and check-ins), groups headed out on their adventure to Maple Forest. All sort of routes were taken and sidetracks made and new things discovered. Throughout the week students discovered along the way the hollow sound of pebbles skipping on ice, 4 different sets of tracks within ten steps, fish from the pond, butterfly sanctuaries (milkweed), our nature playground and much more.
And as student-led learning often goes, we also saw:
Sagas unfold as students tried to tackle Fossil Mountain;
Pulley systems set up to bring up rocks;
Hotels open in the big forest trees;
Games of camouflage and “person”hunt;
Whole systems of trade and barter;
Epic Spring snow slides;
The rediscovery of our last remaining snow cave from the Winter Session;
Millions of years old fossils;
And so much more!
To top it all off, groups were treated to a Maple Syrup treat over the fire to end the day and compare the sweetness of the syrup to that of the sap. Some groups had pancakes, some “scramcakes” (scrambled pancakes) and others Maple Toffee on snow.
Next Week:
A reminder that there is NO SCHOOL ON FRIDAY, enjoy the Holiday!
For everyone else, we are diving into outdoor skills. For our full schedule, clickhere.
This week at Forest School our main goal was to learn a little bit more about plants. After our morning core routines we jumped into the role of plants in a macro-model to learn about cycles and needs of a plant. We then became explorers tasked with the mission of the uncovering a new plant, naming it and then learning all about it. After making a journal (T-Th), they were off. Collectively, we learned about mushrooms, flowers, trees and shrubs, the history of these plants and any uses they may have.
Friday our focus shifted to trees, where we collected samples in a jar, identified and labelled them. We then “adopted” a tree in our sit-spots – a tree we’ll take care, watch as it changes over time and learn as much as we can about. We spent time as “bees” as well in a macro-model about pollen and pesticide.
As it does, our unstructured time took many different shapes. Imaginations came alive using our “loose parts”, where anything from a relay race to an intergalactic space war and store happened. Students also had the option to make natural hammers from spruce or willow trees. They sawed and carved them out as we begin to hone this skill. We even had bunnies on Thursday (thanks to our students who brought them in!).
We had many fires over the week, with an average of 2 a day to keep warm as the temps being to drop. Which meant we gave out a bunch of fire beads and had a few treats! Some groups harvested and had rose-hip tea, others made some popcorn over the fire.
Next Week:
We are stoked to be doing Archery next week!! It’s also “Show and Tell” if your child would like to bring anything in to share with the class.
As the temperature is cooling down please remember to pack extra layers for your children, including mitts and hats. You can leave a set at the school if you would like. Warm, waterproof footwear is also essential and a back up pair can’t hurt if you have them! Thanks.
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!
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!
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.