A Wilderness School & Community
Have you ever serenaded a worm? Neither had we until we joined a children’s worm rock band! After this week with the Woolly Bears, we will truly never look at a worm the same way.
Unlike European earthworms, which are also an introduced species (nearly all worms are non-native to North America!), these jumping worms are bigger, wrigglier, have an iridescent sheen but most notably, they often pop off part of their body when picked up!
Continue reading “wonderful Worms”
What wonder and joy to be with the children in the forest on these warm, summer-like days this week! Everyone has taken on our routines with grace and ease and friendships are already being created.
We started our week by taking it very slow, introducing the many steps and transitions we have throughout the day. They feel strange and new at first to our newest friends, but by the end of the week we already saw how everyone was able to remember taking care of themselves and their things.
Every morning after circle, we open our door to the forest with a golden key. Each child gets a turn to do so and announces respectfully, from our hearts, that we are there, ready to play!
Continue reading “Learning the Ways of the Forest”
In the morning, our FOREST groups fanned out to collect plants for a delicious cool drink to create for parents’ visits later in the day. We used Lilac flowers, Mint, and Ground Ivy from the land, then sliced lemons and filled the jugs to “sun brew” over the course of the day. We also added maple syrup that we had boiled down at the start of the semester, when only the first hints of Spring were upon the land.
Continue reading “Turning Lemons, Lilacs, and Ivy into lemonade”
We are officially done with the Spring FOREST Semester! Wow, it went fast! It was not too long ago that we were boiling down maple syrup and still feeling the nip of frost in the air, yet today we were sipping on Lilac Lemonade.
The Spring semester has been full of great experiences, great camp crafts, lots of naturalist discoveries, and our epic campout! This group has been full of energy and wonder.
Continue reading “Gratitude At Semester’s END”Hello Cottonwood 1 families!
As the summer solstice comes around this Sunday, our campers are having fun preparing for the longest day of the year! Through songs, demonstrations, and lots of play and crafting, the groups have been learning about the element of fire as well as the four cardinal directions and why it is that we have seasons where we live! Our campwide circles have been filled with exciting fire skills, such as hand drills and torches. The campers are also playing bird trivia every day—we read a riddle that describes a bird’s behavior or habitat and the answer is revealed the next day!
The Cicadas have been working on torches made out of pine cones and resin and have come up with a very fun dance to one of our most popular songs! The Red Pines made their very own flint and steel strikers and are working on building swings at their campsite. The Herons also made torches and learned that making fire under time pressure is challenging and exciting! The Katydids have been exploring melting beeswax and shaping it around nature items, and enjoying wild mint tea. All the groups will be working on other ways to contain fire as well as how to make floating devices to let fire burn on water for a celebration later in the week!
We look forward to seeing everyone out in the forest on Friday!
Join us in the field for a tour of the Katydid campsite and to learn more about the activities and adventures your campers have experienced during the week! (Pickup is at 3:00 pm as usual.) Adults are required to wear masks at this event.
Families will be greeted at the kiosk in the large field to learn more about Flying Deer and the initiatives we’ve undertaken over the past year and be guided to Basecamp, where you will meet your child’s instructors, tour the Cottonwood campsite, and find out more about what your campers have experienced during the week!
We started our Forest K day at the Cobble in the field hopping around like frogs, creeping around like snakes and inch worms and avoiding being eaten by bats (Bats and Moths Game).
We enjoyed the morning sunshine doing snack and blew dandelion seeds in the wind. We couldn’t be more comfortable at our forest site! The leaves have all filled in on the sugar maples and our site is comfy and shady.
Continue reading “Snakes and Worms and Bats and things”
This semester we have seen so many sweet friendships bud, bloom and bring confidence, a sense of belonging and true happiness to so many of your children. Learning how to communicate with peers, how to navigate conflict, speak up, initiate play, integrate into a group or find our voice within the circle are no small things.
Continue reading “Friends”
Today we spent time tending the land, with a Wild West twist! Sheriff Wood (that’s Josh) handed out wanted posters for a few outlaws (invasive plants, to be precise). Barbara Berry and Colonel Garlic Mustard were wanted dead or alive—but preferably dead.
Continue reading “WANTED: INVASIVE PLANTS”
The Forest Kindergarteners started off their week with a ramp rescue mission! We transplanted ramps, also known as wild leeks, moving them from a nearby area that is undergoing logging to a safe new home. With care and tenderness, the children tucked the plants into their new home, gingerly handling their bunny ear leaves and lovingly watering their roots. Not far away we found false hellebore, a look-alike of ramps and explored ways to ID plants. We hope that ramps can be a gateway plant to forming a deep love of all plants—edible, delicious and all those in between!
Continue reading “Celebrating the wild Leek”
This week we celebrated Leek Fest! What a plant this is! Its delicious flavors of garlic and onions and its abundant display each Spring make this one of our favorites.
In Wild Ways, students chopped up some freshly harvested leeks (also known as ramps) to add to mason jars full of whipping cream for some competitive butter churning! In the Great Butter Battle, two teams competed to see which could produce leek butter the fastest. Each team circled up and passed the jar of cream and leeks, shaking it with every ounce of their being until delicious butter was made!
Continue reading “LEEK FEST!”