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A Forest Thanksgiving

On Tuesday morning, hearing we were going to head into the woods to build a shelter made the children screech with excitement! After playing a game of Blind Ninja, we headed up to camp to make a fire and eat a snack. Afterwards we headed into the woods to find a space to build a shelter—with one major challenge, to enter the woods blindfolded!

The children lined up with adults in front, behind, and on the side of them to help guide them safely. On our way we nearly bumped into a doe feasting in the forest. The children took off their blindfolds to observe the deer, only to realize it was the exact location where they wanted to build their debris shelter!

On the Trail of Deer

We started our week with tracking, tracking, and more tracking! The children have shown a strong interest in tracking animals this year, especially deer, as they are abundant and come close to us frequently. Many days, the children have had the opportunity to sneak up close on a deer munching on plants. Today we decided to track any animals we could find evidence of, and surely, deer showed to be the most interesting animal to follow!

Tending Little FireS

Our morning circle in Little Field was surrounded by new things to notice with our senses, from bird calls to new blossoms on shrubs that had survived the frost, to the sound of the creek slightly softer than last week. We sang our Good Morning Song to it all, moved our bodies around on the wet grass like so many animals (cat/salamander/snake/frog), whispered our gratitude into our hands and flung it into the sky, and played two raucous rounds of Fire in the Forest—both led by students—before heading to camp for snack time.

A Week in Spring with THE Woolly Bears

With the early flowers blooming, the bees buzzing, and the return of the sunshine, we had a fantastic week of learning and exploring! We started the week off on Tuesday with learning about the life cycle of a frog. Each child created their own life cycle with a cut and paste exercise, followed by a wander in the swamp to find the frog’s life cycle in real time. We found a cluster of eggs while we explored!

Roly Polys on stage!

Today the Roly Polys Forest K group joined up with the Woolly Bears! Our morning circle in Little Field felt HUGE, everyone was so full of energy, we sang a resonating Good Morning Song, we shared things we were grateful for and a movement to go along with it that everyone could do together, and we played a stellar game of Blob Tag!

Thanks, Trees!

It seems like all the teachers arrived today expecting the same warm weather and were equally surprised to feel strong gusts of pretty chilly wind insisting that, no no no, it’s not quite spring yet, friends. So we made sure that, after marching over to Elky Elm, we had a short and sweet morning circle with just enough introduction to what the day had in store to get the imagination moving, and the rest spent actually moving and singing to keep the blood flowing, before making our quick way up to camp where the wind was a little less biting, and where we could get a fire going and have the space to run around with as much wildness as we could muster for warm bones.

Fire Challenge!

The end of the fall semester is almost here, and we’re feeling that bittersweet sensation of the joyous momentum winding down. Watching all the students arrive and connect so quickly now that they’ve had so many weeks to adjust to the arrival transition brings warmth to our hearts.

Our morning circle in Little Field had us listening for the distant call of a hawk, connecting our bodies, minds and hearts to place with our Good Morning Song, with expressions of gratitude accompanied by movements, some funny imitations of owls glaring from trees and bears sleeping in dens and otters sliding through snow, and a game of “What Time Is It, Mr. Fox?”

Crafting at the Cobble

Our journeys in the forest continue to grow and build week after week. Today, we were introduced to two tree allies: white pine, which has higher contents of vitamin C than oranges and eastern hemlock, good for coughs and colds. We noticed all the differences between the needles, the stems and bark, to prepare ourselves for harvesting more at camp to make tea.

We also gathered willow and bittersweet to make charcoal pencils. The children used their nails or sharp stones to scrape all the bark off and place them in tins with a small air hole in it. The tins are then placed in a fire to char. The lack of oxygen prevents the wood from combusting, or going up in flames, and creates deep and dense charcoal to draw with. The pencils were used to draw their favorite part of the day on paper to close our day.

Gratitude for Fire and Trees

This week summer stopped by to say hello for a bit. We were gifted with warm days that inspired barefoot adventures and lots of smiles. On Tuesday, we did some tending of our campsite and cut down one of the large turingo crab trees. Before we cut it, we gave our gratitude to the tree for all of the climbing it has provided, and for being okay with being cut down to create space for the Chestnut tree that we planted in its place! We all worked together to move the cut wood and add it to our firewood pile.

The mystery of trees

We lucked out with the weather and had gorgeous warm and blustery weather all day. Leaves and needles fell from the trees as roamed and played through the forest.

We circled up and sang our morning song…”Good morning dear Earth, good morning dear sun…” all together. Red Oak had a tricky rhyme and riddle today for us. The focus of the day was trees (and that was the answer to the riddle of course) so we all looked at some leaves collected near one of our favorite forest spots, Grandmother Maple.