Happy fire day! Fire tenders and fire keepers are growing strong in our forest. The children practiced many fire-making skills this week.
Each child made their own flint and steel striker set to practice with throughout the semester. On Wednesday, we did a group fire challenge: Burn the rope above the fire and reveal the treat in the pot hanging from the tree.
Our counselors were blindfolded and the instructors couldn’t speak. We had to work together to create a tipi structure to light. We gathered “whispies” (the smallest sticks), pencil-sized sticks, and thumb-sized sticks, layered them properly, and in 15 minutes we succeeded! In the pot was chaga, a mushroom that makes a very medicinal and delicious tea. We enjoyed ours with a little bit of honey.
On Thursday, everyone tried lighting their own mini fires using the tinder we gathered last week. Each Woolly Bear learned to carefully fluff up cattail and milkweed, break up jute rope and peel off the layers of birch bark, laying each one in the order on top of each other. Everyone was successful and delighted!
Our mornings this week consisted of watching a fire being made from friction on a bow drill set, learning a sweet song about grasshoppers, and our famous Woolly Bear races! Our favorite game of the week was Firekeeper, in which players use their fox feet to sneak up on a blindfolded firekeeper who is guarding sticks. If the firekeeper hears you and points to you, you have to go back to the start and try again.
Whether being guided in a nature meditation while lying on the green grass, looking for spiders amongst the cattails, helping the fairies clean up their houses after a storm, or learning to balance on a slackline, we have been having fun and growing in friendship.
—Julie and JJ
October 23, 2020