Tír na nÓg Forest School

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Last week was full of fun! We continued to work on our math and literacy centres inside and at basecamp! Friends were very interested in sight word snakes and ladders as well as our journaling activity on what do you love about winter? We worked on our teamwork and our searching skills with a nature scavenger hunt at basecamp. We had a hard time finding a bird so we decided to put out some bird feed. We quickly noticed lots of birds flying nearby! We continued to pract...ice for our holiday concert. Everyone is doing so well with remembering the lyrics! We ended the week with a fire and some hot chocolate! This week during French class, we seized the opportunity to do some review of what we’ve learned thus far! We practiced our counting, days of the week, colour words- by guessing what colours our friends hats & mittains were! We then took the rest of the class to take a break and did a bit of French yoga! We enjoyed doing the chat pose, the bebe pose and the bateau pose! Ask your Forest friends if they can show you each one! Looking forward to another wonderful week in the woods! ~Miss Riley and Miss Laura

This week went by in a flash! With Wednesday as a holiday, our week didn’t have the same flow as it usual. I was so happy to hear that many friends had a minute of silence on the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month. The group was extremely receptive and empathic when discussing the meaning and reasons behind Remembrance Day. We practiced those tricky homophone words such as to, too, and two and their, they’re and there! We have having a lot of fun playing with... language and coming up with our own punny jokes. One of my favourites was: Whats a ghosts favourite dessert? Whip Scream! Friends have been loving dancing, singing, and reading lyrics at basecamp. It is one of our favourite ways to spend our afternoons! We practices our skills with following and identifying beat and rhythms of songs. Music has become a large part of our day as we are also working hard on the Christmas play! The warmer weather is allowing us to continue to build and create at basecamp with ease. Two students experimented with cranks and pulleys in attempt to create a working elevator. For French, our friends focused on review of concepts. Many friends have been exploring feminine and masculine words. We have been enjoying 'useful phrases' such as how to go to the bathroom and how to ask the translation of a word in French. See more

Week 10 was a short but fun week! We practiced our Remembrance day poem Poppy Poppy and created our own artwork to go with the poem. Our friends have been working hard on their writing and journals. We have made a lot of progress in our writing and are starting to use some more descriptive words! We have been working on patterns and place value. All of our friends can easily identify what comes next in a pattern! We have been working really hard on learning all of our ...songs for the holiday concert over the last few weeks. After our afternoon French message, we explored a worksheet together about the weather and learned some new weather-related words. A few friends were invited back to complete a sheet about animals- selecting the right French word to complete the blanks under the pictures. . All friends are doing such a fantastic job at remembering words, greetings, our routines and I often hear comment ca va? in the forest- asking one another how they are doing today! Does your Forest Schooler remember how to respond to that question in French? We ended our week with a hike to Sasquatch Run one of our new favourite places to hike to, where our friends loved to run around the 1k track! Keep Smiling, Miss Kenzie & Miss Laura

In week 9 and 10, we have had a combination of both inside and outside snacks, lunches and peaceful times. We are entering the portion of the year where it isn’t always comfortable to take our mittens off to eat outside, so we take it day by day and adjust our routines as needed. Our Forest School Experts who are in their second year of school were excited to see the inside of the class room again, while the children in their first year are seeing the class for the first t...ime. Our two favorite places to adventure in the last two weeks have been Bog Mountain and the Rocky Place. When we hike our way to Bog Mountain, the children like to stop and collect sticks and spruce cones. They also really enjoy the squishy most that is soft under their boots. When we go to the Rocky Place, there is a big difference in the footing- as you likely guessed, the rocky place is full of giant rocky outcrops and resilient cedar trees that are able to grow with very shallow root systems. Along the way we have been continuing to find beautiful Tamarack trees with their golden needles. The children have discovered that the needles will fall off if you give the tree a little shake. They call it a ‘needle storm’. Our classes have continued to love playing ‘Forest School’ together. They roll play different teachers, parents and friends and all of the fun they have while they are at Forest School including peaceful time, fires, meal times and playing in the mud kitchen. Ask your Forest Schooler if they know what month their birthday is in. We have been working on a song that we call ‘The 12 Months of the Year’, and the children put their hand on their head when we say their birthday month. Most of the children can sing you the song if you ask them! We hope you have a wonderful weekend of adventure and look forward to adventuring together again next week! -Miss Je ss

Week five was another great week of adventures! we are spending more time exploring some of our long time favourite places Dragon Train and Dry Brook. These two places have been favourites year after year! One of our new fascinations is with tree climbing! While at Forest School, we encourage safe tree climbing. A child needs to ask a teacher before they climb and needs to keep 3 points of contact with the tree at all times (two feet and a hand or two hands a...nd a foot.) Our other safety rule is ‘if you can get up, you can get down’ - meaning that if you can safely get up with your own strength and ability then we know you are able to safely get back down. ‘Miss Jess can I climb?’ was heard hundreds of times this week and there were many huge smiles as children made their way up and down the trees! We have also been talking about the weather! Each day we sing our weather song that is to the tune of London Bridge and goes like this: What’s the weather like today, Like today, Like today? What’s the weather like today? It is _______! They often choose rainy , sunny or cloudy , but also discussed what partly cloudy meant this week. Ask your Forest Schooler if they can remember what it is. Over the last few weeks, we have been collecting fallen leaves and adding them to our fancy leaf press (layers of paper towel with heavy books on top). Now that some of them are dried, we created laminated leaf identification pages that are easy to use for the children. The pages are wonderful for playing a giant matching game everywhere we go- finding leaves and figuring out what type of tree they came off of! It is a great way for children to get familiar with the trees in their environment and also using problem solving skills to match things up! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend of adventures and look forward to all the exploring and learning to come next week! -Miss Jess

Our second week of Forest School was full of new adventures! We started to explore some of the trails that are near our basecamp. The Alphabet trail is one of our all time favourites and we always take time to stop at Dry Brook and the Rocky Spot to play. We also found some snacks along the trail- ask your Forest Schooler if they can remember what they were! On Monday, Miss Jess and her friends worked really hard to bring pallets up to the forest to construct a wonderfu...l fort! The children took turns using the drill to put screws in to make sure everything was secure. When it was ready to play in, it became a house, a boat and a rocket ship - the possibilities are endless! Our Tuesday group has started to create some very elaborate treasure maps that will lead you to all sorts of interesting treasures! We are looking forward to seeing what else the treasure maps and fort will become in the weeks to come! -Miss Jess See more

We sure know how to make the most out of our drop off and pick up time spent at the picnic table! Some of us passed the time this week with colour by numbers, recreating pictures, and of course hide and seek! We adventured to the apple orchard on our first day together as a new group of friends! We snacked on some apples to fuel us for the hike back, then saved some to paint with later on! There is a shape in the middle on an apple, ask your preschooler if they remember wh...at shape! Most of our time this week was focused on building friendships, and exploring new play areas! We shared many giggles on the teeter totter, learning about balance and weight (heavier/lighter) while going up and down! We took turns and cheered each other on when we finally got ourselves up on the fun orange buoy swing! We can’t get through a week without hiking to Dragon Train and Dry Brook! The climbing is just too fun at Dragon Train and at Dry Brook we had campfires, and rolled and slid down hills. Week five brought some changes but we can’t wait for more friendships, more adventures and more FUN! Keep smiling , ~Ms.Jesse and Ms.Kaylee

Last week was a short week but an action packed week full of fun and exploration! We continued our journey learning about Remembrance Day. We practiced the poem Poppy Poppy and we made our own field of poppies using construction paper, glue, scissors, and pencil crayons. We reviewed letters A-M last week. We practiced printing each letter, making their letter sound, and doing the jolly phonics actions associated with each letter! We continued to practice rhyming words la...st week. We have lots of fun coming up with silly words and phrases that rhyme! We also reviewed our vowels. We remembered that A,E,I,O,U are vowels and we practiced searching for the vowels in our morning message. We have been working so hard on our journal entries! I am so impressed with the progress our students are making with their writing! We did some math workshops last week. We mainly focused on ordering numbers, representing numbers, and picking out the larger and smaller numbers based on groupings of objects. We finished off the week with a fire and some homemade popcorn! We had fun using scrap wood as canvases as we created art while enjoying the fire. During our French class we reviewed our colours and also our story Tika Tika Boom Boom! Students are loving this introduction to a new language, and are starting to eagerly ask when our next French class will be! Looking forward to another wonderful week in the forest! ~Miss Riley & Miss Laura

Week two how quickly you flew! Its hard to believe we have spent two weeks in forest school together already, and what a wonderful two weeks its been! During week two we spent time really getting to know each other. Friendships that began last week, really started to solidify this week, and we also started branching out and choosing new friends to play and bond with. It is beautiful to see such unique personalities coming together, finding common interests, and le...Continue reading

What a busy and creative week! We had a spook-tacular time painting our Halloween cats and continuing to write more on our spooky stories! Highlights from our week included having a Kelly Kettle fire with hot chocolate, digging clay out of the brook, buddy reading, and building a fort structure with different levels by utilizing the knots we learned last week! During journal time this week, we took the opportunity to chat and write about things we are thankful for- our ...friends came up with such amazing responses! We all concluded that we have so much to be thankful for! We explored a beautiful poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson this week titled Give Thanks, which our friends added to their poem collection. Friday morning was so magical- after completing a leaf art project, we turned the tunes on and ventured to dry brook where we spent the morning chatting, listening to all kinds of different music, and coming up with imaginative games! Thanks for a silly, creative, fun-filled week, elementary turkeys ! We hope all Forest School families enjoyed their Thanksgiving weekend ~ Miss Laura & Miss Kristy

The group had another wonderful week in the forest.There were many great base camp additions and upgrades with new bridges, another picnic table, and work done to the stream. Not only have some friends been working with shovels to clean sticks out of the steam, others have been creating fairly islands. These islands are great additions to Fairy Land and the rest of the Enchanted Trail! Our friends have been enjoying buddy reading and have been exploring how the human body... is different than plants. This has led to great discussion about cells and what it means to be living! The group will continue to explore this topic! During our second week of French classes, we were able to set to work on key words and in groups to review content for some, and exploring new content for others. We also learned our new call back which we are excited about- Classe, classe? Oui, oui!. The week ended with a rainy Friday that made for great puddle jumping! We can certainly feel fall in the air and are loving the opportunities it brings! ~ Miss Kristy and Miss Laura

We had a very creative week last week! Lots of time was spent creating with art materials. While exploring shapes and working on our fine motor skills, we created our own paper jack-o-lanterns. I love how each pumpkin looks so unique! We also learned about the 3 primary colours and experimented with colour mixing and mark making with paints! We had fun digging clay from the brook last week and many friends created bowls and mucky soups with the clay. Last week was not on...ly creative, but also very active! We went on a few adventures last week; we hiked The Enchanted Trail, The Alphabet Trail, and had an adventure to Dry Brook and Dragon Train. Students are loving our beautiful forest and I’m already noticing everyone’s strength and stamina becoming a little stronger! Last week we also continued our journey with learning about syllables! I am noticing much more confidence in student ability to clap out the syllables in words and names on their own. We were introduced to some sight words last week as well. Friends are becoming stronger with their jolly phonics and sound blending abilities! We are well on our way to high frequency word recognition! Looking forward to another amazing week in the forest! ~Miss Riley

Last week was full of adventure! We spent time enjoying the Alphabet Trail, as well as the trail to Long Lake! We continued to practice our routines and spent time working at different learning centers. We also made our second entry in our weekly calendar journal. Some friends spent time searching in the sand for dinosaur bones, while others created sand castles and villages. Many fairy homes were built last week using moss and decomposing logs and some friends noticed new ...fairy mushrooms growing in the forest. Friends are doing an excellent job working, playing, and compromising together. Looking forward to another excellent week in the forest! This week during our time in French class together, we explored colours and continued to practice our Bonjour song! Our friends are doing a great job at spotting our feathered ami Mr. Hibou in the forest. Next week, our plan is to explore the days of the week! ~Miss Riley & Miss Laura

Our School will be holding our very first Scholastic Online Virtual Book Fair from November 30th - December 4th! All orders over $35 ship for free anywhere in Canada. Wednesday, December 2nd is Family night and shipping is free from 6pm - 8pm AST on all orders placed! Please feel free to share this with friends and family. It's an easy way to give the gift of reading this Christmas! All purchases help provide new books for our school. https://bookfairs-canada.myshopify.com/pages/5153117

Last week was full of wet and muddy adventures! Our friends loved playing in the stream that runs through our basecamp working hard to build a bridge and a waterfall. On Orange Shirt Day we learned about Phyllis Webstad and read the story When We Were Alone by David Robertson. We discussed Orange Shirt day and why it’s important. We continued to work on our shapes this week and had lots of fun creating shapes out of sticks we collected around our basecamp. We made a few... journal entries and some of us even started to create our own story books! Our friends enjoyed playing Alphabet Bingo and working on new sounds and sight words. In french our letter adventure continued this week- we had fun completing the alphabet sounds and repeating the first half as well! We also started looking at little booklets, and decorating them- "Hibou, Hibou, qu'est ce que tu vois ?" we began exploring the characters in the book- can't wait to explore them further next French class! Keep smiling, Miss Kenzie & Miss Laura

Week two, we really loved you! At basecamp were continuing to explore and gather a better understanding of our surroundings in our outdoor classroom. We love spending time swinging in our hammocks, building with our blocks, making some delicious mud meals and of course climbing and jumping our many stumps! We learned about animals of North America, and that thats where we live! We read about the different habitats for different animals, what they eat and talked about... what Nocturnal means - owls are nocturnal, they sleep all day and stay up all night - thats why its tricky to ever see one! Some of us were feeling adventurous and wanted to revisit some favourite places in the forest like Dry Brook, and Dragon Train! We also wanted to show our new friends the Forest School favourites! We hiked along the Alphabet trail finding letters along the way - discussing letter sounds, and what words start with each letter! We were lucky to come across some big blackberry bushes and picked ourselves a little snack to fuel us for the remainder of our hike! We talked about all the senses and what we were hearing , seeing , smelling , touching and tasting ! We heard trains , we saw trees , we smelt flowers , we felt grass , and we tasted blackberries! Arts and crafts were something we all enjoyed this week, from colouring with markers to making magic wands, we filled our basecamp with colours! We painted wooden squares and glued nature to paper to create some beautiful works of art! Its safe to weve got some creative artists around us! Dinosaurs, oh how we love our dinosaurs! We love pretend playing with our toy Dinos, rainbow gems make the perfect dinosaur eggs! Some of us became palaeontologists and worked hard to dig up dinosaur bones! We may have some future scientists on our hands! Were so excited for forest school next week! Keep smiling , ~Ms.Kaylee

Our fourth week of school brought with it all new adventures to our Forest School Friends! On Monday and Tuesday Miss Jess’ groups made their way to a really special place- the Apple Orchard! It starts off as a lovely hike down some familiar trails and then we turn on to another trail that is all new to our groups! We went all the way down the big shaded in trail, to where it opens up to a wonderful Orchard! Everyone had a chance to pick apples for themselves and some to... take home for the family if they wanted. Some children thought they were sour while others thought they were absolutely scrumptious! On Wednesday, we took a hike to one of our most favourite places-Dry Brook! Most days, Dry Brook is a dry creek bed where we play. The water flows underground through that section of the brook. But since it had been raining for days, when we arrived on Wednesday the children were met with a big surprise- so much water!! The mystery of where all the water came from was quickly solved! Our friends decided that it was all the rain that had come from the clouds that made the water flow at Dry Brook- great detective work, Forest School Friends! With the mystery solved it was time to enjoy the water! Everyone splished and splashed and had a great time with all the water. Thursday it was a great treat to see the sun again! Our friends played another all inclusive game of ‘Forest School’ where they took turns being teachers and children, swung each other in the hammocks, practiced writing their names and put the real Miss Jess in a hammock for peaceful time. We had a wonderful week of adventure and learning and can’t wait to see what next week will bring! -Miss Jess

We had a great first week back in the forest. The week was spent getting to know new friends and catching up with old ones. We started creating some shelters at our base camp. We learned all about personal space, and the importance of having a blood bubble (ask your child what a blood bubble is). One of their tasks for the week was to build a bridge to get across the stream that runs through our basecamp. We started each morning off with a read aloud at sit circle. We wrot...e all about our summer break in our journal.Together we created our classroom rules and basecamp boundaries. We all had so much fun getting to explore and play at our new basecamp. We ended the week with a hike to Long Lake on Friday afternoon. Looking forward to a fun year in the forest! 1/2 French - Week 1: We gathered together amongst the birds and the trees to begin (or continue for some!) our French language journey! We started out by reading our afternoon message - carefully sounding out words that were familiar to us, and practicing new ones as well! To help us answer the questions in our message, we used a few songs: "Bonjour mes amis" and our counting one as well! We enjoyed learning about the days of the week, using little tricks to help us remember- does your forest explorer remember what the French word is for Thursday? Thanks for a fantastic first class- looking forward to the next. Keep Smiling, Miss. Kenzie & Miss. Laura

The group hit the ground running from day one. Old friends caught up after the summer break and new friendships were quickly formed. The week was spent playing games and completing activities to increase communication and overall team work. The group enjoyed a hike to a foggy Long Lake before getting to work on their new basecamp. The area was just found last spring and is still in need of improvements and developments. The process of creating a space for us while mit...igating the harm done to the environment is instrumental in their development of environmental empathy. The students are working together to clean the area of dead fall and dangerous trees, but also identifying which areas should be protected and how. One of their tasks for the week was to build a bridge to the basecamp in which the students found the spot, gathered the materials, discussed the environmental factors such as rain fall and flooding, snow build up, and a shifting ground in the spring. The week was ended with some extra tool practice and wonderful art time at basecamp. The group has come together so quickly and are off to a wonderful beginning of the 2020-2021 school year! ~ Miss Kristy

What an incredible first week of school we had! I was so impressed with how well everyone transitioned back to school on Tuesday! It seemed like we instantly became a little forest family as everyone quickly became fast friends. Last week we spent a lot of time establishing our boundaries, rules, and routines in order to create a safe and fun environment for everyone. Each morning we read our morning message as a class and did some calendar and weather work. Using our h...ow are you feeling today? chart, we checked in with our feelings each day and shared some stories about what different emotions may feel like. In the classroom we rotated through some learning centers, touching on phonics, letter and number recognition, fine motor control, and patterns. Everyone had a blast playing, creating, and swinging at basecamp! Looking forward to another fantastic year in the forest! ~Miss Riley

I cant even believe it - our last week of Forest School University has come and gone.I had the best summer of my life in the Forest all thanks to the incredible FSU crew. The crisp mornings were a surprise this week and we all were feeling Fall in the air! We started off our week utilizing our visual memory skills playing a Stone Matching Game. At our magical basecamp the children transformed into different family members and through this activity was a lesson on ...differences and honouring diverse family structures all through play. Tuesday came in with a blast! We watched the show the sky was putting on in awe, loud banging thunder and bright shots of lightening through the sky! Tracing our handprints on eachothers new FSU T-shirts was pretty a special activity this week, I will miss you if I dont have your hand print on my shirt!. So many wonderful friendships were formed this summer! A picnic was just what we needed on Thursdays chilly morning. We packed up our snacks and all hiked over to Dry Brook to find a spot to sit in the sun and enjoy the magic Dry Brook brings. We climbed aboard the Magic School Bus and travelled to Space! Visiting the Moon, Venus, and even Mars! We also found rocks that shimmer on the sun! On Friday, we partied! We spent the day celebrating our amazing summer and one our friends birthdays! We made party hats, we had a campfire and roasted grilled cheese, we made our friend a mud cake and sang happy birthday, we got soaked running through the sprinkler, and we even had ice cream! Making Shirt activity STEAM Curriculum Connection: Art Why This Matters: Not only did this activity promote creativity, strengthen fine motor skills and allow us to practice writing our names, but through making these shirts we solidified friendships and made memories. Camp shirts are important because they connect everyone. They foster a sense of belonging, and although the time at FSU is finished, I hope each child looks back and feels as if they belonged. Thank you for the best summer of my life Forest Friends! Keep Smiling, ~Ms.Kaylee

Week 9 of FSU was full of exploring! The weather this week at Forest School Camp varied from rain, to fog, and sunshine. Our friends enjoyed playing in the rain, jumping in the mud puddles and making mud recipes so much! This week our friends enjoyed playing hopscotch, drawing chalk, and getting creative with Lego! We got crafty and used sticks, bark, leaves and rocks to make some beautiful art. We also enjoyed the nice sunny weather this week by hiking to Long Lak...e. Our friends enjoyed stopping to play along Dry Brook on our way. We found many frog friends, and a salamander throughout the week at our basecamp. We enjoyed the afternoon by hiking through The Enchanted Trail to find the fairies crown that was stolen by the trolls! Our friends enjoyed playing games in some of our favourite spots along the Enchanted trail that included Fairy Land and Bog Mountain.. We learned all about microgreens and grew some of our very own broccoli, radish, peas and kale. Why This Matters: Research shows that more time in nature promotes healthy active lifestyles, so hiking to a lake is good for our bodies now, and our futures selves! By experiencing wildlife in person it creates a better understanding of local animals and the way they live. STEAM Curriculum Connection: Art Why This Matters: The importance of incorporating art into the curriculum is because art activities have been proven to increase creativity in children. Research shows art activities also improve academic performance, increase motor skills, enhance visual learning, and boost higher decision-making skills. ~Miss Kenzie

Last week was muddy and full of fun! We spent time hiking, jumping in mud puddles, and searching for critters. When the sunshine came out on Thursday, we hiked to the apple orchard! The apples at the apple orchard were quite sour, but we had fun trying them and climbing the apple trees. We finished our Class Feelings Book last week! It was so fun to read our final product! Everyone worked so hard printing their sentence and decorating their page. We also talked about T...hanksgiving last week and made our own Thankful Turkeys. Everyone expressed different things that they are grateful for. Some of the most popular responses were: family, friends, pets, nature, trees, forest school. We worked hard on Friday to make birthday cards for Mr. Ryan! We have such thoughtful and creative friends in our class. We are settling in quite nicely to our Tuesday afternoon French routine, firstly gathering at the picnic tables to sing our "Bonjour" song and counting one as well! We spent some time exploring the first portion of the alphabet- we realized that the letters are the same, but the pronunciation is different. We had so much fun learning and coming up with little tricks to help us remember each one- our letter adventure continues next week! Looking forward to another wonderful week beneath the trees! ~Miss Riley & Miss Laura

It was another wet and wonderful week! This week was full of heart warming kindness, helpfulness, and selflessness. It is as if the tougher weather brought out the need to help one another just a little extra. Some taught friends skills such as square latch tying and others read stories out loud for all to hear. The rainy weather brought lots of work to be done and the group was ready for it! The group decided they wanted a shelter to protect fire wood so that on rainy.../snowy days we could have some dry wood for a fire The group decided on a lean-to and built it out of deadfall that was found around basecamp. The group continues to enjoy cleaning out the brook from fallen leaves and sticks. Our friends have been having a lot of fun working on story writing together Our groups have been working so nicely on their assigned tasks/projects - we have been learning new French words/ sounds, completing word searches and delving into our comic projects-which are nearing completion- we can't wait to share these with the rest of the class! Looking forward to our next projects together! ~ Miss Kristy and Miss Laura

Wow, and thats a wrap on Forest School Summer Camps 2020! We cant thank you all enough for the perfect last week to end off an amazing summer! This week we started most mornings off with Yoga with Miss. Kassandra. Here, we would stretch, take deep breaths and get ready for our fun-filled days ahead! They also took this time to play freeze dance and hopscotch with a twist, too! Whatever number they landed on, there was an action to go with it. Such as, hop on 1 fo...ot for 3 seconds, say something you love about Forest School Camp, etc. Monday started off by enjoying basecamp play. Here, our friends got together with their protectant blood bubble shield around them to crack open rocks to observe the beautiful colours and patterns inside. Make sure to ask your friends what a blood bubble means! They also enjoyed swinging in hammocks with friends, and they even added a fun twist to their game of tag- Ghost Buster Game! Our friends were so creative this week! Some friends enjoyed making different patterns of bracelets, enjoyed drawing beautiful pictures, and some even got so creative at Enchanted Trail while some were jumping in puddles, others were using the clay to paint on the rocks! This lead to us doing real rock painting, they loved using their imagination with real paint on these rocks! This week we also enjoyed our hikes to Long Lake and Owen Lake. Here, we would close our eyes for 20 seconds and see what we could hear in the lake if we were quiet! Friends said they heard leaves blowing through the wind, squirrels, and birds. They loved listening to their echo go a cross Owen Lake, too! In celebration of it being the very last week of Forest School Camps 2020, we created our own Forest School Camp shirts! Using plain white t-shirts and fabric markers, they created beautiful shirts to cherish forever. But thats not all! We also made homemade picture frames. Our friends went out and collected things to make their frames with! This includes, twigs, leaves, and anything they could collect from the forest! They then decorated the frame around their group photo at Long Lake to take home. On Friday, we ended an amazing summer by making a delicious grilled cheese over the fire. We cant believe it is all over! Thanks to all of you for making this summer a memorable one. Hope to see you all again next summer! ~Miss. Kassandra & Miss. Kenzie See more

We cant believe week 9 is already over, leaving only one week left at Forest School Camp! This wonderful week started off with a greeting from a tiny green frog at base camp. Friends decided to name him Mr. Jumpy. Our friends learned how holding or touching frogs can be harmful as the soap, oil, and other chemicals on our hands can be dangerous to amphibians because their skin absorbs them! Other critters that we found around base camp and the chickadee lodge that ...made a home here over the weekend were countless amount of caterpillars and Cross Orb-weaver spiders! Some friends even went around seeing how many they could find off of the trees of base camp. They were able to find over 25 of them! Other friends really enjoyed base camp playtime to swing with friends in hammocks. But we didnt just enjoy base camp play- we also had fun on our hikes to Long Lake and Owen Lake. On our hike to Long Lake, some friends were lucky enough to spot a snake on the trail! While other favourite activities this week included play time at Dry brook where friends loved to play camouflage and the Enchanted Trail. Friends loved stopping on the Enchanted Trail to play and jump in the puddles. Ask our friends what funky twist they put on their version of the game Tag this week, too! Knowing Friday was going to be a bit of a rainy day, we celebrated this week with a bonfire on Thursday instead! Friends loved our treat of popcorn, and we even had some friends take the opportunity to help Miss. Laura get the fire prepared. Thank you all for an amazing week. We cant wait to see some of you back again next week. ~Miss. Kassandra & Miss. Laura See more

Week 8 of FSU was full of sunshine and creativity! We started our week with lots of artwork in the forest with our paint markers and paper crafts! We explored colours with paint and talked about the three primary colours and how we can make other colours from them. We got crafty and used sticks, bark, leaves and rocks to make some beautiful art. We took a colour scavenger hunt around our basecamp using things we found in nature. At our basecamp we found many forest friend...s throughout the week and talked about what we need to make a good habitat. The children created habitats for their frog friends they found around basecamp. We continued to work on some of our shelters we started to build with Miss Kaylee. Some of our friends got to be photographer for a bit and snap some FSU photos and selfies of our friends! We spent lots of time on the Enchanted Trail and enjoyed playing at Bog Mountain. Nature Colour Activity STEAM Curriculum Connection: Art Why This Matters: The importance of incorporating art into the curriculum is because art activities have been proven to increase creativity in children. Research shows art activities also improve academic performance, increase motor skills, enhance visual learning, and boost higher decision-making skills. We cant wait for next week! ~Miss Kenzie

The summer is flying by! This wonderful 8th week started with a hula hoop team building exercise. With our hands joined together the goal was to get the hula hoop around the circle once without anyone letting go. Our friends learned that with everyone using great communication skills and working together, we were able to do it! This took place at Dry Brook- a favourite play area for this crew! At Dry Brook our friends also found a leopard slug and its eggs! Our... friends got together to make a habitat around the leopard slugs, using sticks and twigs to make a shield around in order to protect them! Other friends really enjoyed this area to break rocks open in order to see the cool patterns and colours inside, or to find tiny gems and diamonds. They got so creative with it- even calling the dust off the rocks fairy dust. With this, our friends learned about a Forest School blood bubble which is a protectant shield when no friends are surrounding you when you do something like break a rock, to avoid anyone getting hurt. Our crew is able to understand and identify when their body needs that space and is able to ask their friends to give them a blood bubble! On our way back from Dry Brook, some friends spotted a small toad, too! No wonder this crew kept wanting to visit Dry Brook! One afternoon, when a few friends were playing with LEGO, they were asked to grab just 5 pieces. This exercise was to get them to use their imagination and creativity to see what they can create with only those 5 pieces. Our friends made many things such as a flying hopping machine, stairs to a trampoline, and even a human holding a box. They loved building beautiful creations with LEGO this week! On our rainy Wednesday morning, we hiked through the Enchanted Trail to lovely Owen Lake. Here our friends learned why it is harmful to feed wildlife, such as ducks. When we feed ducks things such as bread, their bellies get full but bread doesnt have any nutritional value and so it takes the place of their natural balanced diet. On Thursday, to celebrate the 8th week we had popcorn over the bonfire! They learned the three necessities for a fire- oxygen, fuel and a spark. Everyone loved the popcorn so much, they all had seconds! Other favourite activities of this week included making and flying paper airplanes, building forts together, noticing the many different caterpillars we found and swinging on the hammocks with friends Thank you all for an incredible week, we hope to see you all back here again soon! ~ Miss. Kassandra & Miss. Laura See more

Week 7 was full of sunshine and smiles! We started our week bringing colours and rainbows into the forest with our sparkly paints and paper crafts! I challenged the children to find a way to cross the stream without stepping in the water, they worked together and built a rock bridge giving us a second bridge to use! We explored a new simple machine this week, the screw! We got to real use screw drivers and screws to hold two pieces of wood together! Some of our friends g...ot to play photographer for a bit and snap some FSU photos and selfies! Our week ended with an all girls day hiking to long lake - and getting soaked! We got crafty and used nature material and old cedar shingles to make some beautiful self portraits. Nature Self Portrait Activity STEAM Curriculum Connection: Art Why This Matters: The importance of incorporating art into the curriculum is because art activities have been proven to increase creativity in children. Research shows art activities also improve academic performance, increase motor skills, enhance visual learning, and boost higher decision-making skills. I know the FSU crew is going to have so much fun during the next couple weeks with Ms.Kenzie and I cant wait to hear about all their adventures when I return! Keep Smiling, ~Ms.Kaylee

Except for a little rain on Tuesday morning, week 7 had such beautiful, sunny weather! This week we had the opportunity of seeing and learning about so many different critters! Miss. Jess was even able to add a few bugs to her collection, letting us look at her dragonfly, butterfly, grasshopper, snake skin and pine beetle! We were also able to notice fish jump, hear a bullfrog, along with watching a cormorant swim during our hike to Long lake! But that wasnt o...ur only hike of the week! We also hiked Enchanted trail, went to Owen lake and hiked to Fairy Land to play. During our hike to Fairy Land, we noticed so many new, bright mushrooms, one we found was called Golden Spindles! Our friends this week enjoyed making bracelets, playing hide and go seek, and even building a fort! We had some friends lend a helping hand to make new mallets for base camp, too! Other friends got creative with chalk, making hopscotch a favourite this week. Thank you all for an incredible 7th week at Forest School Camp, we hope to see you all again in the remaining weeks. ~Miss. Kassandra & Miss. Jess See more

Throughout week 6 we continued expanding on our construction ideas and built some pretty amazing things! We balanced rocks to make rock towers, we matched shapes to build animals with blocks, and we even built our very own FSU lean-to shelter! Some of us got to safely use a hand saw all by ourselves to cut some of the logs that were too long for our shelter! Adventures this week lead us to a trail less traveled and we made a unanimous decision to turn around and spend some ...time at a super fun climbing tree. We hiked to Owen Lake and we saw so many types of mushrooms along the way, on our way back we got stuck is a rain shower and instead of getting upset, we ran and laughed the whole way back! Building Lean-to Shelter Activity STEAM Curriculum Connection: Engineering Why This Matters: Engineering activities are important for children to engage in for many developmental reasons. Through this activity the children are learning building and math skills. They are learning to work together as a team, compromise and help each other. They are gathering problem solving skills, and practicing stopping, thinking about the problem and ways to solve it and then acting on those solutions. Teaching children how to think creatively and how to problem solve is just one of the many ways we can prepare them for their future. As the world changes and our need for new sustainable technologies becomes essential, creative problem solvers and innovators will shape the way of our future. We cant wait for next week! Keep Smiling , ~Ms.Kaylee

Week 6 started off by noticing the bright mushrooms that grew at our base camp over the weekend called Yellow Patches! Then, we observed the dragonfly, butterfly and snake skin from Miss. Jess bug collection! Some were even lucky enough to spot a real snake slithering across one of our paths on our way back from playing in the rain at dry brook. On Tuesday, we enjoyed a nice hike through some of Alphabet trail to get to apple orchard. Our friends really enjoyed climbing t...rees at this spot. We finished this warm day off with a treat of freezies! One of our favourite activities this week was making bracelets! Friends spent time at base camp creating bracelets and necklaces out of all different kinds of string and rope and in lots of patterns and colours! We also really enjoyed our scavenger hunt in the forest. Thursday was such a special day! We hiked through Enchanted trail to reach Owen Lake where 3 ducks swam right up to us. We learned about how these ducks would only been born this spring, as they couldnt fly yet. Then, another furry friend visited us, Miss. Jess dog Rye! She was so appreciative of all the love and pats To finish off a great week and in celebration of Miss. Jess birthday, we had grilled cheese over the fire. Thanks for a great week, we hope to see you all again soon. ~Miss. Kassandra & Miss. Jess See more

Wow! We are half way through FSU already! I cant believe it! What a lovely summer we are all having! We were introduced to simple machines recently and some of us found them pretty interesting. The way they help us do the work, but in an easier way! We talked about the different kinds of Simple Machines such as the pulley, an inclined plane, a lever, a wedge, a screw and a wheel and axel. Our week started off constructing with string, rope, ribbon and popsicle stick...s. A few of us got into it and started building simple machines, such as a lever and an inclined plane on a dump truck! During the process we got to learn a new knot, square lashing! We were back in the kitchen frequently this week, with new employees and customers and even a menu update! On Thursday we had a super silly day! As per childrens many requests, we had a deck day all day! We avoided the rain and spent our time playing fishs and whales building forts, reading stories, playing with blocks, carefully catching and releasing grasshoppers and paper paper creations! Friday came fast and we had a special surprise! Morning time freezies and Frozen tattoos!! At basecamp we started to build a new lean to shelter, it still needs some work! For lunch we had a special picnic in the gazebo which we all thought was pretty cool! Simple Machines activities: STEAM Curriculum Connection: Science, Engineering, Art, Math Why This Matters: Learning about Simple Machines is not only important because we use them in every day life, but because in order to learn about them we need to engage in critical thinking, reading, measuring and more. Children often think of machines as complicated motor powered devices, but through exploring Simple Machines they are able to see how the became and were created before modern technology took over. See you soon for Week 6! What?! Keep Smiling , ~Ms.Kaylee

Wow! Cant believe the summer camps are half over now that we have wrapped up an amazing 5th week. This week we enjoyed Dragon Train to play camouflage and Dry Brook to run around so much, of course we had to visit them twice! We also enjoyed the nice sunny weather we had this week by hiking through Alphabet trail to find each letter of the alphabet on wood cookies, along with Enchanted trail, Long Lake, and Owen Lake. Tuesday was so warm we had a treat of popsicles af...ter our hike! We also liked playing in the rainy weather by jumping in mud puddles on Thursday, too! On Wednesday, we had friends requesting to visit some favourite play areas,such as morning forest and the round house, where our friends loved to climb trees! We also had friends take the opportunity this week to get creative with their rock paintings, wood cookie necklaces, mud recipes and forts! To celebrate the end to an incredible week and half of the summer camps being finished, we had an optional Pyjama day and ate some delicious grilled cheese sandwiches by the fire. Dont forget to ask your forest school friend which activity was their favourite this week! We hope to see you all again soon ~Miss Kassandra & Miss Riley See more

Week 4 was so much fun! By following the childrens lead, we expanded and created more to our Royal Hotel and Mexican Diner! There were some renovations and more guest rooms were built, a lounge, and staff room! Throughout the week we made signs for our Mexican Restaurant, such as a menu complete with prices, room numbers on wood cookies406, open/closed signs and some decorations! We also started a new project this week. While some were busy working at the Royal... Hotel, others worked together and helped build our water irrigation system. We discussed Irrigation during our sit circle and all had a chance to look at the kit and all the pieces needed to construct the system. Now we have a functioning water irrigation system that is watering our very own cherry tomato plants! Ask your FSU student if they remember what some of the parts are called, what force is used to help pull the water down the tube and how we built in! One day while we were eating lunch we spotted three young Otters running down our stream! It was so special to see and they were so cute! Inspired by our groups love for bugs, We explored a new bug fact book to learn about some of the bugs we see! There are so many different kids of beetles! We are very thankful Black Widow spiders dont live here in New Brunswick! We ended our week painting nature we found on the ground (thank you basecamp); bark, sticks, rocks and paper all turned into beautiful colours, some even glittery and metallic! Royal Hotel/Mexican Diner STEAM curriculum connection: Art, Math By allowing the children to work together and come up these wonderful ideas encourages much more interest and participation from the group. By providing materials to create menus, room numbers and more the children are developing in all domains of child development especially emotional and social development. In order to come up with room numbers we were adding peoples ages together, or simply just choosing numbers we liked. This instills an appreciation for numbers in general, as well as makes adding fun! Playing these games with math encourages strategic mathematical thinking and deepens their understanding of numbers. I wonder what magic the forest will stir up next week! Keep smiling, ~ Ms.Kaylee

Week four was filled with creativity! From building zoos, ships, and buildings out of LEGO to colouring our rocks into Pokeballs. Friends even taking the opportunity to make their own story books and a board game out of a homemade scroll! We explored our creativity further by learning how to fold four different types of paper airplanes, too! They are called a darter, glider, drifter, and swooper. Ask your forest friend which one flew the furthest! This week we ...enjoyed our hikes to Long Lake, Owen Lake, and Enchanted Trail, where we even got to see a frog, along with so many other critters throughout the week! Other spots we visited this week were Dragon Train and Dry Brook- where our friends enjoyed climbing trees and playing camouflage. We ended off a perfect sunny Thursday by enjoying popsicles under the warm sun and a perfect week around a bonfire making grilled cheese! We hope to see you all again ~ Miss Kassandra & Miss Laura See more

During week 3 we really started to see friendships blossom as we settle into our new surroundings and routines. Monday was full of fun! We played a new game called Predator and Prey. We played with new kitchen toys like sponges, cloths, strainers, and bowls. We made delicious meals and organized jobs for everyone! Predator and Prey Game STEAM Curriculum Connection: Science Why This Matters: Through this game the children learned about what signs and hint predators u...Continue reading

The weather this week at Forest School Camp varied from rain, to fog, and sunshine but that didnt stop us from having an incredible week packed with fun! On Monday when the rain visited us we played in the mud, made mud recipes, swung in the hammocks and played on the slack line with friends. We enjoyed the afternoon by hiking through The Enchanted Trail to find the fairies crown that was stolen by the trolls! We continued our week with other hiking trails s...uch as the Alphabet and Long Lake Trail. We even saw a frog and a leopard slug on our adventure! We also learned about the new mushrooms growing at the school this week, Milky Conecaps along with finding out what a firefly looks like during the day! Other activities from this week included flying paper airplanes, building spaceships with LEGO, playing at dry brook, and a forest scavenger hunt! To celebrate an amazing week, we brought out the Kelly Kettle to make hot chocolate around the fire pit. We learned that In order to have a fire we need spark, fuel, and oxygen. Using this helpful information we ended this week with grilled cheese made over the fire! Thank you all for yet another unforgettable week, we hope to see you all again this summer! ~Miss Kassandra & Miss Jess See more

Our second week started off with a frog and a fish! Some perks of being near the stream! Weve been watching a type of fungus grow and change over the first couple of weeks at FSU, it went from gooey white, to pink/orange, to brown and hard! Monday the weather could not decide if it was going to rain or be sunny, so we made some of our own predictions! By collecting pine cones and/or spruce cones, and observing to see if they are open or shut, we can predict the weather. ...Continue reading

Thats a wrap on the second week of Forest School Camp! On Tuesday we got a little rained on. Our friends enjoyed playing in the rain, jumping in the mud puddles and making mud recipes so much! We also very much enjoyed the warm sunny weather this week! In the afternoon we cooled off by running through the sprinkler and had a scavenger hunt to find a golden treat- popsicles! We had so many fun filled activities including using the hammocks to swing with friends ...the chalk to be creative on the pavement and playing hide and go seek tag or camouflage! We visited some of our favourite hiking trails like going to Long Lake and Enchanted trail. In celebration of Canada Day, we had some friends draw the Canadian flag! To end off an amazing week we had a bonfire and learned about the three necessities for a fire! (fuel, spark, and oxygen) Then, we enjoyed some popcorn over the fire Thank you all for an amazing week, we hope to see you all again very soon! ~Miss Kassandra & Miss Laura See more

Our first week at Forest School University was a huge success! We started our week by checking out our FSU Orientation Packages together and discussing what was in them and why. We played some get to know you games and enjoyed some free play time together as it really gave us a chance to get to know each other! Everyone was also excited to spend some time getting to know our beautiful basecamp and surrounding areas! We are fortunate to have a beautiful stream run throu...gh our space and we had so much fun meeting all the little critters that we share our space with.We introduced ourselves to the leopard slugs, ants, beetles and even a brook trout!! Two of our girls got right to work when they noticed a fort had been broken at basecamp. They used rope, logs and teamwork to fix the fort and make it safe for our friends to play in again! On Monday some of our friends learned how to make paracord keychains to hang on our backpacks. We also learned some neat survival uses for paracord and why its so great to have when youre in the Forest. We started our FSU Nature Journals and wrote some entries about our days at Forest School. This is something we will continue all summer long that the children can bring home with them at the end of the summer to have as a keepsake of all their FSU adventures! On Tuesday, we were all up for an adventure so we hiked the Enchanted Trail and found the Fairy queens crown! On Wednesday we got creative and made nature creature masks! Using natural materials, glue, scissors and our imagination we created some really great masks! Thursday was so much fun! We found a secret clay well and collected clay to bring back to our basecamp. We used this magical clay to make faces on tree trunks. Students used their imaginations and we saw dogs, friends, wizards and self-portraits all made from clay. Our Friday Adventure lead us to the Alphabet Trail! We followed each letter and found all the bears hiding, we ended our hike sitting in the bear cave watching the VR code video of Ms.Laura reading Were going on a Bear Hunt. We also adventured to Dry Brook this week! We had to show our friends who havent been to Forest School before one of our favourite places to play! We played camouflage hide and seek! Our week was jam packed with fun, and we cant wait to see what we will get up to next week! ~Ms.Kaylee See more

What an amazing first week back at forest school summer camp! This week was filled with fun filled activities from catching orange belly newts, and salamanders to hiking through our trails to Long Lake, Alphabet Trail and the Enchanted Trail. We enjoyed exploring and playing at base camp, especially using the hammocks to swing with friends. Our favourite activities of this week included rock painting, our treasure hunt to find the pot of gold (popsicles),a scavenger h...unt, and our hike through the Enchanted Trail. We enjoyed running from the trolls to save the fairies crown so much, we did it twice! We ended this great week with hot chocolate. While there was a fire ban, we were still able to use the Kelly Kettle and learn about the three elements needed to start a fire (oxygen, fuel, and a spark). Thank you for an incredible first week back of the summer, we hope to see all of you back again! ~Miss Kassandra & Miss Riley See more

What amazing weather we had for the last week of Forest School! We were able to finish up our forts and spent many sunny days splashing around in the brook or running through the sprinkler! Through the week we started to notice all the changes that have occurred in the forest over the last five weeks. Like how much growth has come to the Alphabet trail and the environment around us! We took cues from our alphabet book adventure from last week and created some pages th...at we think would make a great addition to the book A is for Adventure. This allowed us to play around with the sounds and rhyming of words while expanding our vocabulary as a group! Everyone worked together to think of cool sayings and creative word combos! We enjoyed creating clay creatures, painting our hand print flags and bringing arts and crafts outdoors! The last day was filled with more adventures through the forest, time by the brook and learning that Miss Indigo can expertly braid hair! The girls were excited to get matching styles to rock in the forest! While were sad that Forest School is over now, we are happy to leave with some incredible memories from the last five weeks together! ~Miss Indigo See more

Weve journeyed through all forty weeks together in person and by distance but this week brought us closer together than ever . We treasured every moment together as we sailed through the week creating too many memories to count! On Tuesday morning, our friends gathered around the fire circle for Year End Celebrations . They looked a bit different this year but that didnt stop us from enjoying this tradition! Our handprint flags waved gracefully in the wind as we pl...ayed about, writing notes and cards to our loved ones and swinging in our hammocks. We were giggling as we filled a hammock with our entire bubble class- counting to 6, fondly calling it the Friendship Hammock. Some friends journeyed to Dry Brook this week- always such a fun space to explore! We also had an opportunity to make bird feeders this week and some of the children chose to hang theirs at basecamp as a thank you to the wildlife for providing such a welcoming, safe and magical learning space for all of us. A group of students set out on a journey to Long Lake on Thursday morning and we had a blast as we paused along the way to play, climb, build and explore. Once we got to Long Lake, there was instant relaxation as we sat on the rock watching the water and feeling the slight breeze on our faces! We even found a rock that was speckled that looked like a turtle in the water. On our way out, we said goodbye to Turtle Rock and sent a few last shouts of echo across the water. We ended this beautiful, sunny week playing in the water sprinkler, listening to music and enjoying a cool treat! What an incredible wrap up for the class of 2020! Thank you all so much for a fantastic year at Forest School! ~ Miss Jess, Miss Kaylee, Miss Laura & Miss Kassandra See more

And thats a wrap! Last week we wrapped up our 40 amazing weeks together at forest school. On Tuesday we had a celebration to acknowledge an amazing year of growth, friendship, and learning.We also went on many hikes and adventures to our favourite places that we visited over the year. We hung our bird feeders in the forest to thank all of the lovely animals that we shared our forest with all year. We continued to build with clay from the brook. Some friends made bowls, mugs, and faces out of the clay! We spent time using the paints last week and created lovely painted rocks and wood cookies. Thank you to all the amazing forest school families and all of your sweet kiddos for making this year nothing short of amazing! We are looking forward to seeing many friends back in the forest over the summer. ~Miss Riley

Five weeks flew by! Monday came and we started our day stretching our bodies and breathing deeply as we prepared for our last week of preschool. We found a new friend at basecamp, a little friendly lady bug who we were so gentle and kind with! It brought big smiles to our faces when we saw our handprint flags hung up at our basecamps and led to some reminiscing about our year. We had our very special graduation ceremony and received our moving-on gifts. We hope your ...preschooler cherishes their class photo in their nature frames forever! On Wednesday one of our groups did something super duper silly! We packed up our backpacks, hammock and art supplies and headed to Dry Brook for morning snack and exploration time! It was so much fun! We even found Woodlice and a Salamander! We were all about throwing our paper planes this week, racing them, decorating them and watching them twirl through the air and crash! With stamps, new stencils, and stickers we worked hard on our fine motor skills without even realizing it! Since our basecamp has been so giving to us, we wanted to make something we could leave behind to thank basecamp and nature for everything theyve done for us. We made bird feeders from pine cones, butter, bird seed and string! Some chose to leave theirs and hang them at basecamp and some chose to bring them home and give back to the birds at their house! We spent some time filling the Forest with music. Bongos, triangles, shakers, Maracas and more!Some made music that sounded just like the birds! We made sure we ended our week with smiles as big as when it started, running wild and free through the sprinkler, sharing an icy treat to cool down and laughing with all our friends. Our preschoolers time may be finished at Forest School, but the memories they made will last a lifetime. ~Ms.Laura, Ms.Jess, Ms.Kassandra and Ms.Kaylee