Forest School Adventures

We have had an enormous amount of fun in our first two weeks of Forest School getting into the natural world—learning, exploring, and adventuring. During the first week, we explored the backyard of the school and developed our daily routines and safety protocols. The children particularly enjoyed playing a hide-and-seek game called Hawks and Mice—getting ever more adventurous (and muddy) with their hiding places as the week went on.

In our second week, we ventured through the back gate and into the natural area behind the school. We used magnifying glasses to look at milkweed and goldenrod plants and watched Monarch butterflies pass by on their journey south; we played a Monarch migration game in which the children ran from a northerly starting point to a warm, southerly wintering site stopping along the way to rest and drink goldenrod nectar; and we explored several new areas including the edge of the marsh and a grassy wooded area filled with ash and maple trees.

Already, after just two weeks, the children are demonstrating greater comfort in the outdoors as they climb up and down a steep hill, encounter living things (like birds, toads, earthworms and dragonflies), navigate off-trail through tall plants and grasses, walk on uneven terrain, and spend time outside in a variety of weather conditions.

On the topic of weather: A particular highlight of the week was a very happy morning spent outside in the pouring rain. We set up the tarp and sat beneath it listening to the loud sound of the rain. Under the tarp, we completed our daily weather report and read stories using a flashlight. Then, with arms outstretched and palms up to feel the water, singing songs about the rain, we made our way through the tall, wet grasses, down the big hill to the fabulous puddles below. The children loved jumping in the puddles! They jumped. They splashed. They giggled. They put their hands in the cold water. They got extremely dirty. What fun!

Check back for more updates about our woodsy adventures.