cultivating a relationship to the earth

“It is a serious thing
​Just to be alive
On this fresh morning
In this broken world.” 
~ Mary Oliver

Hello to our dear forest school families! We wanted to send you some ideas of outdoor-related things to do while you're having a bit of a different routine (maybe) than usual. For some of you, maybe your homeschooling continues as usual - although with less interactions with other homeschoolers. For the schoolers, it's perhaps a bit of a summer-holiday-but-not-quite feeling. And for you parents! Blessings and all good things to you right now. :)

Over the next few weeks, I wanted to give you some ideas of routines that we do in our forest school sessions. Perhaps after reading these posts, you'll say: hey! I can do forest school easily from home! Exactly. You can! I encourage you to make these routines part of your family's practices - for you as adults too. They are good for any age's soul. 

I'll also include some ideas for what to spot outside this time of year, and some crafty/maker ideas. Feel free to play along and send photos of your creations to kitchenerforestschool@gmail.com. 

Routine #1: the sit spot.

Maybe you've heard your child recount a sit spot experience at forest school. Or maybe when you ask about what they've done in forest school, the answer is "nothing." I assure you, the nothingness that is cultivated during a sit spot experience can be quite magical. Often, when we review our time together as a group, several children will point to the sit spot as their favourite time. 

This often takes adults by surprise. The sit spot is quiet, introspective, calm, un-moving. Not always how we picture young children. 

Here is the recipe for our sit spot routine: find a place in nature where you can sit for several minutes and open your senses. We give the guidance that this is not a climbing or a building time, or time to make silly faces at your friends time, but an opening your ears and eyes and noses and feelings and thoughts time. Some children choose to use a nature journal to record things; others just take it all in.

Sometimes we will have a story that leads in to a sit spot time. The Quiet Place by Douglas Wood is one great example. But most often, we will either sing a song to start it, or put down our "veil of silence", lifting our hands up to the sky, then lowering a pretend veil or curtain as we count backwards from 10 to 0. When we get to zero, everyone is quiet and finding their spot to sit. 

​Then we wait. Like a turtle, or moss growing on bark, or like us, quiet and still. 

After a few minutes (or longer, depending on many factors), we gather. We use an owl hoot most often to call the group back. Sometimes we use a "singing bowl" and we hit it three times like a chime to call people back to the circle. We then lift the veil of silence back up, and then sometimes share what we saw/smelled/heard/felt/thought about during that time. 

The sit spot encourages us to really get to know a piece of land. To notice the little things around us: the movement of wind, the call of a bird, the colour of the light through the trees, the buds or leaves or bare branches, the feelings that are inside of us today. It allows us to sit with ourselves and with the land, cultivating closeness to both. 

Explore: make a sound map.

As part of a sit spot, you can introduce a sound map. This is a way of recording the sounds you hear around you. Take a clipboard, piece of paper, and pencil. Make an X on the page that represents you. Then sit quietly, waiting for sounds. When you hear one, record it on your map in relation to you, using a picture or word or letter as representation. Listen for several minutes, and see how many sounds you can hear, and from which directions they are coming from.

Create: make a map of Huron Natural Area.

Kids! Make a map of Huron Natural Area. What do you remember about the land? Some things to consider for your map:

• what special memories do you have of forest school? 
• what is your favourite spot to visit?
• can you remember where there is water? where there is a favourite tree? Where there are meadows and creeks?
• have you spotted any creatures at HNA? If so, put them on your map where you saw them. 
• do you remember any edible plants from HNA? If so, put the location of that plant on the map too. 

Can you send me your map by email to kitchenerforestschool@gmail.com? I'd love to see them! With your permission, I'll post your maps on another blog post, and if you'd like your name to be included I will do that too. 

This week, outdoors:

Brought to you by our friend Josh Shea at the City of Kitchener, here are some exciting things to start looking for this week outside. See how many you can find, and let us know!

• Get outside early-ish in the morning and listen for birdsong. Which birds can you identify by their song? Cornell Lab's All About Birds is a great place to start for bird song ID. You could add these birds to your sound map. 
• Robins have returned - have you seen one yet? Count the number that you see each day and keep track of it in your nature journal. 
• Go for a walk or look around your neighbourhood. Can you see a nest in a tree that has been used by a creature? What kind of creature do you think used it? If you would make a nest, what would you use?