The Forest at Night
Hello everyone,
Well, that golden fall weather that we had for sooooo long this year had to end sometime, and it really did this week. We had our first taste of cold weather and the discomfort and adversity that comes with it. But...we also got to see some snow and play with some ice and that is exciting too! It was a very abrupt transition this year though, and I feel like it will take us a minute to adjust for sure. But welcoming the natural world as our teacher, leaning into adversity and practicing being ok with it is really a big part of what forest school is all about, so here we go with the deep learning!
This week we continued to talk about the forest. On Monday we went to the "thicket" near the community garden. It is a little patch of tangley bushes between the river and the garden path. Beavers have built a dam under the bridge there and we have watched their progress all fall. We checked out the riverbank and noticed the rising water levels and the changes that the beavers have made. We read a really cool pop up book called Welcome to the Neighborwood, about animal and insect builders. We used some clay and sticks and leaves and practiced doing a little bit of forest building ourselves.
On Tuesday we went all the way to the forest, and we read A Log's Life and did some fun investigation of logs. We play on and in and with logs all the time, but it was nice to do some focused study of them and think about their lives before they were logs, and the soil that they will become to feed future trees who will also become logs and on and on.
On Wednesday we played in the really messy, wet snow until we got too wet and cold, then we went inside and played an imaginary nighttime forest game. We read Forest Bright, Forest Night, and then pretended to be nocturnal and diurnal forest creatures. To set the stage for our immersive play we covered the windows and strung christmas lights on the ceiling and played a recording of forest night sounds. It was fun! We also made some night sky watercolor and salt paintings and decorated some owls to fly in them.
For our two days in session this next week we will be talking about gratitude. Gratitude is so important to hold and to find in our lives and in the way that we interact with the world. I love talking about it together at school, and I hope for gratitude to joyfully permeate your family celebrations next week.