The Chickadees had a fun-filled first week of winter! Read below to learn what this week’s mystery animal was, what tracks we found on the bridge and what tasty treat we roasted over the fire…

The Chickadee instructors were so happy to welcome the preschoolers back to their forest school this week! A soft, fluffy blanket of snow greeted us on our first day of the winter session — how fitting! Before Opening Circle, the children played in the snow and were surprised to see how easy it was to make a snowball. They noticed that when they rolled the snow over the ground, it picked up everything (even acorns, rocks and sticks!) and revealed the dark green grass that was hiding underneath. The Chickadee instructors explained that this soft, wet snow is called packing snow and that it’s great for building things like snow people! With that said, Eli helped the children stack three large snowballs on top of each other. Then they found some fallen branches from the nearby white pine tree and stuck them in the side to make arms. Next, Eli found some long, dead grass to use as hair. When they were done, the Chickadees took a step back to admire their work of art. A child lovingly named the snow person creation “Dom Dom!”

At Opening Circle, Eli showed the Chickadees a picture of an animal track. This track had four toes on its front feet and five on its hind feet. He said the animals that make these tracks live in this area, make nests called dreys using dead leaves and sticks and have bushy tails. The children guessed what they thought this animal could be, but Eli left it a mystery (do you have any guesses?). Afterwards, the Chickadee flock grabbed their backpacks and excitedly hurried down the path towards Trillium Camp. They stopped at the top of the bridge where they reported what had changed since the last time they were there. One child noticed the creek had more water and looked wider. Another child pointed out that the pinecone bird feeders we had made in the fall were still missing! We headed down the bridge, intent on finally solving this mystery. Before “slunch” (this is what we call our eating time: it’s a combination of snack and lunch), some children went in search of clues in hopes of figuring out where the pinecone bird feeders went, while others ate some snow, climbed the Climbing Hill and threw snowballs into the creek.

When it was time for slunch, the Chickadees washed their hands and went to the log circle. Sarah told a story about a magical forest where fairies can be seen dancing with spring ephemerals, lounging by the creek on warm summer days, twirling down to Earth with the colorful leaves in the fall and riding on snowflakes in the winter. The story introduced Willa the winter fairy who had two special jobs: 1. to help the forest move from fall to winter and 2. provide assistance to any plants or animals that needed help. Willa hears the cries of a small red squirrel named Ringo who got lost when he left his nest in search of food. Willa helps him find his tracks in the snow and together they followed them back to his home. During Willa’s adventure, she also helps Greta the gray squirrel find her collection of nuts she hid in the fall. Greta explains to Willa that she remembers burying them underneath a tree with smooth, gray bark that had bright yellow leaves in the fall and that these leaves turn orange and stay on the tree all winter long. This description sounded familiar to Willa and she then directed Greta to a beech tree. There Greta digs through the snow and Earth to find her special collection of black walnuts, acorns and hickory nuts!

When slunch was over, the children played a few rounds of Squirrel Tails, a silly game where someone wears an orange bandana like a tail and everyone has to try and catch it. The children ran around the pavilion, through the garden, up and down the path and around the shelter, laughing as they tried to catch the squirrel tail. The Chickadees ended their day with a walk up to Turkey Knoll where they got to visit the Nuthatches new camp! While we are sad the Nuthatches had to say goodbye to the Ash Grove for the time being, we are so happy they will be closer to us and we are looking forward to seeing them more. At Closing Circle, the children learned a new song called “Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel Swish Your Bushy Tail.” The lyrics and movements are written and explained below so you can sing and dance along too! 

Gray Squirrel, gray squirrel, swish your bushy tail (shake like you have a bushy tail) 

Gray squirrel, gray squirrel, swish your bushy tail (shake your tail)

Wrinkle up your little nose (move your nose)

Put a nut between your toes (touch your toes)

Gray squirrel, gray squirrel swish your bushy tail (shake your tail)

On Tuesday the children noticed that the soft and packable snow had changed! Instead it was icy, sand-like and not as easy to make snowballs with. But that didn’t bother the Chickadees! They enjoyed stomping on the ice that had formed in the footprints we made the day before and rolling the big snowballs that had made up our friend Dom Dom (who had sadly fallen over during the night). After singing “Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel, Swish Your Bushy Tail” during Opening Circle, the children hiked down to camp where they noticed tracks everywhere — on the bridge, in the log circle, on the Peace Log. While helping put grit on the bridge so we didn’t slip on the ice, a child noticed that the tracks had four toes on the front feet and five on the back — could these tracks belong to the animal that Eli told us about on Monday? While some children looked at the tracks in Trillium Camp, others went on an epic wander where they found honeysuckle bushes and beech trees. When they came back, the flock gathered for slunch where they heard the story of Willa the winter fairy, Ringo the red squirrel and Greta the gray squirrel again. After slunch they played a game where someone pretended to be Greta, the squirrel who had forgotten where she had cached, or stored, her nuts. Like the story, the person playing Greta could only remember a few details about where she had put her nuts. This information was shared with the children who had to use these clues to find the cached nuts, which took the form of an orange bandana ball in this game. The Chickadees played several rounds of this until it was time to sing “The Day is Done” song. 

The day is done 

The day is done 

Thank you for today 

Let’s pack our bags and give air hugs 

And say thanks for the day

Wednesday was a special day for two reasons: 1. the Chickadees welcomed a new instructor named Nora to the flock and 2. it was a Chickadee’s birthday! During Opening Circle, the preschoolers welcomed Nora by helping her learn everyone’s names and told her that it’s okay if she forgets someone’s name because she can just ask if she does. 

When the Chickadees arrived in Trillium Camp, they noticed some strange tracks. They decided to follow them and  soon found themselves on an epic adventure that took them to Turkey Knoll, near the creek, across the meadow and finally to Red Squirrel Camp. There the preschoolers found a basket filled with chestnuts and tools they needed to roast them! In order to cook them though, the flock would need to build a fire and in order to make a fire they needed to collect some firewood. Nora and Eli led some children to the “wispy” (our word for kindling) bushes, also known as honeysuckle, while Sarah helped others climb on the low branches of a white pine tree. The melting snow made it a tough day for fire, but Eli was able to do it with some help from the Chickadees of course! Together they sang: 

Burn fire, burn 

Stoke your inner fire

Let the coal inside you rise

Blow that flame to life

Thursday brought with it more mysteries and celebration! In the morning they found tons of poop, or scat, in the front field. The children noticed the shape, color and size of the scat and learned that it belonged to a white-tailed deer — probably numerous deer, by the amount of scat they found! In Opening Circle, Hannah led the group in another round of “Gray Squirrel, Gray Squirrel, Swish Your Bushy Tail.” The children sang and danced along and afterwards headed down to camp. Before going down the bridge, Nora said that she hid treasure in a place where you can hear water, where you can see a bird house and where you might find some thorns. The children eagerly went in search of the treasure. Some went to Trillium North near the creek, while others stayed closer to the pavilion and looked near the garden until…they found it! The treasure was hidden at the base of a tree that had a birdhouse on it and was growing next to the creek. There were also some multiflora rose bushes nearby. Everyone was excited to see what the treasure was and gathered around Nora as she opened up the pot to reveal cups, stainers and white pine needles. “Tea!,” the children exclaimed.

Later in the day, the Chickadees climbed the Climbing Hill, said hello to the Nuthatches and found some more scat! But this scat looked different than the small, dark, oval-shaped white-tailed deer scat they found in the morning. This scat was bigger, longer and came to a point. A child noticed that it looked like the scat had hair inside of it. The owner of the scat remained a mystery, until next week perhaps!

Can you guess what this week’s mystery animal was? Thank you for reading! Check back here next week to see what new adventures came our way…

Happy first week of preschool, 2021! 

This week the Nuthatches set down roots in a new camp!

We also welcomed a few new faces: Instructors Will, Ian and Nora Fox, and CIT Astrid. Our old friend Mira also joined us for a few days! After playing name games with “banana balls” a few times, the Nuthatches have really got everybody’s names down!

Our camp is now next to Turkey Knoll, and it has some wonderful features! There’s a seesaw, a debris fort, a backpack hanger, and the shelter made with woven cattail. We also made a fire circle and reviewed the different sizes of firewood: wispies, pencils/pinkies, markers, and logs. The Nuthatches have already begun to explore all the corners of this new camp, but we haven’t found a good name yet. Let’s keep thinking about it! 

One of the best parts of this week was the time we spent finding, following, and identifying tracks in the snow. The Nuthatches found fox tracks, squirrel tracks, and Ian tracks. When we followed them, we found Ian! 

Do you know the name of the people who lived on and stewarded this land for centuries? We learned that they call themselves the Gayogo̱hó:nǫ’, which means People of the Great Swamp. We practiced the pronunciation of Gayogo̱hó:nǫ’, which you can learn by asking your preschooler or watching this video of Gayogo̱hó:nǫ’ educator Stephen Henhawk teaching some of the language. We reviewed the Three Respects and came up with some ways that we can take care of the land so that ten years in the future, the trees will be as big as our circle and there will still be children laughing and playing in the forest!

Friends collecting firewood.

An inspiration of Elisabeth’s during free play which several Nuthatches got involved in.

On our way to gather goldenrod in the meadow across the creek…

Here’s what we did with that goldenrod!

This is a reprint of a post from the Primitive Pursuits blog by Kirsten Wise from 2015

In September I had a chance to visit the Ithaca Forest Preschool just as the school year began.

Spiders. Fires. And monsters making ice cream.

Stranger things have happened at the Ithaca Forest Preschool. In a classroom where the walls are made of hills and the forest canopy provides windows to endless possibilities, learning and imagination run rampant.

In January 2014, Primitive Pursuits founder Tim Drake and team member Melissa Blake decided to start a preschool-aged nature education program. Blake says she didn’t want to wait until her son was six to get involved in the wilderness experiences that Primitive Pursuits was providing. By that March, a pilot program was up and running one day a week. Today the program runs five days a week and in two locations.

This fall, on the first program day, some kids already knew the lay of the land, having returned from a previous season. Others were just getting acclimated to the space, taking advice from the returners on how to create paint from sedimentary rocks and charcoal. When the time came to head down the trail, some chose a stony path along a creek, while others climbed over a log that spanned the leafy forest floor. A few asked mentors Melissa and Sean for help, or just saved the challenge for another day.

Later, they headed back to the creek to collect water for an activity. But once a toad was spotted, the task was all but forgotten to explore the differences between frogs and toads.

“There’s so much required of them,” Blake says as the children carry steel pots and rocks. Not only is it their first time without their parents, but for some, there is also the adjustment of being outside for hours at a time. However, as Blake has seen over the years, no matter the different exposure they have coming in, it’s evident that “young children naturally really want to be outside.”

In another area, a small tree had fallen across a tree trunk lying on the ground. Because of this, it could bounce. A boy belly-scooted along the tree and invited an instructor to come, too. They were going to “the ice cream store.” It was like Max’s imaginings in Where the Wild Things Are, but in reverse. Instead of the posts of Max’s bed turning into trees, the trunk began to morph into something industrial. Note to adult: regardless of where a child is, there is always another world to be found.

These preschoolers may not understand how unique their forest classroom is—however, it is evident that their skill-sets and level of comfort with nature surpasses many who are much older. Blake recalls a snowy spring break when there was a week-long program for teenagers near by. At first, many of the young adults seemed timid with their surroundings and uncomfortable in their lack of proper clothing. The youngsters, however, were embracing the cold and playing in the deep snow, bundled well in the lessons of winter preparedness.

At one point on Friday, one boy lingered back from the group and picked up a branch, thin and two feet long with a dangling limb.

“It’s a monster!” He whispered.

“Oh, no!” I gasped.

Quickly, he had to tell me about one of his favorite animals.

“I like bats,” he said, “because they eat frogs and mosquitos!”

I asked if he had ever seen a bat. He said no, but he knew they stayed together, “Like 1300 of them! In a big circle!”

I considered what a wild thought this was, for both of us.

A steep hill with a giant tree trunk providing a railing seemed to be the largest attraction of this forest classroom. A group of four kids began to climb, with a mentor following them. Within minutes, another boy notices them and races toward them, until he abruptly stops at the foot of the hill. He needs to make sure an instructor is there to watch him. Once he gets the okay, he speeds up the hill until he reaches the tricky part—where the mound becomes steep and the tree trunk is out of reach. There, he joins the other kids whose steps are becoming more deliberate, more thought-out. It takes each child a good three minutes to reach the top, listening to suggestions from their mentors and not getting upset when they fall. Some announce their delight before sliding back down.

But most are quiet, only giving you a smile that asks you to believe what they just did, because they barely believe it themselves.

At the end of each day, the kids have lots to tell. Genna Knight says when she picked up her son Rowan from class, “he was smiling and chatty and told stories the whole way home about his morning. He called both sets of grandparents and told them all about it.” When asked how many days he wanted to attend Forest Preschool, he replied, “Eight days a week!”

Add to this the fact that recess is shrinking and becoming more structured (one school she mentions in her blog has instituted mandatory lap-walking around the track at recess time to fight obesity); children today spend much less time in outdoor free play than they did in the 70’s or 80’s.

Did you know that, statistically, American children’s bones are getting more brittle? Hanscom relates this to a lack of weight-bearing exercise in early childhood. Remember the “bent arm hang”? Children today perform, on average, worse on the same national physical strength and agility tests we took in school. Clearly they are not getting enough of the kinds of physical activity we had. Increasing numbers of children are presenting with sensory development and sensory integration issues. Hanscom compares the state-of-the-art OT classroom with a natural environment and finds the classroom comparatively lacking in the right kinds of sensory stimuli.

She notes that a common treatment for certain types of auditory processing issues is to listen to pre-recorded birdsong; she maintains that listening to real birdsong, outdoors in a 360 degree environment, is far superior.

And she examines what’s wrong with modern playgrounds, both in terms of the types of physical and sensory stimulation they provide and the lack of opportunities for healthy risk taking.

Meet the Peace Superheroes! Feel Better Butterfly, Fine Words Fox, Peaceful Porcupine and Unity Unicorn (top to bottom).

Speaking of forest friends, remember those beautiful leaves the Nuthatches gifted us during week 2 of preschool? The Chickadees made a fire, melted beeswax in a pot and carefully dipped the leaves into the melted wax. Each child got to pick out several leaves to dip in the wax. Some picked out heart-shaped leaves, others chose ones with “teeth.” They left the leaves to dry and will be using them to make something to give to the Nuthatches in return! What do you think the Chickadees are going to make with the waxed leaves?

The Chickadees warming their hands around one of their first fires! The children learned about different sized firewood (“wispies, pencils and markers”) and how to be safe around fire. They did a great job!

The children stopped for a ride on the Horsey Log on their way to collect firewood.

Our mystery bag has held some exciting mysteries over the past two weeks! During Opening Circle, the mystery bag was passed around. Each child felt the outside of the bag, described what it felt like and gave a guess as to what they think it could be. “Bumpy,” “hard,” “a stick,” were some of the things said as the mystery bag was passed around the circle. After a loud drumroll the bag was opened and inside was a plant with small, golden flowers — “goldenrod!” some of the children exclaimed upon seeing it. And it was indeed goldenrod! The Chickadees went on a search for goldenrod and found some growing at the edge of the front field. They filled their baskets with the flowers and headed down to Trillium Camp where they made a fire and filled a pot with water. Next they put in goldenrod, purple aster flowers and white hand towels. The children made predictions about what color the hand towels were going to change to. After some stirring, the pot was placed on the fire where it started to bubble and turn yellow!

Sarah and a Chickadee stirring a pot filled with water, white hand towels, goldenrod and purple aster flowers. The children learned that goldenrod and purple aster flowers are in the same family (the Aster Family, Asteraceae).

Next week the Chickadees will use another plant to add purple to their hand towels — stay tuned to find out what it is! We’d like to leave you with this sweet moment of some Chickadees walking back up the path towards the red oak tree at the end of the day holding hands using a “friendship stick.”

Thank you for reading — we love sharing the adventures of preschool with you!

Jumping in puddles,
Sarah, Maddy & Hannah