Enki in the wild

Easter was cause to celebrate all the new that is coming our way, including our shared homeschooling journey with the Eamonn family.  We shared a little story and ceremony, along with an Easter egg hunt.

The Eamonn family has been our partner in Forest School.  It is awesome, in the truest sense of the word, to share a love of child-led explorations in wilderness with another family.  It isn’t  easy to find someone who will bundle up and brave snow, 30 mph winds, and outfitting a troupe of  kiddos for a romp in the woods,  but it always makes for golden times.

rivercrossing

When we get into the wild, we  follow the kiddos lead, letting their imaginations carry them wherever they will.  We try not to direct, but we do encourage  exploration which feeds their imagination and their bodies.  Stories are told,  songs are sung,  and the kids reenact favorite plots and craft new tales to fit their environment.

caving

mountain lions on the lookout

sawing just because

It is pure magic.

forest school: ephemeral building

Our journey to the forest took on a different tone today. With some of the “big” kids missing, we put our construction efforts on hold for a bit to do some exploring. Although with E-man as company, building is a reoccurring theme. We can’t ever really put construction on hold. As we left our forest school space, we traveled with the river, through a narrow valley. It was a magical place that invited exploration. The forest floor, upon close inspection, was covered in moss and pine cones from the spruce, firs and pines–amazingly all present in this small valley

In a little grove of Aspen we paused for a bit to just be in the forest. Industrious E-man was quick to develop a wall-building project (I think he must be kindred spirits with beavers), which, he explained, was to protect the trees from hikers. The wall, however, was in the middle of the trail, not a place to leave a wall. Equally engrossed in the idea of the outcome as the process, I was unsure how I would convince him to dismantle the wall before our departure. While navigating this touchy issue I called upon the work of Andrew Goldsworthy . The result: “ephemeral building”. Build it, capture it, dismantle it. And that is what we did. Here is the capture phase, just before the dismantling phase.

This type of construction is well suited to our environs. Leave No Trace is serious business in the National Park, where we do most of our wandering.

The camera captured E-man’s desire to capture the forest. On our way up the trail we came across a little chickaree busy at work doing what chicakrees do so well. Below, his stash of pine cones as well as the aftermath of his work.

The other joy of exploring outside the National Park: we came home with pockets full of forest tidbits to investigate this week.

I hope you will find some time to wander in the forest this week, too.

first day in the forest

A group of families here in Estes Park has come together with the intention of exploring the Waldkindergarten idea and, perhaps, to extend the experience beyond the very young. We are blessed to live in a community that is surrounded by wilderness and is rich with people that value wilderness as integral to their lives. It is lovely to come together with other families around the theme of connecting with nature and to think about how this experience will shape our future.

We ventured out this week to establish our “magical place”. The big’ns lead us all in a very focused and enthusiastic gathering of timber for our future building projects. It was remarkable to see how easily even the tiniest people in our group, only 2 years old, eagerly and purposefully joined in. It is clear that this collective forest schooling experience will not only nurture each child’s individual relationship with nature, but will also provide a meaningful context for our children to explore how each individual’s contributions, the group’s cooperative efforts and an ethic of thinking for the whole group will shape an authentic community experience.

a forest school

In this month’s issue of Mothering magazine, Andrea Mills, shares an inspiring account of her children’s preschool experience at a Waldkidergarten in Germany. Waldkindergarten literally translates (I think, correct me if I am wrong) as a forest children’s garden, which is a lovely metaphor for this early-childhood program that nurtures children’s souls, you guessed it, in the forest. Envision children gathering at the forest edge for a journey to their “classroom”, a dedicated forest space that has been created from the forest itself to provide all the little waldkinders need: a place to build fire for cooking and warmth, benches and shelters for gathering together, and playthings and art supplies that are fashioned from the bounty that Mother Nature so aptly supplies. And the curriculum, well there isn’t one, other than what the children provide in their innate curiosity to observe, question, imagine, construct and explore. Yup, that’s it. A forest, some children, and some really good winter clothes. This is school, after all. It goes on in the rain, snow, sleet and sun.

Mills writes, “the philosophy is that children learn best when they are able to develop creatively in the the most open and natural setting: the outdoors. Direct teaching is minimal, in the belief that children who are permitted to freely explore nature’s resources will naturally develop the skills they will later need for more formal schooling.”

I couldn’t agree more, but I think this runs much deeper than setting kids up with the skills that they need later in life. This experience is all about setting all of us up for what we need to exist later in life: a sustainable future in which our human needs are seamlessly intertwined with the needs of the earth. There is no doubt that such a future will require us to make important choices. It is these little forest children who will propel us through many of these changes. Sure we want them prepared intellectually with the knowledge and skills a sustainable future will require. But more importantly we need our children to value the earth and all of its inhabitants as an integral part of their being and, conversely, we need our children to recognize themselves as an integral part of the earth. No matter how impassioned the teacher, kids aren’t going to learn that in textbooks or lab experiments, or even through scientific analysis of the natural world. That kind of learning happens only through being alive and being free in the wild without an agenda, where the only thing that matters is presence. Categorization is irrelevant, boundaries disappear and a connection is made that is so deep that it will be protected, at all costs, regardless of the quality of science education that follows. But it has to happen now. And it has to happen with the youngest of our young people, those who are so new to their notion of self that the earth is folded into the fabric of their being.

This is an encouraging thought, a blissful way to plan for our future. This is a call to get out in the wild with a child and to get out of the way. Do nothing but observe, support and encourage. And then do it again the next day and the day after that. Go be free in the wild!