Field and Forest - From a Child's Eyes...

Some of us call it “hiking school’ but it is really known as the Field and Forest Nature School.  It was our first day at the forest and after some cheerful good-byes to our parents we were off to the woods.

After placing bright orange ribbons around the forest area (we are not to go past these ribbons) the teachers gathered us for a few instructions.

These instructions included directions on how, when and where to wash our hands.  We all raced over to Mr. Bordush who was figuring out a way to hang the hand washing bucket by a tree.  There was a bit of shoving and pushing as we all eagerly wanted to try out this new hand washing technique.  We will get better at taking turns as we practice more.

Then we discovered a huge pile of rocks, they seemed a bit more like mountains to us.  Wow, were these ever cool

In and around these rock, which were great for climbing and playing hide and seek, we also found some branches.  Moving them was really hard work but we are tough Canadian children so no problem.

There is so much to see and do including getting to know our wonderful group leaders.  Mr. Bordush is really fun to have around, he has lots of energy.

Mrs. Freeman joined us today.  She usually works in the office so we were really pleased to see her out in the woods.  I think she really liked it.  Here we are talking about some berries we found.  Kyle from the Living Prairie Museum told us not to eat any of the berries here so don’t worry, we have no plans on eating these.

We stayed at the rock pile for a long time.  The Prairie breeze was blowing, the sky was so blue and the clouds were very interesting too.  We even spent some time looking for animals in the clouds.  Mr. Blatz (he took all these pictures) thought he could see a sea horse.  We had a nice conversation about this interesting creature.

There we so many things to take in.  The leaders were all very helpful in explaining things and sharing in our wonder and excitement with each new discovery.  Mrs. Freeman has a really nice way of showing her excitement, don’t you think?

Sticks became weapons and before you know it we were off on a wild adventure.

Sometimes we just sit with friends and watch.  That is a special time as well.

Did we talk about the rocks yet?  They really were special and some of us were  confident enough to stand on the very tallest one.  It took some arm waving to stay up there, especially when the wind was blowing against us.

The prairie grasses beside the forest are also a very special.  These grasses help us to get the feel of what it is to be living in the Prairies.  They are also a great place to make friends.

Eventually we left the rocks and moved to other areas.  We climbed a tree “way over there, it was the biggest tree in the whole world”. Mr. Bordush climbed higher than us but we got up really, really high.  It was so high “we could see everything from there… we could see the whole universe”.

You just can’t get enough of this tree climbing stuff, you know!

Then Talia from Global news came with her TV camera and microphone and talked to our teachers.  She also wanted to talk to some of us kids but we were still too busy to be very interested.  Eventually one of the boys did chat with her.  She had lots of questions, but she was really nice and crouched down to our level which made our friend very comfortable, so he had lots to tell her.

Just about at this time someone found this really cool wasp nest in the bush.  It was really interesting.

Have you ever wondered how the wasps make such an interesting home for themselves?  Well, we wondered and so Mrs. Crockett our head teacher brought out her book about all the animals and plants you will find in the Prairies and we looked in the book and she read to us the part about how they build their nest.

“Hey look” shouts one of our friends, as he discovers a lady bug on our eating blanket.  We count and find out it has 6 spots on it.  We played with this lady bug a long time.  It spread out its wings (did you know they have wings) and that was very cool too.

Well before you know it our time was done and we loaded up our supply wagon and headed back to meet our families.  Here is a picture of most of the group including some of our family members.  Some had to leave early and one of us just didn’t get back in time for the picture, but we are a great adventurous looking group don’t you think.  We love our teachers including Ms. Cottrell who is very good at staying out of most pictures including this one!

I hope you enjoyed these pictures, they are meant to help you be a part of this exciting time.  Ask us about the things you see here, we have lots to tell you.  Oh yes, it is really Mr. Blatz who is doing this writing for us, but he is kind of like a big kid so we think he will represent us well.