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Monday 8am - 5pm Tuesday 8am - 5pm Wednesday 8am - 5pm Thursday 8am - 5pm Friday 8am - 5pm

http://ebbandflowforestschool.com/

Ebb and Flow Forest School, 532 Blue Lake Road, Brantford, ON (2026)

10/10/2026

What a fun-filled Friday with the seedlings! 🌱 Today, our theme was apples! 🍎🍏

As we entered the forest, we took our time easing back into the environment, discovering unique things to play with and explore. We then practised our fire-starting skills, which turned out to be quite the challenge! Our lint wasn’t staying lit long enough for the wood to catch fire. Educators were incredibly proud of the group’s determination and perseverance as the children continued working through something difficult. What a wonderful reminder that learning is all about the process! 🔥

As the afternoon warmed up, we cooked maitake mushrooms, also known as hen of the woods. We also explored apples through a hands-on lesson, working together to label a diagram of an apple cut in half. 🍎 The children shared wonderful stories about how they enjoy and use apples at home during the fall season. 🍂

To end our day, we enjoyed a special treat by slicing up apples and cooking them over the fire with cinnamon. The delicious smell filled the forest! 🍎✨

We are forever grateful for the opportunity to spend our days learning, growing, and connecting with nature in the forest. 🌲💚

10/09/2026

We had a wonderful day with our Wednesday Saplings. This group is kind, hard working, collaborative and creative. All of these characteristics were on full display this week as we tackled invasive buckthorn, cooked, and worked on carving projects.
A few of our students took it upon themselves to clear a large area of buckthorn. They worked hard as a pair, and included others who came to help take down the larger trees. It's heartwarming to see our students care so deeply for the Ebb and Flow forest.
Learning to cook for yourself is an incredibly important skill, so we intend to include different cooking experiences to our session. This week, we made bannock dough, shaped them into rounds and cooked them over the fire. The cooked bread was delicious, and made even better with a spoonful of homemade jam!
Several students foraged for hen of the woods and chicken of the woods mushrooms. We had a taste test and kept a tally of everyone's preference between the cooked mushrooms, with hen of the woods coming out on top.
We're also planning survival skills challenges, so today we dipped our toes in with a quick shelter building activity. Students were put into groups and given a tarp, four bungee cords, a rope, and a page showing different shelters and knots. We discussed what qualities make a good team and community member and they took that lesson with them as they cooperated with each other to successfully build their shelters.
We're so excited to see what else this group can do this session!

10/09/2026

Tuesday was the first of our PD Day camps and we sure packed in a ton of fun!
It was a chilly start to the day, so we began with a fire starting lesson. The group quickly figured out how to use the flint and steel and soon we had a toasty fire rocking to warm us up.
This creative crew made beautiful ribbon hangings using all kinds of ribbons and colours.
We took a walk to look for mushrooms and found several different varieties, including a stink horn which smelled pretty awful...
We tried to count the rings on a freshly cut oak tree that had sustained damage from the recent storm. We counted to at least 108 - that's an old tree!
It was also one of our campers birthdays so we celebrated by roasting marshmallows. It was a sweet way end to a sweet day!

10/08/2026

Today was another beautiful day in the forest, and our Seedlings embraced every opportunity to learn, explore, create, and connect with one another. It was a day filled with spirited group games, meaningful interactions, and moments that helped strengthen our sense of community and continue building our tribe.

We spent time practicing our stitching skills on a large piece of shared burlap. The children experimented with creating spider webs, patterns, and other designs while developing their fine-motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and patience. Working on a shared piece also encouraged collaboration as the children watched one another, exchanged ideas, and celebrated each other’s creations.

Our scientific curiosity was sparked through a milk experiment. Before beginning, the children were encouraged to make predictions about what they thought might happen and explain their reasoning. They practiced making educated guesses, observing the results, and thinking about cause and effect. This group continues to show a genuine enthusiasm for experimenting and exploring different areas of science.

After rereading Thingamabob, the children were invited to create their own Thingamabobs using clay, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes. It was wonderful to see how differently each child interpreted the idea.

Some of our Seedlings also challenged themselves with foam axe throwing, practicing their aim and working toward hitting the center of the target.

Throughout the day, we continued to encourage the children to lean into the things that spark their curiosity and interest, take healthy risks, practice their developing skills, and, most importantly, keep trying when something feels difficult. One of the most meaningful moments today was hearing peers encourage one another to keep going. Children offered suggestions, shared strategies, and supported their friends as they worked toward their desired outcomes.

These moments of encouragement are such an important part of building our tribe.

10/08/2026

Tuesday marked the first day of our PA Day Series at Ebb & Flow. What started off as a very chilly morning - turned out to be another gorgeous Fall day in the forest.

Everyone in this group was Ebb & Flow alumni from previous groups or summer camp which was great. After some quick introductions and safety reminders, students were able to take advantage of some open-ended exploration and creativity time. Many jumped right into simple, high-interest projects in the creation station, building forts, and even an impromptu game of forest baseball. Another small group got a nice fire started so we could warm ourselves and boil water for tea.

Later we went on a purposeful nature walk where we observed an old nurse log in the forest and all the life it supports. We saw Dog’s Nose and Dead Man’s Fingers among many other mushrooms and moss. We learned that a nurse log is an important part of a healthy forest. We identified some trees that are native to our forest by looking at the bark, leaves, and seeds they drop. We foraged some fallen white pine to make pine needle/raspberry tea to warm up. Did you know that pine needles are a great source of Vitamin C? Nature is truly medicine.

As part of our forest school community, this group learned about the invasive Buckthorn that can be detrimental to a healthy forest. Each student took turns using the ‘puller bear’ to help pull out some of the plants by the roots. This will allow more sunlight into those areas and a clear space for new life to grow and keep our forest healthy and vibrant.

Looking forward to seeing this group again in November for our 2nd day in the PA Day Series!

10/06/2026

Our Wednesday Saplings had yet another great day together. Our small community of forest learners is growing strong and more and more united as we continue to talk about the value of community. Today was this crew’s turn to work on removing the Buckthorn and they all worked hard at it.

Some of our discussions today were about friendship, community, self regulation and gratitude. This generation seems to intuitively understand the value of these concepts as our talks together are full of authentic contributions and insights.

Our music class today was about rhythm as the next step after beat. After practicing some rhythms we worked in small groups to put two rhythms to a steady beat. We will continue on this next week as we learn how to structure music together. Karaoke was next and it seems we will have many more sessions to come as we ran out of time before everyone who was interested had a chance to sing!

10/04/2026

Fall was definitely upon us Friday morning with cooler, damp weather in the forest. This did not stop our Friday Seedlings from having a great day outside all day!

We were greeted by some Crows when we arrived so we used the Merlin Bird ID app to call to them and communicate back and forth. Later we did the same with a lone Bluejay. The children were pretty amazed and wondered what the birds might be trying to tell us.

During some open-ended time, children eagerly explored the new mud kitchen. Some decided to make a sweet treat that would attract a bear to their pretend bear trap. Existing forts were explored and inspired some building ideas for new forts. Others choose independent activities or small projects of their own.

Back at the Fire Circle, we listened to the ‘Leaf Man’ story and then collected fallen leaves around Survivor yurt. We noticed and discussed the various sizes, colours, similarities and differences. We used the collected leaves to make or own creations inspired by the story. Later on we used those same leaves to paint the underside and make leaf stamp prints. This was definitely a big hit with this group. Some even chose to fold their page in half a create some beautiful symmetry.

As a scaffold from last week, we re-visited basic fire-starting skills with a conversation about tools, safety, and steps to start a small lint fire. They remembered the importance of the magnesium shavings to really achieve success. They show patience and perseverance and were eventually rewarded. In a world full of instant gratification rewards for children - it’s nice to see them show grit, determination, and see a challenging task through to completion.

Let’s see what adventures we get up to next week with this crew……..stay tuned. 🌱

10/02/2026

Our Wednesday Saplings are such a sweet, caring and capable bunch of forest learners!

We finished our community building bees and man oh man they are cute! Our discussion surrounding community was full of insightful and interesting thoughts and connections. This lesson paralleled well with our lesson on land stewardship and caring and connecting with the land. We made clay hearts for our Sitspot trees as a promise to continue to care for the land as it gives us everything we have and everything we need to survive and thrive. Later we worked together as a community to pull out the invasive buckthorn before it spreads further. As we work together on the land we build a deeper connection with each other and the forest. What a great day!

10/01/2026

What another gorgeous fall day in the forest for our Wednesday Seedling crew! Mother Nature continues to bless us with phenomenal weather as we head into October.

Our morning was filled with child-led curiosity and wonder which led to imaginative games, mud kitchen creations and natural discoveries. As we learn more about this group and their individual and collective interests - facilitators are able to gear the learning to those high-interest areas.

In honour of National Truth & Reconciliation Day, we listened to a Cree story ‘My Heart Fills With Happiness.’ We looked in a mirror, saw our reflection and shared what makes each of us happy. We acknowledged that every child matters and that every child deserves to be a child and be happy. Some children extended this by decorating orange hearts using stamps and adding what makes them happy. Others used the mirrors to see their reflection and used natural loose parts to make a self-portrait using large wood cookies.

There is something about Wednesdays and large group co-operative play and these Seedlings are doing a fabulous job. Often times with large groups of varying ages, different personalities and interests conflict can be inevitable. However, this group did such an amazing job with a giant marathon game of freeze tag that made the facilitators so proud. Inclusion, invitations to play, words of encouragement could all be seen and heard during game play.

We will definitely continue to nurture and foster this natural inclination towards large group games and challenges in the coming weeks!

09/30/2026

Another amazing day in the books for our Oaks! We finished our lesson on community and our community sticks looked amazing! As we tied them together the message of unity, cooperation and belonging really hit home. After many discussions on the contributing factors in a healthy community we each added our personal values to the group and together we became stronger! This led nicely into a lesson on land stewardship within the Ebb and Flow forest where we each contributed to pulling out the invasive Buckthorn. Working together brings us closer together!!

There are many amazing projects on the go in this crew of eager learners. The students are learning the value of hard work and perseverance as they create together in the forest.

We are amazed at how well this group is leading with kindness and acceptance, making this a safe space to be ourselves. A refuge in a busy and demanding world is essential to our healthy development. This is a place where we develop the confidence, resilience and creative thinking skills that will help us lead happy and fruitful lives!

Ebb and Flow Forest School

10/10/2026

10/09/2026

10/09/2026

10/08/2026

10/08/2026

10/06/2026

10/04/2026

10/02/2026

10/01/2026

09/30/2026

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Monday	8am - 5pm
Tuesday	8am - 5pm
Wednesday	8am - 5pm
Thursday	8am - 5pm
Friday	8am - 5pm