Why You Should Consider Enrolling your Child in “Forest Play”
Prior to having kids, I had heard about Forest Play and secretly wished there was an adult version. Now that I have a 2-year-old, I get to register for the Parented Program, act cool and pretend it’s all for Indy’s benefit.
All jokes aside, we had the pleasure of interviewing Heidi Widmer (a former Forest Play Assistant Leader) to learn more about the Canmore-based nature program.
Heidi is a born-and-raised Bow Valley local who spends much of her time exploring the natural world on her cross-country skis, mountain bike or hiking boots. She freshly completed her Masters in Environmental Education and Communication through Royal Road University. Her major research project supported by national non-profit, Take Me Outside, explored the effects nature connection practices can have on teacher well-being. Although she has recently moved on to a position with the Biosphere Institute as an Environmental Educator (working with K-12 students and teachers in Bow Valley schools), her curiosity for the natural world sparked through Forest Play will remain with her.
What is Forest Play?
Forest Play is an outdoor nature connection program for children aged 2-12 based in Canmore, Alberta. The private programming runs exclusively outdoors and is intentionally designed to foster personal growth and learning through child-led curiosity. In 2011, Director Dave Verhulst co-founded the program. Think: children learning through play in snowsuits and in a canvas wall tent with a wood-fired stove in the winter and in sunhats or beneath spruce trees in the summer! Dictated by the weather, programs are run in the forests of the Canmore Nordic Centre Provincial Park and Quarry Lake Park.
Forest Play is informed by the Forest Schools Canada philosophy that emphasizes the need for risky outdoor play. Programs are designed around the Natural Learning Cycle which is a pattern based on intrinsic rhythms that helps leaders gauge when different types of learning should occur (e.g. high-energy games for learning happen earlier in the day and reflection happens later in the day).
Forest Play is not a school nor a daycare yet learning and childcare both occur! If you were to try and fit the program in a ‘box’, it could be roughly defined as a recreation program, yet the intention and people behind the programming is what sets it apart. The program leaders are mentors for the children which instantly invites authenticity to the program; Each leader truly cares about the long-term, holistic development of each child.
What specific programs does Forest Play offer?
The programs below are offered September-June. Summer camps are 5-day programs offered in July and August.
2-3 Year Olds: The “Parented Program” is a 2-hour morning session (9 a.m. to 11 a.m.) once a week for children ages 2-3 years old in which one of the parents attends alongside. Think: wandering, stories and singing in the forest!
4-6 Year Olds: this program typically runs Monday to Friday and ranges from 4 to 6 hours (either 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. or 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.). The program is not affiliated with a school, however, some parents will complement their child’s kindergarten and/or childcare schedule with a Forest Play day and on occasion, completely replace Kindergarten with Forest Play. According to the School Act, formal school is not mandatory until 6 years old in Alberta. I think it’s important to mention the mandatory age so that parents know they have the option to curate a learning schedule that works for their child/ren’s needs.
6-12 Year Olds: Also referred to as “Forest Fridays”, this program is offered as half-day Fridays to align with the public school calendar, running from 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. The children in this program enjoy it because there is more fire-lighting, knife-carving and bigger explorations involved!
See the full schedule here.
What is the Forest Play approach?
The Forest Play programming is intentionally developed around the Natural Learning Cycle. Informed by over 25 years of experience in the field of environmental education, this teaching philosophy was coined by Jon Young, Evan McGown and Ellen Haas (and others of the 8 Shields Institute out of Duvall, Washington) as published in Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature.
In the Natural Learning Cycle model, self-awareness, social skills and developing a relationship with one’s surroundings happens because the act of teaching responds to patterns found in the natural world.
Although we may forget or perhaps ignore, it is a human response to feel inspired and energized in that moment before the sun crests the mountains, for example, and lethargic or needing a break in the afternoon hours. The learning model therefore aligns with these energies and learning inclinations so the teachings from the natural world happen intuitively and effortlessly - with a high emphasis on play!
What can my child expect from the Forest Play experience?
The child programs often begin with a high-energy running game or an exploratory game of some sort. If it is a high-energy game, it is often initially organized around a theme related to bird, mammal, plant, weather system or some combination of all of the above!
The “Parented Program” typically begins with an exploratory activity that invites sensory awareness. For example, this activity might include a texture scavenger hunt for both parent and child to find something smooth, wet, sticky, cold, warm, rough, etc. The idea being that the opening activity inspires curiosity and invites exploration.
Following this activity, the group circles up for “The Gratitude Address”. This particular model is informed by the ‘words that come before all else’ of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois 6 Nations) peoples and their instruction to the human world for how to live in right relations with the world. The routine is described in Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature published in 2015 yet the practice of expressing gratitude is pancultural and timeless.
The gratitude routine at Forest Play takes on many variations but remains solid in its intent to pay attention to the things we appreciate, feel energized by or are noticing in the moment. Expressing gratitude through song, actions or words is a grounding practice for any and all ages and is fundamental to the humble approach that Forest Play programs and the leaders embody.
After “The Gratitude Address”, the day unfolds as a combination of what the immediate natural world offers as a lesson (think: bursting wild strawberries or collaborating on building the biggest snowball), the children’s curiosities and the general theme of the program.
The groups range in size from 6 to 24 children, while always maintaining a minimum 6:1 child-to-leader ratio. The staff then facilitate the direction of the program by combining weather, group needs and individual child curiosities to ignite games and activities full of animal forms, shelter building, hiding, seeking, wandering, carving, animal tracking, mapping, fire-building, yarn crafts, knot-tying, gathering wild edibles or any combination of these and more!
Somewhere around the mid-part of the program, the group gathers to listen to an oral story (composed by one of the leaders) while munching on their lunch. The later part of the program entails more play and exploration before gathering for wild tea (the children often help harvest the ingredients to steep in a thermos of hot water) and rounding out the day with a shared memory.
What makes Forest Play so unique?
Part of what sets Forest Play apart from other children’s program offerings in Canmore, is that it is outdoors year-round and emphasizes personal-growth and child-led free play.
Forest Play’s emphasis on play does not exclude nor replace the opportunity for learning. Quite the opposite. The role of the leader is to balance directed activities with room for children to play safely in a way that allows them to explore and experiment with their relationships and the world.
As educator and author Peter Gray explains in Free to Learn, “when children play imaginative games together, they do more than exercise their imagination. They enact roles, and in doing so they exercise their capacities to behave in accordance with shared conceptions of what is or is not appropriate. They also practice the art of negotiation. Getting along and making agreements with others are surely among the most valuable of human survival skills.”
The Forest Play experience allows room for children to play, fumble, attempt, succeed and explore as a means to foster independence, compassion, creativity, perseverance and pure joy. It is thanks to swimming in the cold creek, digging a tunnel in the dirt or dancing with friends in the rain that the children come to discover and embrace their own gifts because they understand the connective language between themselves and the natural world.
“Do you remember learning your mother tongue? Do you remember cooing, babbling and squawking out sounds? What about the extreme frustration that came with learning how to ask for one more bite of those dang mashed bananas? I don’t recall this early learning and frustration but my mind and body certainly do. I’m happy to say I can now request more mashed bananas without too much grief! Although it may not be stored as a memory, we learn to speak by listening to the loving rhythm of a parent’s voice, the slow comfort of a grandparent’s song, the playful intonations of the neighbourhood children and absorbing any sensory communication accessible. For the children of Forest Play, learning the language of the natural world happens through immersive experiences in much the same way many of us learned our first language.”