A Day in the Woods

No two days are alike at Foxtail, really, but we do have a rhythm. Our movements fluctuate from day-to-day e.g. instead of hiking to the back forest early in the morning, we may amble to the pond or creek, bake mud cakes, sled, or climb in confidence! Snack and lunch demand a little less flexibility, as hungers and moods are close companions.

8:45 - 10: 15 / Chores, Circles, and Free Play

Chores

Each child, every day, enacts the routine of keeping responsibility for their things and accountability to their place: they place lunch and water into their lodgings, hang their backpack, water the raised beds, buddy-bundle the fire, and volunteer for special projects . These are small potatoes in our world, but they alert children to the needs of others while they themselves feel needed. These tasks establish an expectation to contribute before settling into their own endeavors.

Circles

For 5-10 minutes, we try and foster social norms amongst adults and peers with morning greetings, wakeful thoughts and feelings, and mindful intentions (chiefly theirs) for the day. This is where we can practice deep listening and cement friendships forged during the energetic hours of the day. We’re slowly incorporating aspects of the Kindness Curriculum from the Center for Healthy Minds (University of Wisconsin-Madison), priming the pumps for a day of emotional attunement and loving-compassion.

the wheel turns (Free Play)

Less bee-line and more slither, we slow-tail it to the far woods and stop to take in curiosities, negotiate conflicts with each other and the inflexible stubbornness of branches and boulders in unscripted environments, stretch our patience through tired legs and empty bellies, and build conversations through observations (children use more advanced language in smaller groups and when engaged in compelling curiosities).

10:15 - 12:15 / Snacks, Projects, Campus hikes

snacks

We provide an organic, unprocessed snack every day, including the kids in its collection and dissemination to strengthen motor skills and patience; most importantly, these are key moments to build those pre-academic capacities (numeracy, causal reasoning, etc.) executive function capacities e.g. practicing inhibitory control when another student is selected to help with snack, or maintaining cognitive flexibility when indoor winter mores require a shift from outdoor modes of play.

projects

Special projects merit prolonged attention and continuity. This might be a casual visit to a familiar “sit spot” or personally-found “house”, a building project with dead logs & limbs, or a semester-long natural first aid kit with various salves, balms, etc. that feature the richness of regional biology and instill active vocabularies and feelings of place.

12:15 - 1:00 / Lunch, Reflection, & Farewells*!

lunch

Bringing their own lunch, children have open conversation and learn to share common space for the common weal, outdoors during non-winter months, rain or shine. We generally read 1-2 books and solicit thoughts and inquiries about these stories to build cognitive sequences and non-DI foundations of reading e.g. keen listening, furthered through phonemic awareness, is the groundwork of literacy development.

reflection

During the latter part of lunch, we focus our attention on the elapsed day and practice internalizing reflections and “good practices” into long-term behavioral habits. This is also where we as educators can convey our appreciations and honest frustrations from the day, strengthening our bond with them as caregivers.

Final plays & Farewells

*For those students attending half days, we may have 5-10 minutes remaining—avoiding the surprise of abrupt endings, a fair and clear warning helps us build closure in conversation, meander to the cabin to collect our belongings, and finish the day together with a final “hands-in.”

1:00 - 3:00 / *Rest, Free Play, Project Extension

Rest

*For those attending full days, a piece of time in the afternoon is reserved for rest, or down-time. The science behind sleep increasingly shows its salutary effects for children’s health. Even rest, keeping awake, aids in memory consolidation which contributes to long-term internalization of memory. For many kids, rest is a synonym for boredom, that ancient virtue that leads to resourcefulness & self-sufficiency. And in true Scandinavian fashion, we rest outside, hammocked in the warmer months and bundled up in mummy bags for the colder ones.

Free Play

Our extended days afford the full-throated announcement of play and its myriad dividends: healthier physical development, opportunities for emotional regulation, the integration of self with the desires of others, greater plasticity in solving problems and finding solutions, and the embrace of movement and memory as bedfellows. Greater opportunities exist here for competence through tool usage and a growing engagement with the hands-on wisdom of their material environments.

project extension

A longer day ensures that special projects and children-led ambitions can be fleshed out, trialled and tinkered, with the watchful scaffolding of an adult to encourage children to ask more questions, to toggle between alternatives, to build trust with peers and mentors, and feel empowered through persistence.

A Year in the Woods

Just south of latitude 48º, northwest Montana has big summers and winters, with an autumn and spring playing the supporting cast. On the coldest and hottest of days, beauty refuses to hide: icicles are not markers of misery, but ice carrots more properly champed on and crunched; cracked mud from desiccating heat creates spaces for a palisade guarding a “Kingdom of Ants.” The secret dens settled in early summer fill up with snow come winter, but the conversations, dramas, and set pieces travel on in their authors.

Below are vignettes for each of our three sessions at Foxtail: Late Summer/Fall, Late Winter/Spring, and Summer. Certain places, games, objects, and fixations overlap across different seasons, but the central challenge for kids is present all year: this wild and bewildering place renews itself every dusk and dawn, a reflection children see in themselves.

late summer/fall

The air is ripe to make leaf prints with our friends, play superheroes on the old cottonwood, and figure our way out of a stretch of boredom…or maybe see what laying in the stiff grass is like. The path to the woods has been trampled by the children and easier to find. We don’t hear the same birds anymore. The potion ingredients are easier to grind now.

late winter/spring

Slipping off our “Spider Family Web” or “Pirate Ship” lacking the balance and/or coordination, we seek encouragement from others to find the resilience to try again. Sledding is truly the mostest fun, as Pooh might say. Devising skis from scrap lumber and prototyping catapult ramps is the fun way to critically think and invent. Snowshoes broaden our range and let us stalk the stories hidden in tracks.

summer

This is when the “loose parts” see the most fresh air. Running through tall grass and learning how to navigate rules and reconcile impulses is a chief obstacle. We often see “ancient writings” underneath the fallen shields of bark. The pond & stream refresh our sweaty feet on sweltering days. The Forest Theater short-runs plays and the best narrative dramas this side of the tracks!