Forest Tensions
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Playing with playing
Understanding play as a field of messy, uneven relationships suggests a kind of awkward dynamic tactile/imaginary shape that may be hard to capture but is attractive to think with. I imagine playing coming of Barad’s (2015) queer self-birth: “out of chaos and void, tohu v’vohu [tohu vavohu], an echo, a diffracted/differentiating/différancing murmuring, <a…> repetition without sameness” (p. 393). Play is not unknown, but neither is it striving for my definition. It is a relationship that binds bodies, things and moments. It is shaped by us, and shapes us. Play produces materiality and meaning simultaneously. It’s not a means of producing healthier bodies, stronger arms or better social skills. It’s a…
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Muddling the chronology
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Muddling the chronology
Freedom is here not linked to human volition, nor is it allied to internationality or agency. Freedom is instead allied to the in-act, to the decisional force of movement-moving, to the agencement that opens the event to the fullness of its potential. Freedom is how the event expresses its complexity, in the event. Manning, 2016, p.23 The dock in Woodchip Forest offers precisely the kind of vantage point that lends itself to beautiful nature photography. It is also entirely ignored by children, who lay on their bellies at the edge of the dock to poke at the iced-over wooden planks. After a few minutes, the children move from the dock…
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Playing with playing
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Cardboard Marks On The World
We revisit cardboard in considering how we personally engage with cardboard in the community. Outside of these moments in program what does cardboard look like in our lives? “It comes out every Tuesday to be collected. It’s recycled.” “it comes into my home carrying everything, food, materials, furniture.” “It is a universal shipping material.” “It holds my milk, my eggs, my new TV.” We discussed the complicated, and sometimes troubling nature of cardboard. It led us to ask how we could include community in this dialogue? The constant sounds of development around us remind us that our immediate neighbourhood is changing as new pavements, building and human urban sprawl engulf…
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Witnesses to a Diminished Forest
During the transitory space between winter and spring, we (two educators and myself), wandered toward the forest with a small group of seven children, only to realize that the forest had been disconcertingly diminished, seemingly overnight. Slowly the realization of the destruction of a patch of trees dawned on the children as they starred quizzically at the barren space of filled with only jagged stumps where the tall trees once stood. Many of the children moved around to examine the tree stumps seemingly awestruck by this radical transformation of a once familiar space. There were questions of where the trees went and what happened to them. It was quickly understood…
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Encounters with the Bunnies
he group is familiar with the fallen tree trunk that lies on the forest floor. Over the last few months, they have returned to it repeatedly in search of the bunnies, or at least the tracks they leave behind. Some children decide to follow that log again and begin to tell me about that particular day they spotted the bunnies. We walk through the same path they had followed many times before. As we walk along, many narratives unfold; some of them about rabbit tracks and rabbit poop. They wonder why today we do not see any tracks or poop. As we move, they decide to uncover some ice and…
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Encountering the Transformed Forest and the “Lakes” Within
As we left the center for our walk in the forest, we could already see, looking from the distance, it would be a new and transformed forest. The temperatures have risen, a 15 degrees increase since our last forest visit. As we arrived at the slope, our challenge was not to move across the snow but to keep our feet away from the mud as Laura, the educator, requested we keep our steps on the grass. When we got up there, we saw this time we had to choose our way to get into the forest as large puddles covered the usual path. We passed one such puddle in our…
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Inside-Outside Intersections: A Cow is Sheltered From the Storm
As inclement weather is upon us, our walk to the forest was not possible, and for the day we had to be inside the classroom. Through the glass, we could see the wind carrying the snow, and even when we were constricted to the inside space, the outside was present in children’s questions and curious observations. Some of us wondered if it was indeed as cold as others stated and tried to feel it through the glass hoping for some of this wind to break through any possible holes. A group of children plans and builds a complex structure, and as we interact, I discover that they try to protect…
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The Hollowed Log
November 16 Today we walked to the forest. One child offered us a question that inspired our forest visit: Where does charcoal live? The walk to the forest was especially exciting: the first snow of the season! The children are unusually aware of their surroundings because everything looks different with the snow.
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Where does the charcoal live?
November 16, 2018 It all started with a question: Where does the charcoal live? On a cold, snowy November day, the children and educators decide to walk to the forest and venture on a quest looking for charcoal. The children scamper around the forest paths with big smiles on their faces, oblivious to the cold. They’re so well wrapped up in thermal and waterproof layers and so engaged with their outdoor experience, they seem to hardly notice the weather. Snow covers the forest floor in layers. As the children walk up the trail, they come upon a tree that fell a few months ago. We know this trunk. We visited…
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Lines & Charcoal
November 2 Lines—the children have noticed that charcoal easily makes lines. Perhaps it is the intensity of the lines charcoal makes that fascinates the children. Perhaps it is the power of lines themselves that keeps the children engaged? A few moments tell us that lines are not just marks on paper. It seems as if the lines have come alive for the children. A child shares a line with me tracing a thick charcoal mark on the paper that starts where he is and ends on my foot (about a metre away from him). I immediately pass the line back to the child who quickly marks another long, thick line…
