NatureMinded

“It doesn´t rain in our forest” – visit to forest school in Tammela, Finland

Finland is one of those countries, where the forest school movement has been rising in popularity in the recent years. In the last 10 years, some 30 forest schools have been established. Most of these are pre-schools that cater for 5-6-year-olds, who spend most days of the week or the most hours of the day at a specific, dedicated natural area, usually a forest.

Tammela forest pre-school school is one of these schools.

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A bit before 9 am I arrive at the school where the group is preparing to leave. The kids leave the daycare and kindergarten facilities around 9.00 Tuesday through Friday, and they stay to play, learn, eat and move around in the forest until 12.30 when they walk back to the school. In the afternoon the kids either stay at school or are picked up by parents, grandparents or the school taxi. Mondays are reserved for tasks that require a computer or writing and that would be more difficult to accomplish outside.

The walk to the forest school is approximately 1 km, and it gives the kids a good practice about traffic safety, as they have to walk next to the road.

The kids arrive to the main school building with their outdoor gear (weather fitting clothes, shoes and head wear) on. The parents have been well informed at the start of the year, they have visited the site to see what their kids will be up against and have equipped their 5-6-year-olds well. That´s important, as cold and wet can cripple the play.They put on their yellow reflector vests to be more visible on their walk. The kids are accompanied to the forest by kindergarten teacher Mia Kaseva, who has just started her first year in the forest, though not her first year in the kindergarten, Leena Vasama, the brain and heart behind this forest preschool, and an intern.

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The kids grab some things they need at the forest school site, and start their walk in a row.

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As we arrive to the forest, the kids take out their reflector vests and backpacks and hang them in a small wooden shelter at the entrance of the forest school site. Rather than allowing the kids to run around free immediately, the teachers have a message to share with them. It turns out, the teachers have witnessed a few “border crossovers” the day before and now it´s time to go through the forest school borders once again. According to Leena, this happens only at the beginning of the year, when the kids are not yet used to the border markings. Later on, they can remove the markings as everyone knows and obeys the borders.

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The kids are free to take off to their favorite activities – playtime! Most kids run to grab the shovels. Leena tells me that until last year, they didn’t have any “toys” at the site. The saws, knives, hammers, and other tools were their only equipment which were used to build and repair, also by the children. The kids were fine without the toys and used sticks and stones and other natural materials that were molded by their imagination.

There are altogether 11 kids playing around the area. As for the ideal number of children, Leena has a quick answer. Ten is perfect, 11, maybe 12, is doable but any more makes it difficult to keep an eye on the kids and to ensure their safety, as well as to fit them in the “Himmeli”, their little shelter house where they spend some time in the winter months when it is really cold (somewhere below minus 20 degrees Celcius).

IMG_20160825_112814 The forest school has been popular from the beginning. There has been 17 kids some years ago, even 19 kids, but that was clearly too many. However, this year, there are only 11 kids. Though for the forest school this is a perfect amount of children, Leena is worried. There´s been a dramatic drop in birthrate in the recent years in Tammela and the municipality is seeing more people leave (move or die) than be born.

The school has been through some difficulties of their own. When the forest pre-school first started in 2009, the shelter they had for them was an old army tent fit for many people. However, when the Tammela preschool got a new building in a new location, the forest preschool was in jeopardy as there was no nearby forest next to the new school to accommodate the schools forest class. However, Leena didn’t let the idea die but went around scoping out possible locations near the school, and asking the landowners for their consent. And she managed to find a spot at the border of three different landowners. Luckily, all of the landowners were willing to give the parcel for free for the use of the school for a number of years. However, since the headmaster had other priorities than keeping the forest pre-school going, no funds were made available for establishing a new forest school. Leena mobilized the board of the parents, the local entrepreneurs and finally was able to raise enough money and materials to build a winter warm shelter which was erected with the help of the parents, a composting toilet and a laavu-shelter for year round daily use.

And finally, when everything was set up and everything was running well, the school is now threatened by too few students.

IMG_20160825_092436 — Donors of materials are listed on the wall of Himmeli

After some playtime, it´s time to gather the kids for a morning snack – some bread with butter and a drink of water. They eat this in the laavu and then start discussing the calendar. They talk about the seasons and the signs that tell it is the end of the summer. After this, they collect their seat cushions and grab some writing equipment and make their way to the rocky outcrop that is bathing in the sun. The kids sit down in a row and with the lead of Mia, they continue their work around the theme of drawing a birch tree. They also practice writing the word “summer (kesä)”. There is no bickering, everyone has their spot, everyone is heard. And everyone is concentrating in their own work.

In the meantime, Leena shows me around the compound. The tepee turns out to be a wood burning sauna which the children have built themselves. Here the kids take a sauna sometime, a detail exotic to some, but common in the Finnish culture from which the sauna originates. All materials of the sauna as well as everything on the compound is recycled or received as a donation. Or “begged for” as Leena puts it.

Leena has no problem begging for things. She loves her work. Both teachers especially love the effect being in nature has on the children. First of all, “it doesn’t rain in the forest”, say the kids. Secondly, there´s room to play and the days go fast. The teachers have seen impressive developments in some kids with learning difficulties who have already been made a plan to follow special education and who have miraculously been cured after some months in the forest pre-school. These children calm down and their concentration skills improve. In addition, the teachers see the kids find their place in a group immediately as they engage in their own games and plays in the forest. No one is left alone.

As one of the main comments from the parents, Leena mentions, is that the parents have a lot of their own time back in the evenings, as the children, who arrive home from the forest school want to engage in calm, solitary activities like drawing or flipping through books, or playing games. Gone are the difficult evenings where children refuse to go to bed, as their appetite is healthy they are ready to go to sleep after a a day in the fresh air and physical exercise outdoors.

But are the kids really outside all the time? Yes. Only in the winter, they gather inside the Himmeli to eat and to do some tasks. But even then, they stay outside. Only if the weather turns very bad, e.g. dangerously stormy, they stay inside or do not come to the forest site at all. In the winter, there is no “freezing limit”, the kids go out as they want, even when it´s -25 degrees Celsius or colder. There is a fire burning in front of the laavu warming up that shelter, as well as in Himmeli. And that, along side constant movement that being outdoors inspires, seems to be enough to keep the kids warm.

At around 11, the food arrives. The food comes from the central kitchen, heated, and is dropped off at the side of the road, where the kids have dropped off the dishes from yesterday just this morning.

IMG_20160825_092225 — Dropping off yesterday´s dishes to the side of the road and picking up warm food.

Today we eat spaghetti casserole, watermelon salad and some crackers and water. Luxurious, if you ask me. And everything tastes delicious in the outdoors.

IMG_20160825_110406 — Every child takes only as much as they can eat. There´s always room for seconds.

After eating, the kids run out to play a bit more. Some are balancing on the tree trunk, some are playing on a raft while others have collected a lot of snails and made a kindergarten for them.

The kids gather around for one more game they have asked Mia if they could play. Then it´s time to start wrapping up and get back to the school where some kids stay until later in the afternoon before they are picked up. At the forest, the kids put their reflector vests on and form a line. “See you tomorrow””, they say, as they wave goodbye to the forest. Their forest.

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Forest school in Belgium

Quite unexpectedly, I heard about a forest school in Belgium. Someone who had the same trajectory as the kids in their reflecting vests heading toward a big park in Gent mentioned it to me. Apparently there had even been a piece in the newspaper about them. Why did I not know about this?

My guess is because the “Buitenklas” (Engl. outside classroom) takes place as part of the Steiner school and for most people, the buitenklas sounds like something the Steiner school could have invented by themselves. After all, the Steiner school is all about the natural materials, the softer approach, following the seasons and closeness to nature in general (says me, who has little to no exposure to the Steiner school — until recently).

I had a date with Claudia, a Swiss born teacher at the school in the early afternoon, when the class had already returned from their site. Claudia asked me to come at an occasion when the kids are not there, so as not to disrupt the class.

We first went to check out the first site they had had. This was a hilly little forest corner at the outer banks of Bourgoyen park. However, because the site was not closed off , there was no way to protect the tree houses or other structures the children had built from being broken down by others. On top of it, there was too much dangerous trash being left behind at the park, so Claudia went to look for a new site.

They finally found one, from the large garden of a nice couple very close to the initial site.

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Claudia and the parents build a shelter for the children and acquired other materials that would be needed at the buitenklas, such as a fireplace, storage facility. Because this edge of a garden was for the children´s use, they were able to start their own little vegetable patch and a herb spiral and claim the site for themselves. They were also able to leave their treasures as they were knew that they would be able to find it all back the same way they left it.

img_20161024_150728 The buitenklas is outside every morning until about 12.20. Claudia is at the site from 8 onward and the children are brought there directly by their parents or they walk to the site together with the child carer who waits for the children at the school. By 8.45 they are ready to start the day. By the time everyone has arrived, the children who have arrived as first ones, have already had the time to play.

The day starts with a moment sitting down in a ring in the shelter and greeting everything around them, the plants, trees and the bird. The day is filled with singing, moving, doing handicrafts and having a chance to participate in the chores, such as making soup, cracking nuts etc. On Tuesday´s the children get to enjoy an open fire, an important natural element to us all. The nature around invites the children to use their imagination so toys are not necessary though there are some dolls and hand puppets that can be used. There is also a “mud kitchen” where getting hands dirty is a requirement. The children get used to using tools such as saws, hammers, sandpaper, wool etc. to build structures to play house in, to play the supermarket, etc. On top of that, their site invites them to run through the bamboo thickets, play hide and seek and observe the nature around.

The buitenklas has been running since September 2012. Claudia says she is doing the same things she would be doing inside, only, she is using less paper and pencils. The children enjoy playing outside and the parents have been supportive. Those wanting to enroll their children in the buitenklas need to still go through a waiting list.. The parents who sign up their children for the buitenklas, are aware of what they are putting their kids into and therefore there have been no difficulties in having the children be correctly equipped in terms of clothing etc.

Claudia feels lucky to be able to run her buitenklas outside as she realizes that this is not self-evident. However, as the ideology of learning outside is close to the ideology of the Steinerschool, it is less of a hassle and work to motivate the leadership to find the money for the extra child carer to accompany Claudia outside everyday.

The waiting list for this class goes to show there is need for such education. As I am about to send my 2.5 year old in the school, Claudia´s buitenklas seems like the obvious choice. However, I take my children to nature and I make sure they play outside every day.Therefore, I feel that there are more deserving kids out there who would need this place more than my little one.

The value of free play in nature has yet to be widely recognized in Belgium. It is still the privilege of a few children, who have access to a green space or whose parents are aware of the importance of nature to their children´s lives and anyway bring their kids to nature on a regular basis. Other children are left out as the schools are not prioritizing free play in nature. Though every bit is better than nothing, a week at the sea, or a week in the forest class, is awfully little to help build a nature relationship where there has been none.

The buitenklas allows the children to come in contact with the familiar nature, learn about it through observing it and interacting with it, and build a bond with it. What you know and love, you want to take care of. Applies to many things, doesn’t it?

Trekking course: Isojärvi national park, FI

We, myself and my partner, had signed up for a trekking course in south central Finland. The course was my birthday present for my 40-year-old partner. Though I´ve gone hiking near the Icelandic glaciers, the Yukon wilderness, Hawaiian mountains and beaches, and the Finnish forests, it´s been years since the last time I´ve spent a night under the stars. Sleeping in nature for me means sleeping in a simple wooden house, a summer house (kesämökki, in Finnish).

We had no expectations, other than to be able to spend a night in the nature with some experienced people and get a fair dose of trekking-related information.

We arrived at Isojärvi national park´s parking on Saturday at 12.00. It had started raining lightly just a moment before. The parking was, in Finnish terms, full of cars. I was surprised to see that many people. Were they all coming along?

The organizers, Minna and Vesa, handed out our food containers, the dried food packages and a Trangia, the cooker that was to be used during the trip to cook all our food. This we packed into out gear, or, my partner did. We were also handed out the maps of the area, a printed A4.

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When we all had packed up the gear we had received and all of the participants, all together 11 of us, had arrived, we headed to the forest.

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The Isojärvi park is formed around the Lake Isojärvi, which is a lake formed inside a fracture in the earth’s crust.The beautiful park is covered mostly by dry and moist forests, with a small area of old growth herb-rich forest but also rugged pine forests on top of the rocks. Species of interest include the Canadian Beaver (Castor canadensis) that had been doing some extensive maintenance works causing the water level of the lake to rise, as well as the Black-throated Diver (Gavia arctica), which provided us with entertainment with its territorial battles as we enjoyed the fire by the lake side in the evening.

We walked only a few hundred meters when we had our first stop at the first camping site. Here, Minna and Vesa asked us to take out the cookers and demonstrated their use. We learned about the different kinds of cookers on the market, their pros and cons and then cooked some water to make us some coffee (just add water!).

After we had enjoyed our coffees and packed away our cookers, we took out the maps Minna had handed out. They quickly ran us through the different signs on the map, how to use to compass on the map and to show us the direction we were supposed to be headed to. I had a feeling I had learned all this at school in as part of forest orienteering, but since it is already more years ago than I care to remember, I had forgot about the details. It was about time for a refresher.

At the Finnish national parks, there are different kinds of camping sites. The facilities include:

picnic sites with tables, cooking shelters and campfire sites with free firewood
free facilities such as wells and campfire sites in areas reserved for free camping
shelters where visitors may sleep overnight
compost toilets
waste collection points

(source: Nationalparks.fi )

During our hike, we saw rich forest areas covered with blueberry, areas where we could imagine at nightfall would be the working grounds of the busy beavers.

At times when something remarkable was to be seen in the landscape, Minna made us stop and look for the spot on the map, to see if we could still “find ourselves on the map”. Places like these included sharp cliffs, big boulders, swampy areas etc that were easy to be seen on the map.

After a while we stopped for a small eating and drinking brake. This was a welcome stop as we had left with just a breakfast in our stomachs. The sandwiches and boiled eggs tasted heavenly in the fresh air. At the same time,the backpack in the back of my partner was getting lighter for him to carry.

We then arrived at our camping site where we found 4 people resting, having started a fire in the fire place. Turned out, that these people had left late at night, with a plan to do a night hike. However, in the dim light of the forest, they had got lost from their originally planned path and ended up finding their way to the laavu (a type of lean-to shelter) at 4 am. There they rested and slept most of the day until we got there, at around 2pm.They later on excused themselves and walked further.

At these campsites the unspoken rule states that one must make room for others as well. If there´s a traveler who wants to spend the night at the laavu they have the right to stay there for that one night but they need to share the fireplace with others.

Around 4 pm, we started cooking our dinners. The trangia we were using, was very handy, consisting of 2 pots, one bigger, one smaller, one frying pan, the stands (2 pieces), a sieve and a belt to hold it all together. We took some water from the lake and started boiling it. Tonight on the menu was Italian pata (Italian stew) – a ready made meal to which we would add dried soy. My partner who normally does not cook much, enjoyed the cooking seemingly much. Though the cooking water came straight from the lake, the water that we used for drinking was run through a water purification bag. This active carbon filtered water filter was, according to the organizers, a very effective purifier, having used it at lake Laatokka for very green, algae laden water. The filter would be effective in cleaning everything, except viruses. However, Vesa and Minna reminded us that in the northern Finland, it is not necessary to use this filter as the waters are so clean.

I was reminded of why I absolutely love the Finnish nature and why it is the biggest treasure Finns have. The fact that we could scoop our water from the lake and use that for cooking, and seeing the lichen covered trees with naava, luppo and tons of other kinds of lichens growing on the trees, reminded me again of the purity of this environment. Lichens, especially naava and luppo, are excellent indicators of the air´s quality as they only grow in clean air.

After dinner, MInna showed us the usual contents of her backpack. The back that weigh about 17 kilos, was equipped with everything one would need for 24 hours. Indeed, with the same stuff one could go for a longer time as well, as long as they would pack more food. But the basic things from safety to comfort were all included.

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What we learned is that comfort equals discomfort and vice versa. This means, that if you want to camp and sleep comfortably, you will have to suffer for it a bit on the way. However, packing lightly and being comfortable during the hike would mean sleeping uncomfortably or missing some crucial pieces of equipment.

Then it was time to set up our tents. Minna and Vesa had scoped out the spots were the tents would be best set up. This was also the reason we hiked to this exact location, because we could house that many tents in this spot easily. Plus, some usual spots could not be used as the ground was still wet fro the past days rain.

As we started to set up the tents, we had an introduction to the types of tents that can be found on the market and the kinds of specifics they come with.

We got to sleep in the (green one above) laavu looking tent. This turned out to be a nice tent, easy to set up, though a bit too wide for just the two of us who didn´t have much stuff with us on this trip. It would be better to surround yourself with as many backpacks and things around to keep you from rolling off your mat, which inevitably happened.

After the tents were set up and all our stuff was in, we headed down to the fireplace to just sit around and chill. We exchanged stories, took the opportunity to ask all kinds of questions to the organizers who have extensive experience in hiking in the wilderness. Minna told us about the culture of exchange and how friendly and helpful people are towards hikers and campers in the wilderness of the north. For example, when the urge for lemonade hits, even multivitamin tablets work as an exchange items, especially if the other person has chocolate or rye bread to spare. This pleasant chatter was enriched by the territorial fight of the three black-throated divers (kaakkuri).

Later on, when the evening started to get dimmer (remember, it doesn’t get dark at night in the Finnish summer), we decided to walk to where we had seen the beaver work grounds. However, my greed for the blueberries and the mosquitoes that smelled us, distracted us and we never got to the beavers. The two people who left before us to the beavers did get to see 4 of them swimming around in their newly dammed pond!

It was finally time to hit the tent. I had forgotten the most crucial part of my camping equipment: the woolen socks. Luckily Minna has an extra pair (but of course!) which she let me borrow. I slept surprisingly well though the silence kept me up some time. I woke up only as my partner complained about my snoring or when i rolled off from the matras.

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In the morning, I was surprised about how well I had slept. I was also mesmerized about the beauty of the place and the clear blue skies. I felt almost giddy.

In the morning we made breakfast, which consisted of rolled oats which we then pimped with some jam and butter as well as the beautiful blue berries (Vaccinium myrtillus, mustikka) found in the forest and the banana found in my backpack.

After breakfast, doing the dishes and packing up the tents, it was time continue our journey, and start returning back. The trail back was somewhat steeper and as the sun was out, it got warm very fast. On the way, we could see some beautiful sceneries, lit up by the glorious sunlight.

Around 2 pm we got to our camp site, where we then cooked up our lunch.

On the menu today was lihaperunasoselaatikko (a kind of stew made of mashed potatoes, minced meat and vegetables). All the ingredients, besides the mashed potatoes which came in a premade and dried bag, were dried by Minna and Vesa themselves. Impressive! Again, we took water from the lake, removed the little moving insects in it, and started boiling the water on the trangia. We added the vegetables, the dried minced meat and the spice cube (bouillon). After about 10-15 minutes, we took it off the heat and added the dried mashed potatoes and a scoop of butter into it. Maybe it was the hunger or my taste buds that had been altered, but this all tasted seriously delicious.

We made a coffee from the excess water we had boiled and poured the rest of the water into our dirty dishes to soak. We enjoyed the last bits of each others´ company, packed up and started heading back to the parking lot where we started.

By 15.00 we were back, as had been announced in the program.

The course did not feel like a course but a trip with friends. Friends who were well prepared. I got excited about taking our kids out to a hike the same summer, but Minna reminded me, that with small children, you will have to carry much more things, plus, most likely, some of the kids will need to be carried as well. Therefore, it´s better to do day trips but leave the overnight camping trips for later when everyone can walk and perhaps even carry some of their own things. But in the meantime, we can get into the mood of real survival by cooking our own food on our day trips with our brand new trangia.