Forest Classroom

Fire Day!

Week 5

What a beautiful day! The sun was shining and the birds were chirping, it put us in a great mood for a fantastic day.

As we arrived we all were tasked with gathering sticks that would be used to build fires later in the day. These sticks were to be broken up into pieces no longer than our arm, and about the thickness of our fingers but no bigger than our wrist. We filled two 5 gallon buckets worth of sticks and had a lot of fun doing it.

Collecting stick for our fire! Photo: Audubon Vermont
Photo: Audubon Vermont

Once all sticks were collected we gathered for snack and a story where Sarah read the Tomten and we learned about what the Tomten does and who it is. After our snacks were done and our story was over we were given some free play time. Some of us threw snow at trees, others rolled snow ball that were super big, bigger than our heads. The snow was great packing snow which made for rolling snow balls even better.

After our free play we had a nice lesson on fires and safety. We learned to always make fire with an adult present, that you should always have a way of putting out your fire, that our bodies need to be calm, someone always needs to have eyes on the fire, and many other safety rules. We also learned the 3 things a fire needs, 1. Heat 2. Air/oxygen and 3. Fuel. We discussed the different sizes of fuel, kindling, tinder, and fuel/logs and how each of those sizes come into building your fire. We also went over 4 different fire structures, a log cabin, A frame, lean to, and TP, how you make them and why they are good.

Building a log cabin fire structure! Photo: Audubon Vermont
Success! Photo: Audubon Vermont
Photo: Audubon Vermont

Then it was time to build our fires. We each got a tin to build our fires and got a chance to safely light a match when the time came! We all got a fire going, they eventually went out, but this is a skill we hope to build on over time.

Our day ended with lunch and a story around the fire and with roasting a special treat, a marshmallow!

YUM! Photo: Audubon Vermont

How you can help, right now