A Day at Forest Homeschool

Sep 15

Have you heard about Reflection Riding’s new-and-improved Forest Homeschool program? If you haven’t, come along for a ride with our afternoon class to see what we packed into a few short hours!

After getting dropped off, the kids came to the education room to pick up their supplies and got briefed on what we planned for the day. This month is our plant unit, and the topic of the day was seeds!

To start, we took the students to our Native Plant Nursery to get hands-on with seeds. We selected an American Beautyberry bush and instructed each child to pick a few of the bright purple berries. Next, they squashed the berries (fun!) and rinsed the pulp and skin off in bowls of water. Then they sieved out the seeds and got to plant them in waiting seed flats.

After the American Beautyberry seeds were safely tucked in their seed flats, we hit the trail. The students were instructed to collect two different types of seeds on this hike for a seed dispersal discussion. As we walked, we also pointed out plants for them to identify. Each student at Forest Homeschool has an Eco-Log that the teachers check off when the student successfully identifies a plant or animal.

We hiked about a mile to the pine forest, where we sat down in the shade to talk about seed dispersal methods. Each student took turns showing the seeds they collected and discussed how they thought it might be carried away from the parent plant. We talked about why seed dispersal is important and how wind, animals, water, and even fire can be involved.

After the discussion, the students had their snack and free time. This day’s game was Camouflage. One child would stand in one spot while their friends got progressively closer, trying to hide behind bushes and trees. No pictures for this one; everyone was too good at hiding!