🌲 Waking Woods: 6 Weeks of Wonder in the Spring Forest
- May 11
- 8 min read
A reflection on our April Forest School Series
There’s a moment in early spring in Northern Michigan when the world hesitates. The snow hasn’t quite let go, the buds haven’t quite burst, and the forest seems to be holding its breath — waiting. This year, we got to spend six magical Wednesday mornings in that in-between season with a remarkable group of families, watching the woods (and our kids) wake up together.
Waking Woods, our 6-week caregiver and child forest school series, just wrapped — and it was AMAZING! Designed for children ages 3 to 8 and the grown-ups who love them, the series blended research-based environmental education with the kind of slow, sensory, kid-led exploration that makes a forest feel like home.
Why Caregiver-and-Child Forest School?
Before we dive into the weeks, a quick word on what makes this format - and NoMi Forest Explorers- so special. Our programs aren't drop-off programs. It’s a together organization. Caregivers don’t sit on the sidelines — they crouch in the mud, hunt for tracks, become trees alongside their kids, and rediscover the forest through small, curious eyes.
This matters for so many reasons. Kids feel safer trying new things when their person is nearby. Caregivers learn the language of nature alongside their child, so the learning continues at home. And — this is the part we love most — grown-ups remember how to play. We watched parents climb logs, get muddy, and laugh out loud at games designed for kids. That’s a gift, too.
This curriculum draws from Project Learning Tree (PLT) and Project WILD (including Growing Up WILD), two of the most respected environmental education frameworks in North America. Our lead facilitator and NoMi Forest Explorers founder is a certified educator in both — meaning every game, story, and activity has been tested, refined, and proven to spark real ecological understanding in young learners. Layer that on top of choice-based exploration, developmentally appropriate risky play, sensory immersion, and a whole lot of mud, and you’ve got the heart of Waking Woods.
Week 1: Signs of Change 🌱
We began where the forest began — with the smallest, slowest signs of stirring. What’s happening here right now? Together we hunted for swelling buds, deer tracks pressed into half-frozen mud, the sound of meltwater, the first daring shoots of green. Kids became scavenger-style detectives, calling out discoveries to each other and asking the kind of questions only they can ask. (“Do trees know it’s spring?” — yes, actually, and we’ll get to that.)
The session set the tone for the whole series: slow down, notice, wonder out loud.
Week 2: What Trees Need 🌳
Week two was all about trees — but more than just looking at them. We wanted to understand what they need, how they grow, and what their lives can tell us.
We opened the day inside with name tags and circle time, then settled in for a read-aloud and discussion about tree survival. The questions were simple, but the conversation got rich fast:
“What do trees need to survive?”
“What do you think would happen if a tree didn’t get everything it needs?”
“How would we even know if a tree had a good life or a hard one?”
We let the conversation breathe. There are no wrong answers when kids are wondering out loud about living things.
Then came the tree cross section — a real slab showing bark, sapwood, heartwood, and growth rings. The kids leaned in close to study the layers and the story written in those concentric circles. We talked about how a tree’s rings actually tell us what kind of life it had: wet years, dry years, healthy stretches, hard ones. It was the same conversation we had just been having — but suddenly written in wood.
For our craft activity, each child got a paper plate and drawing supplies and was invited to imagine themselves as a tree, drawing their own age in growth rings. Good years got thick, bright rings. Hard years got their own colors and textures. The plates came out beautifully — each one a little autobiography in concentric circles.
After our tree-thinking warmup, we played an interactive game (inside- because it was COLD!!) called “Every Tree for Itself." We ran a couple of rounds, with kids racing to collect the resources trees actually need — sunlight, water, air, soil nutrients, space. And this is where the magic happened: the kids started spontaneously sharing resources with one another, guiding their own learning, figuring out that healthy forests aren’t competitions — they’re communities.
We sprinkled in some career connections too — the people whose jobs revolve around what trees need: foresters, arborists, ecologists, conservationists. Real people with real careers caring for the things we were learning about.
By the end of the session, every kid knew: trees are alive, trees have stories, and trees need our help to thrive.
Week 3: How Trees Get What They Need 🌳
Last week we talked about what trees need to survive. This week, we set out to learn how trees actually get those things — and the kids ended up guiding the day more than we could have planned.
The plan was a brand-new outdoor game. The weather, however, had other plans. So we pivoted indoors and brought the forest in with us — paper tree and all. We built our own little forest right inside the room.
Here’s the part that made us smile: before we got started, the kids asked if we could play last week’s “What Trees Need” game again. (When kids ask to repeat learning, you ALWAYS say yes.) So we ran it again — and this time the resource-sharing was faster, deeper, and even more collaborative. They had clearly been thinking about it all week.
Then we dove into the new material: how trees actually get what they need, and — even more amazing — how they share. The kids learned that trees are connected underground through networks of fungi, and that a tree on one side of the forest can actually send resources to a tree all the way on the other side. Through fungi. Through soil. Through a quiet underground community we never see.
Their reactions were everything you’d hope for. “Wait, trees TALK?” “Trees SHARE??” “So they help each other?” Yes, yes, and yes.
There’s something extra special about a session that wasn’t supposed to happen indoors, with a child-led replay of last week’s favorite game, and a brand-new mind-blowing fact about how forests work as families. Sometimes the best learning days are the ones you didn’t plan.
Week 5: Food Webs & Energy ☀️
This was the week the food web came alive — literally, in our hands.
We stood in a circle, and each child became a piece of the ecosystem. Some were producers — the sun, plants, trees, grasses. Some were primary consumers — the rabbits, the deer, the insects. Others were predators — the hawks, the owls, the foxes. We even had decomposers, the quiet fungi and bacteria that keep everything else possible.
Then came the string.
One end was held by the sun, and as we worked our way around the circle, we passed the ball of string from one connected organism to the next. The plant takes energy from the sun. The rabbit eats the plant. The fox eats the rabbit. The fungi break down the fox when its life ends. Toss. Loop. Pass. Hold tight.
In just a few minutes, our circle had become a literal, tangible web — a crisscrossing tangle of string showing exactly how every living thing was tied to every other living thing.
Then we played with disturbance. What happens when the plants disappear? What happens when the foxes are gone? What happens if there's no more sun? One by one, an organism would give the string a tug — and every child who felt that tug had to tug too, sending the signal rippling out. The whole web shook. The whole web responded.
It was simultaneously the simplest and most profound demonstration we could have done. The kids didn't need vocabulary words. They could feel it in their hands.
We talked about food chains, food webs, producers, consumers, and decomposers — but always through the string. The kids weren't memorizing terms. They were holding them.
By the end of the session, our circle understood something most adults forget: nothing in nature stands alone. Everything is connected — and a tug on one strand sends shivers through the whole forest.
Week 6: Walden Comes to Visit 🦉
For our grand finale, we welcomed our friends from North Sky Raptors and a very special guest: Walden the owl.
Meeting a live raptor up close is the kind of experience kids talk about for years. The kids learned about owl adaptations, hunting behaviors, and the role raptors play in healthy ecosystems — and then we got hands-on (literally) with hawk and owl pellet dissection. Tiny bones, fur, and skull fragments told the story of what these incredible birds had eaten. Some kids were squeamish at first; by the end, they were trading discoveries like prized possessions.
Tying everything together, this session brought the entire series full circle: the trees, the water, the food web, the wildlife — and now, a real ambassador from the top of that web, looking right at us with those huge, knowing eyes.
A heartfelt thank you to North Sky Raptors for joining us and for the incredible work you do rescuing, rehabilitating, and educating about Michigan’s birds of prey. You made our final week unforgettable.
What We’ll Carry Forward
Six weeks. Six themes. Countless muddy boots, kid-led tangents, and lightbulb moments.
What stood out most this April wasn’t any single activity — it was the organic learning that bubbled up between activities. A child noticing a bird call mid-game and asking what it was. A caregiver pointing out a fern unfurling. A whole group going quiet to watch a beetle cross the path. PLT and Project WILD give us the framework, but the kids themselves write the curriculum once they’re out there.
Forest school works because nature is the best teacher we have — and because when caregivers and children explore together, the lessons travel home with them.
💚 Help Us Grow More Wonder Like This
Programs like Waking Woods, Pond Day, our Capitol trip, and our brand-new Map Series don’t happen without community support. As a small nonprofit, every experience we offer — every guest educator like North Sky Raptors, every PLT and Project WILD curriculum kit, every set of waders and bug kits, every scholarship spot for a family who couldn’t otherwise attend — is made possible by people who believe that every child deserves access to the magic of the forest.
Here’s how you can help us bring more programs like these to more families across Northern Michigan:
💚 Make a one-time donation. Every dollar goes directly toward curriculum materials, guest educators, scholarships, and keeping our group sizes small enough to truly nurture each child.
🌲 Become a recurring supporter. Even $10/month helps us plan and grow with confidence — and ensures no family is ever turned away due to cost.
🤝 Sponsor a series. Local business or community partner? Sponsoring an entire series (like Waking Woods) puts your name behind something families talk about for years. We’d love to chat about partnership opportunities.
📣 Spread the word. Share this blog. Tag a friend. Tell a neighbor. Word of mouth grows our village.
Join Us Next Time
If any of these adventures sound like something your family would love, we’d be thrilled to have you in our next series. Keep an eye on our website and socials for upcoming session announcements, and reach out anytime with questions.
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