October Magic: Foraging Days

Beginning in October our students embarked on their first ‘Foraging Days’ led by our Adventure Teacher / Outdoor Enrichment Specialist, Therese Regonini (Teacher T). Students went in small cohorts to visit our neighboring Adventure Camp campus, a private property generously offered for educational use. ‘Foraging Days’ are designed to extend classroom learning into an outdoor context, bringing students into direct contact with nature’s rhythms, as they explore our seasonal themes. 

In October, students honed in on the abundance of colors in nature, seasonal changes after first rain, and the practice of close (as in microscopic!) observation of local flora and fauna. Our foraging adventures included activities such as counting (and yes, also lots of holding) banana slugs, color scavenger hunts, plant and critter identification, and mindful sensory exploration of the forest’s transformation after the first rains, deep listening, feeling, and smelling walks. Students delighted in finding redwood sorrel, early season mushrooms, acorns, dwindling blackberries and huckleberries, miner’s lettuce, and wild mint along the riverbed (we turned this into the most delicious tea!). 

These hands-on experiences were complemented by a series of emergent cooking projects, where we used seasonal produce from our local CSA box from Nature’s Tune Farm. Together, we crafted many creative and playful dishes such as bright pink beet tortillas, winter squash pancakes, dino kale smoothies, fresh corn muffins, veggie soups, and lots of produce sampling along the way!