Faeries, Elves & Mostly Friendly Dragons

Faeries, Elves, and Mostly Friendly Dragons

Journey through the Realms, learning the ways of Nature from Faeries and Elves. Discover the story magic of the Mostly Friendly Dragons who dwell in the enchanted woods. We are taking Trackers skills and giving them a magical twinkle.

Tea Party

Tea Parties are all about setting the scene to have a magical time with magical characters. It can be used to settle down the energy and tell stories.

Learning Objective: plant identification; how to make tea, butter, and jam; the history of tea parties throughout different cultures.

• Collect edible plants for tea: Nettles, Cleavers, Chickweed, Berries (black berries, thimble berries, salmon berries), Wild mint (Mentha arvensis), Spearmint (Mentha spicata) and Peppermint (Mentha piperita), Western Hemlock tips, wild rose petals
• Make butter: pour buttermilk into a jar, put lid on tight, and shake vigorously.
• Provide crackers
• Make blackberry jam by squishing berries with clean hands in a bowl or use spoon. Optional berry squish for each cracker.
• Feel free to make this special like a ceremony, celebration, party

Shelter Building

To learn the basics of creating an effective, survival shelter out of natural materials that can sustain life in multiple conditions.

• Build in a story - how big are the faeries that are going to live here? What are their essential needs as faeries? Use your imagination and the imagination of your students.
• Faery Shelters Using shelter forms (A frame and lean )
• Use materials from nature that is on the ground (sticks, fallen leaves, lichen)
• Important to build on level ground away from staging insect nests
• Look up! Is there anything that will fall on the shelters?
• Why do we need shelter? To stay warm: explore different kinds of heat and shelters.
• Encourage kids not to harvest materials from living plants
• Break down shelters after building them: either at the time or by the end of the day...counter tracking your shelter materials
• Make as creative and elaborate as you like

Crafts

Crafts are a great way for children to practice their dexterity and use their imaginations.

Learning Objective: Plant ID with the harvested flowers, learn how to follow a recipe, practice dexterity, using imagination with making each bead different.

Faery Beads

• Make a mixture of flour, salt, and water. Knead until smooth. Add in flower petals.
• Each kids makes a tiny ball and then sticks a toothpick in center (please assist)
• Let beads dry for 24hrs
• Make a drawing of necklace/bracelet so kids have a “blue print” of what they will make the next day
• Create bracelet or necklace from beads

Woodworking Skills

This is an excellent activity to get the kids to have their first ever experience with a knife. SAFETY is #1 !!!

Learning Objectives: teach about sustainable harvesting of trees, tree ID, history of woodworking, step by step knife carving skills (Trackers style), do magic with the new wand

Wand making

Collect sticks or harvest a tree sustainably

Knife carving with Rover Step By Step:

Can use sandpaper in the hovels to shape as well as markers or ribbons to decorate

Plant ID walk: Safety First! Don’t let kids put plants into their mouths without asking!

Have children take oath: “I promise to never ever, ever ever ever ever, NEVER ever ever EVER, put a plant into my mouth, without asking first.”

Explain difference between edible plants and poisonous plants

Make it magical: plant name, human uses, faery uses, elven uses, dragon uses

Runes Set: learn a new language, have kids make their name, use in magical decision making

Potion making - Learning Objective: following a recipe, wow-ing them with chemical reaction (science is cool, folks),Oobleck: 1 part water, 2 part corn starch, add small amt of food coloring

Foaming Potion: add vinegar to baking soda, option to add food coloring to vinegar

Visual Wow: mix food coloring into milk Can use edible plants to make sun tea concoction

Fire making

Foam Archery

Scavenger Hunts: these are useful to help hone observation skills and to help kids understand the world around them in a more intimate/detailed way. Make sure to use big things and small things alike (hunt for the macro and micro)

Magical Plant ID

Dragon eggs

Rainbow: find objects in nature that are each color of the rainbow

Shapes: how many shapes can be found in nature

Flower Power

Lichen and moss

Story mapping: create a map of what you did that day: this will help give a visual to the kids for the story of the day. You can create space through the day, after each activity to add to the map OR use it as a hovel activity for the end of the day. You can create one for each day OR make a larger one for the entire week. Explore these maps on Friday during your team celebration

Divination: the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means. Supernatural: attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or laws of nature. There are many ways to do divination. Make it up to help your storyline of the day.

Read tea leaves

Use runes to create a fortune

Mirror and candles

Weather divination: look at cloud shapes and see what they tell you, what direction the wind is blowing, etc

Bird Identification: it is important to learn birds for that is the way dragons can sometimes disguise themselves in this dimension.

Make sure to grab a reference bird book

Build Dragon’s nest based off of bird’s nest

Stealth and Stalking: learn to move silently through the wood so you cannot be detected

Sneak up on faeries or elven habitats

Fox walk

Camouflage: 3 Ds - dull, dapple, duff

Eagle eye

Forest meditations/sit spots

Themed dance parties: faeries, elves, and dragons

Bug (Faery) catching: as dragons can disguise themselves as birds, faeries can disguise themselves as bugs

Make magical pouches: this is a simple sewing project and can be used to collect magical objects after it is complete.

Take a rectangle piece of fabric, fold it in half (hamburger fold)

Have fold to one side

Use a simple slip stitch to sew the bottom and the other side

Use a ling, loose piece of fabric to tie up the top. You have the option to stitch the tie to the pouch.

Make english ivy crowns: talk about invasive plant species and why it’s okay to eradicate them from the forest environment.

Tracking faeries, elves, and dragons: The art of tracking is extensive (we named an entire business after it). Tracking is observation to the max! It can help kids get into their environment and use their brain in an imaginative way. This is a small taste of what tracking is all about.

You must think like who you are tracking and practice moving like they move

Ask questions: Where do they live? What do they eat? What time of day are they mobile? Where do they like to hang out? What do they think about when they are alone?

Look for scat and “foot” prints imbedded in the earth

Look for plants on the ground that have been stepped on

Look at your eye level for twigs or branches that may have been bent or broken

Look above your head...any clues?

Look for anything that seems disturbed or looks different

With magical tracking, feel free to get as imaginative as you would like