Wilderness Survival School

From Bracken's Journal: "I started a Wilderness Survival School. I made and ate pine needle tea.  Melissa taught us how to make a fire with a bow and drill.  I've been climbing lots of trees.  I climb super high! I built a lean-to fort in my backyard with sticks and a Levi blanket.  Zedek loved my fort. Iv'e been learning about edible plants. I like the fruit that grows on marshmallow plants. We found purslane too.  We found chestnuts, we almost ate them but we looked it up after Sister Stapel warned us and they were poisonous horse chestnuts.  I'm glad we didn't eat them."

 Bracken decided one day after listening to a little story about a Wilderness School that he wanted to start his own school.  We have an awesome teacher living right above us!  Melissa worked for Anazasi, a wilderness therapy program for troubled teens, and knows how to make her own shelters, packs, and build a fire with sticks.  Bracken asked her to teach him, and we had the best class on making a fire with a bow and drill in our backyard one afternoon.  Thanks Melissa!

 The nest filled with kindling. 

I didn't realize you needed so many supplies to start a fire with a bow and drill.  Melissa gathered and made all of these ingredients and tools herself.  

Blowing on the coal to get it to light. 

Bracken taking a turn with the bow and drill. 

Bracken has arranged to shoot BB guns with our neighbor for another day of Wilderness Survival School.  He is also planning on running away for a day to survive on his own. He has been bouncing ideas off me for what he should take with him and do when he does run away. We're reading "My Side of the Mountain" together, (about a boy who runs away from home and survives in the woods by himself) and that get's his imagination going even further.