Learning about (and cooking with) Fire in the Woods Primes

One Monday a few weeks ago, the Morning Message informed Woods Primes that our boundary would be expanding to include the fire pit area. This prompted a conversation about what children knew about fire.

Fred  Fire can hurt people.

Chase It is true that fire can hurt you. That is true that fire can hurt, but also fire can help right? 

Nova What’s true about fire. Fire can be healthy for you because it can make you warm and it also can make healthy food and it can cook off the germs on food if there’s germs on food.

Keaton, it’s dangerous cause it can burn you, but it could also help you by giving you more planet. If it’s really cold it can help by giving you steam to warm you up, or smoke.

Kestrel What I know about fire is that, don’t get too close to it.

Korra Fire can kill you. It can also give you life. It can make your plants grow better.

Sam It’s deadly when you touch it

Liliana Fire is hot

Dash– What’s true about fire, is fire can hurt creatures, can hurt you and it can help you. It can hurt creatures like in a forest fire and how can it help creatures, is for making a new forest? Fire can hurt you, but don’t be too scared. It’s just a part of life.

Keaton You say that again! Right it’s a part of life! Want to know how it’s a part of life? It’s an element and elements can help your body.

Dash  Not only but charcoal, but is seed a fire can help a pinecone seed is that right – you know about that it might warm up a pinecone and the seed might just fall out I’m not really sure.

Korra Sometimes people light a fire to burn some stuff off of it like that to help. How are you thinking about charcoal going into the soil my mom told me when the side of the road was blacker that it was trying to help the ground.

Nova Sometimes the charcoal can break down into dirt and help trees and dirt. It’s really helpful 

Liliana Dash is totally right in that fires can help pinecones and the seeds fall out to help plant more trees

Fred There’s a kind of tree called a redwood tree that doesn’t grow around here, that grows in the redwood forest and it actually needs fire. 

Liliana Smoke or steam is gonna hurt you if you’re too close to it, so try to stay away from the smoke.

Fred It also smells.

Liliana Also stay away from it cause you can sneeze a lot

Whitney If you sneeze by the fire, it might blow out the fire and then you can’t have fire. If you get smoke in your face just walk around it and you say, “funny bunny” and that’s an actual thing so yeah.

Fred Stop drop and roll! If any of your clothes are burning, stop, drop and roll!

After the conversation, Woods Primes were invited to scurry and if they wanted to write things they see, think or wonder about fire they could meet up with a teacher in the Studio. Kid spelling is decoded in parentheses if necessary.

Chase Flying water is steam

Kestrel I see curls in fir (I see curls in fire)

Poe The lit bloow flams are the hottest. (The light blue flames are the hottest.)

Whit Fir can be kolrfl (Fire can be colorful)

Dash It starts with green, then fire, then a spark then it turns back into green 

Korra Fire can be danjur-is (Fire can be dangerous)

Fred I see smoeck wen thar is a fire (I see smoke when there is a fire)

Keaton I see bloo flames. (I see blue flames.)

Sam Smoke gats rid ov bees (Smoke gets rid of bees)

Frances I wundr how smok gets ot of the fir (I wonder how smoke gets out if the fire)

In the beginning of the year our fire pit at our base camp was out of our classroom boundary, except for Music With Matt. Our current forest classroom space was intentionally left fallow after years of use, and nothing looked more neglected than the fire pit area. It wasn’t big enough to fit everyone comfortably, as some of the logs had been flipped by some salamander scientists years ago. Some of the seats were avoided because they were too wobbly, leaves had filled in the fire bowl, and the bluestone hearth was a wonky tripping hazard because rain had taken away some of the soil holding them in place. Teachers intentionally left the space out of bounds until we were ready, since it needed more than a spruce up before school started.

When the boundaries were extended, there was a lot of enthusiasm to explore and play in the new parts, and motivation to ready the fire pit so that their parents could have the first fire at All School Welcome; the official opening of our fire season at school!

On Tuesday, they used Kid Power to roll the logs into a larger circle to make more space for everyone. It took a while because the logs are heavy. They finished right before Matt showed up with their guitar for music on Wednesday! While we were singing, Wonder Primes showed up, and guess what, there were enough seats for everyone!

After music, Woods Primes got right back to work: removing the leaf litter from the bowl and rehoming the salamanders to safe places out of bounds. They dug with sticks to make the bowl deep enough to keep flame away from the Windosaurus, and used the refuse to level out the ground around the edge so that the new stones that were being settled in the hearth would lay flat and not offer any trippy corners. 

The next day, the charcoal from the previous night’s fire was harvested quickly and put to immediate use in the mud kitchen and turned into paint, while other eager folks got to work finishing the fire pit for the first Woods Primes fire. Children helped level the bluestone hearth into place, and helped manipulate the hunks of stone like puzzle pieces into a circle fit to be knelt on, and offered endless tamping services to make sure the sandy mortar would wiggle all the way down into the fresh cracks and crevices. Others scoured the forest for “uncrusty” bricks to make the brick warming oven just the right size for when they are able to reheat their lunchbox leftovers on the griddle.

Fireplace work continued for the rest of the week. In the process of reviving our fireplace, some of the stones chipped and fractured, lending to discussions about how sedimentary rocks are made (they are hoping they might discover a fossil), and with the tiny broken pieces, a mosaic is forming. 

Dreams came true! Our first cooking fire featured roasted apples courtesy of Good Ben Clark and the folx at Clarkdale Farm! They donated all of the apples for our Trunk or Treat event, and there were multiple bags left over, so we made sure they weren’t wasted! Children chatted delightfully about the experience of roasting apples to perfection on sticks they carved, over a fire in a bowl they dug, as they sat on a hearth they built.

It’s only the beginning. Since then, we’ve had another apple fire to make sure the people who were absent the first time got to have the experience of eating a roasted apple. Children also prepared and delivered roasted apples for other people in the school community that might want one, like admin, student support, and afterschool staff, and dipped colorful autumn leaves into beeswax. They have a growing list of hopes and dreams: to make their own crayons, toast a cracker, melt a cheese stick, cook a hotdog, roast a s’more (or a million), reheat pizza and burritos, and of course boil some Maple Syrup for Trash Cafe. This year, there is also interest in making char cloth, tinder bundles, and more tea with our Kelly Kettle.

Tomorrow, when we are back together after this long weekend, children will check the rain gauge in the swale near our handwashing station to make sure we got enough rain, so that they can ask to have a fire.