Among our favorite neighbors here in Brooklyn is a family whom we’ve only ever viewed from a distance. We see them almost every day from our window as they make trips back and forth to the park. Sometimes we spy them on a short break from those trips when they themselves seem to be just taking in the view of the neighborhood. Mostly, though, we watch them soaring through the sky.

On a morning in early spring, particularly when the grass is still wet with dew, it’s common to witness a hundred robins at a time scattered across the Long Meadow. They always seem to me like miniature livestock grazing in a field. What they’re doing, of course, is hunting for worms and insects.

Near the beginning of every forest school class, after we’ve walked through the woods and reached our classroom, we ask ourselves a question that’s at once simple and full of possibility: “What will we make today?”