The Roving Nature Center: 2012

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Summer Camp 2012

Summer Camp has kicked off in Oldwick, Radnor and Manheim! Go to our facebook page to check out pictures of our happy campers!! www.facebook.com/RovingNature

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Maple Magic! Poems and Pictures

The first ever Maple Tree Clubs culminated last week with pancake and maple syrup feasts; quite the sweet conclusion. This is what the maple scientists (ages 6-9) had to say about their adopted maple trees:

Green as the
Grass, Brown
as my hair
Light as a
Cloud, nice as
a deer, but
the thing
I love is
a secret

written by "Beauty Bird"

I love you so much
I could kiss you!

written by "White Dove"

For yummy maple

syrup so golden
you must first get
a tree
Mine is friendly
as a tree can be
The tree is very
nice and it has no mice on a
windy day it's
branch may snap
But anyway
anywhere I love
my tree in the
forest.

written by "Diving Falcon"

My tree is good
my tree is nice
with sap to make
maple syrup.
Ants crawl
all over the tree
and that is why it's good
you see

written by "Diving Dolphin"

Thank you tree
Thank you tree
Thank you so much
for the delicious
syrup I slurp upon
my spoon this is soo
good it makes me
smile

written by "Ninja Snake"

We love our adopted tree!

Mr. Mike evaporating the sap

Miss Marissa showing off the boiled down sap

The Maple Scientists Exploring the Forest

After tapping their adopted trees

After writing their tree poems, scientists warm up by the stove

Drip, drip, drip!

Playing forest games

Exploring a decomposing log

Writing tree poems

We rock!

The final day, enjoying pancakes with syrup and listening to poems

Saplings checking out their sap bucket with Mr. Mike

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Winter Wonder Camp

The camp was a fantastic experience for both teachers and campers. It was a great way to flex some muscles and imaginations during the holidays! We had beautiful weather and saw many kinds of birds at our new feeder station and on the trail: dark-eyed juncos, eastern bluebirds, red bellied woodpeckers, blue jays and hundreds of robins. Even our boisterous group of 13 three-five year olds got to see some wildlife during our winter scavenger hunt! Our older red foxes became especially tuned in to nature by paying close attention to the day length and bird sounds. On the last day during snack, they all started squeezing our toy Audubon birds and quizzing each other (and me!) on bird songs! Both groups made fantastic shelters for their 'jello' babies (jello mixed with water in a cup and left over night in a natural shelter).

Despite cold temperatures, all jello babies survived the night and were still liquid thanks to some hard working kids! To offset the lack of snow, foxes grew their own snow crystals and took home snow catching "kits" to be kept cold until the next snowfall. Both groups enjoyed fun outdoor games and creating yummy shelters to eat for their teddy bears.

For the first time at camp, we scheduled in "exploring time." As the center grows, kids seem to have an affinity for just exploring. It seemed only natural to me to officially schedule time for this into the schedule. After explaining the rules, the kids took off and had a blast bird watching at our new feeder area, looking at our new live crickets, dragonfly nymphs, snails and box turtle, writing or drawing in our turtle and bird watching journals, reading books, playing with our toy bird stuffed animals and animal puppets, drawing on the chalkboard, examining feathers and bug books with magnifying glasses and touching the real stuffed animals and skulls and shells. After snack time, all campers got to feed Herman the Worm. I have a few more ideas to implement this winter as well: place a baby monitor at the bird feeder station to hear the birds, create a sandbox animal track play area and re-do our touch box.

Thanks for supporting us for this new camp! We couldn't have done it without you! Stay tuned to more new programs in the spring!

Miss Marissa