The Roving Nature Center: January 2012

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