Wonders of Winter (WOW) Discovery Camp Highlights

WOW-it’s been a crazy winter in 2014! And we finally had a great one for our February break camp! Miss Caryn, Ms. Kimberly, Ms. Liz, Ms. Lauren and Ms. Kelsey all had a great time getting to know the 10 campers we had for the week, and together, we learned and saw lots of new things.

Here are some of the highlights:

Day 1:

• To start off, we brainstormed what the word winter brought to mind, and then started a sheet to track the weather all week long. We learned how to use a thermometer then put it to the test outside by braving the single digit temps, but bright sunshine, recording the air temps and then compared different depths (top, middle and bottom) of a large snowbank to see if the temperatures were the same or different.  We also looked for ‘hearts’ in nature on our walk, and got to draw our findings.
• Letting the sun warm up the day a little more, campers got out on the trails on snowshoes in the afternoon, discovering many deer and rabbit tracks, but not seeing much animal activity. They also worked together on teams for a snow relay, filling buckets with snow and piling it up as quickly and as big as possible.
• In honor of Presidents’ Day, we had a George Washington snack, made from vanilla wafers, mini-chocolate chips and mini-marshmallows. Yummy way to pay tribute!
• We finished the day by mixing colored water into buckets and ice cube trays, then outside they went to ‘set’ for Tuesday activity.

Day 2:

Winter weather in full force again! Snow and very windy conditions made it look like a snow globe outside many times throughout the day.

• We started the day by making an animal track guide. We also played a game snow/ice/blizzard while waiting for the weather to cooperate for outdoor adventures.
• We strapped on our snowshoes again, braving the cold and wind, and got a chance to test out an anemometer (wind meter), recording measurements over 25 miles per hour. We found some calmer conditions back by the wetland, where we discovered all sorts of cool stuff: deer fur on the ice, beaver tracks and fresh chew marks, plus their lodge, 7 deer browsing on the edge of the ice and bird foot and wing prints in the snow.
• We searched to no avail for icicles around the preserve, but did manage to start an experiment to create our own indoors. We also collected a cup of snow from different areas and did an experiment to see if they all would melt at the same rate and end up with the same amount of water at the end.
• We rounded out the day getting to use our ice from Monday, as well as colored water in spray bottles, to make ice and snow sculptures, and making edible snowflakes.

Day 3:

• Winter makes me think of evergreens, so Wednesday we started out talking about trees and the different kinds, including watching a video called “C is for Conifer”:
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We also examined our ‘icicles’ that formed overnight.

The sun was shining and temps moderated, so we spent a good amount of time outside in the morning. We started off with an ice scavenger hunt, taking turns hiding colored ice cubes in the snow and then finding them. We also placed regular ice cubes in solid colored containers, to see if the color container affected the melt time of the ice. We then strapped on our snowshoes and explored another trail. We searched out and  ‘met the conifers,’ investigating the different types of needles and cones, as well as collecting some for an art project for later on. We also learned how to use and tested out binoculars, looking for birds and getting to see one, the black-capped chickadee, up-close. We also took out some Behr paint sample cards to see if we could determine the ‘color’ of the snow (the campers decided it was ‘popped corn’).

Our afternoon was spent talking about winter animal adaptations, helping an ‘insect’ stay warm with different types of insulation, playing iceberg hopping (where the campers had to work together to ‘make it across an ocean’ without stranding other campers),  and enjoying some hot cocoa and marshmallows.

Day 4:

• Today was our last snowshoe-able day, so we went on a long hike to the northern end of the preserve, and observing deer fairly up-close. We also read a book called Under the Snow, to see how ‘unseen’ animals survive in the winter.
• Our afternoon flew by as we experimented with Insta-snow, used the cones and needles we collected to paint, doing an indoor scavenger hunt and enjoying some fresh popped ‘snow’ AKA popcorn.

Day 5:

Warmer weather forced us indoors for our final day. We explored the night sky with a visit to our indoor planetarium, as well as learning how to use a star chart and making a planesphere. We also made ice-salt drawings, made each other into snowmen, had a snowball tossing contest, a penguin waddle race, turned one camper into a polar bear, examined a polar bear fur and made our very own bird suet cakes to take home. Whew!

Thank you for allowing us to help foster the love of nature in your camper throughout the week. Hopefully we’ll see you this summer! Happy almost spring!

To see photos from our adventures, watch the slideshow below.

Miss Caryn and the Tifft staff