We skied.
I taught survival skills. We hiked. I shared some great snow play ideas. We talked with lots of new friends, old friends and saw some amazing presentations.
We heard a great speech from John Francis, the planet walker.
The Wisconsin Association for Environmental Education put together an amazing Winter Workshop!
And now it is time to recover and get back in the swing of things at home!
I am scrambling today trying to get our whole family ready to head out of town for an environmental education conference. This is the first time that my family will be coming with me for a "work" conference and I am very nervous but also really excited. I have two workshops to present, three meetings to run and a ton of other stuff to do, not to mention being mom and wife! I will be sharing pictures and stories of what we did and how it went when we get back on Monday!
So, while I am packing and prepping for my sessions the girls got to pretend to be birds trying to survive the cold temps in winter.
First we talked about how birds have feathers and to make them even warmer in the winter they shake their bodies to fluff up their feathers. The fluffing traps air between the feathers and keeps them more insulated. This is one reason why some birds (cardinals and chickadees) look bigger in the winter. They haven't put on extra weight, just extra air!!
I started with water balloons. But instead of filling them with water I filled them with air.
The I explained to the girls that to fluff up their feathers they had to try and see how many balloons they could squeeze underneath their shirts.
Eventually they started trying to stick the balloons under their pants, sleeves and even socks! They were determined to be warm birds through the winter!
They had a blast and I got some great work done. Plus, some learning happened, which is always a plus!
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The Nitty Gritty!
For more activities on animals preparing for and surviving winter check out these posts -
Here is our snow fort from last year.
It was a GIANT pile created simply by the snowblower clearing off the driveway. We got so much snow and this pile was just screaming for a tunnel.
We played in this tunnel for weeks last year. And it held up great!
We haven't gotten enough snow to make a big pile and despite all my effort to SHOVEL our driveway into one pile I still haven't gotten enough snow to make a tunnel that even comes close to the one we had last year. So, this year we moved the fort to the backyard and created this...
And the girls played a huge role in actually making this fort (unlike last year where I dug the whole tunnel out myself). Sam had the idea to use a tub from her mud kitchen to create blocks. She did the first two rows almost all by herself, with just a little bit of adjustment of the blocks from me. After the second row was done she got nervous about knocking it over and asked me to help her put them on the walls.
It doesn't have a rough yet and I haven't quite figured out how to do that part. But they are really enjoying just having a snow house in the backyard to play in!
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The Nitty Gritty!
WARNING: When digging out snow tunnels or creating snow forts be sure to always stay with your child. Snow is very unpredictable and could collapse at anytime. Children should never be left unattended when playing in a snow fort, no matter how old they are!
