Instructions and materials will be at Admission Window for each activity. 

 

Find a comfortable place to sit. Close your eyes for 1 minute. Listen to all of the wonderful sounds around you. Open your eyes and discuss all of the things that were heard. What made those sounds? Why were they making them? Where were they coming from?

 

Close your eyes again. This time, focus on the way your skin feels as the sun beams down on you. Figure out where the breeze is coming from and how it feels when it blows. Open your eyes. Is the air warm? Which way was it coming from? How did the sun feel on your skin? Is the grass soft?

 

There will be a station set up by the Wetland Demonstration Garden with magnifying boxes, pipettes, petri dishes, microscopes, a dip net, and big trays. Locate the 5 gallon bucket and scoop up some water out of the pond closest to you.  Pour enough water into the white trays to be about ½ inch deep. Next, take the net located there and drag it across the bottom of the pond. Dump the sample into the white trays with water. Begin to explore all of the small macro invertebrates. If you do not get a good sample the first time, try again. Use the pipettes (eye droppers) to catch the organisms and isolate them in the petri dishes (plastic dishes) or magnifying boxes. You can place the petri dishes under the microscopes to view the organisms a little better. After observing them look through a book and identify them as best as you can.  Describe all of the features that make it the way it is and why you found it where you did. Was it swimming? Was it walking on water? Have you ever seen it anywhere else before?

 

Starting at the Children’s Garden, take a piece of masking tape and wrap it around your child’s wrist, you may want to wrap a piece around your wrist too!  Wrap the tape around the wrist with the sticky side up (facing away from your skin). Walk around the garden and have your child dip his or her wrist in the flower beds, picking up small things and seeing if they stick to the tape bracelet—flower petals, small fallen leaves, sand and seeds work well.

 

Select a small area on the ground, about a yard square. With your child, pretend to shrink down to the size of ants. Give your child six short sticks or toothpicks and ask him or her to lead an ant-sized nature walk, using the toothpicks to mark six interesting things along the way. Encourage your child to use his or her imagination. Pick the sticks up and do it again in a new location. Remember at the end of your Ant Walk make sure you pick up the toothpicks so that they do not become real obstacles for ants.

 

This activity will be set up at a table in front of the Volunteer Center. Select one or more leaves and place a piece of paper on top. Press down and rub a crayon over the area where the leaf is placed. Make an impression of the leaf on the paper. Notice the symmetry of the veins in the leaf. What do these veins do? Talk about the important functions that leaves serve, creating food for the tree.

 

Pick up a blindfold from the Admission Window. Blindfold your child and gently lead them to a tree. Stand with them and encourage them to get to know the tree through touch and smell. Encourage them to feel the bark, find branches, smell the bark and estimate how big around the tree is by hugging the trunk. While your child is still blindfolded, lead your child back to where you started. Now take off the blindfold and have them try to find their tree. When they find their tree, ask them what senses helped them to locate their tree? What things made that tree unique? Have them blindfold you and lead you to a tree.