Session Four has been WILD!

What an amazing session this has been! Yesterday the Explorers went on an exciting adventure: caving at Mt Toby! To get to the cave, we had to hike a steep slope, sometimes having to climb on hands and knees. When we get inside, there were boulders to climb up and down, and small spaces to squeeze through. After each camper made it down one particularly big boulder, everyone clapped for them. What a supportive group.

The Explorers built "North Town" on Wednesday, a full-on village in the woods with homes, businesses, and streets. If you haven't heard about "North Town" yet, or visited it for yourself, it is a must!

Meanwhile, the Young Naturalists have been hard at work on their power animal piñatas! Everyone has a power animal that they have researched this week. Over the past few days they have been painting their piñata to look like their animal. You'll see their hard work today at camp share.

Also at Camp Share today you will see the results of our collaboration with Debbi Friedlander, a local music teacher. Debbi has led the campers in writing a song about being "At Home in the Wild"! The campers have had such a fun time singing and writing lyrics with Debbi.

At Home in the Wild

Yesterday the Explorers learned about wild edibles with Ted Watt, naturalist extraordinaire. Campers tried staghorn sumac, wood sorrel, groundnut, and more!

Scroll down to see what ELSE they found!

praying mantis!!! AWESOME!!!

Walking Stick Insects from Near and Far

Last week campers got to spend time with two different kinds of walking sticks: native stick insects found right here in Amherst and Thai walking sticks from the Hitchcock Center exhibit. Ask your camper about the differences in size, color and habitat of these two different walking sticks.

Can you guess which walking stick is which? Answers below! (The background of the pictures should be a big hint!)

Answers: Top photo= native walking stick. Bottom 4 photos = Thai walking sticks

Sit Spot and Wild Edibles

Yesterday the Young Naturalists had their first first trip to Mount Pollux. Campers collected so many different kinds of insects: Japanese beetles, flies, honeybees, dragonflies, walking sticks, milkweed bugs, daddy longlegs, butterflies, moths, leafhoppers, horseflies... the list goes on. Some insects could be found in short grass, others in long grass. Some insects were found on flowers, some flying through the air. Some insects you could find without even trying!

After collection, we all had a good look and said goodbye to the insects. To send them off, we said a little rhyme:

Run away, crawl away, fly away, hop
You're free to go, I won't try to stop you
from living your life. Your deserve to be free.
Thank you for spending this time with me.

Then campers had a "sit spot." Everyone picked a spot to sit alone quietly for a few minutes while they observed their surroundings with all five senses. We wrote in our journals and shared about it afterwards.

While half the group went to Mount Pollux, the other half went on a wild edibles walk with Ted, a Hitchcock Center naturalist. (Then the groups switched in the afternoon.) Ted showed campers the wild edible plants that can be found in the gardens, weeds, and woods of the Hitchcock Center. Campers learned about mint, groundnuts, wood sorrel and more. Ask your camper about their favorite wild edible! Thanks to Jessica Schultz for the gorgeous photos of the wild edibles walk.