NOVEMBER 24-25, 2014: SCRAM, STORE, OR SNORE

These two days were dedicated to discovering what animals do to survive the winter! 

On Monday we realized that many animals disappear over the winter months. Some animals migrate to escape the cold! We played a monarch migration board game, and got to take home some milk weed seed pods to help facilitate the migration of our local butterflies next year. And it isn’t just winged animals that migrate! We pretended we were in the mountains and reenacted an Elk migration, too!
Other animals disappear in the winter because they hibernate. Before these creatures cozy up for the winter, they often need to fatten up to store energy for their big snooze. We acted out fattening up with t-shirt layers and then we made some caves and dens to pretend to hibernate in! We also learned where cold-blooded animals go when they disappear for the cold weather. We learned that reptiles and amphibians hibernate in the ground- often under leaves and mud. We got to act out their hibernation with dirt dessert pudding complete with gummi frogs and snakes- yum! We wrapped up the day with imagining and illustrating ourselves as animals choosing if we would choose to hibernate or to migrate and explaining why.

Tuesday’s theme was animals that stay around for the season. Some animals stick around through the cold and snow and find ways to adapt and survive through the winter. We went on a hike to Confluence park to look for animals and animal signs to see what animals are staying in Denver through the winter. We played a capture the flag type game as birds trying to collect and cache seeds for the winter. Then, we got creative and made bird feeders to help out our local feathered friends! Some animals adapt to survive the winter. We specifically talked a few animals in particular that change color to help them stay warm and avoid predators. The ptarmigan, weasel, and snowshoe hare are all Colorado animals that switch their coloring to white! We made colored collages of these animals to change them from brown to many other colors!

Check out our slideshow of all the camp pictures below!