When I was a child, I spent a week or two every summer at Chippewa Nature Centers Nature Day Camp in Midland, Michigan. I cherish the memories I made there: games, camp outs, crafts, pond dipping, river walks, and more.
When I started my internship at Fenner Nature Center, I was happy to learn that it has a similar program. Because one of my areas of study at school is art and design, I was asked to plan and participate in a nature-themed craft once a week with the campers here. Though I don’t have much experience working with children, I agreed.
Each week of camp here has a different theme. There have been camps about weather, wilderness survival, bugs, vertebrates, nature art, pond life, homesteading, and ecology.
Planning a craft for each of these camps has been more difficult than I expected, but luckily, the camp counselors and Program Manager here have been more than helpful in coming up with ideas.
My favorite week has been the nature art week, which was ironically the only week that I didn’t plan the crafts. Instead of one craft that week I did two. On Tuesday that week we did “cave painting” in the observation blind here with paints made from mud and fruit.
On Wednesday that week, we made paper from paper. Old papers were blended into a pulp, which was then pressed onto screens and left to dry into new, textured sheets of paper.
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