January 2022 News: 4-H Camp and Learning Centers at Tanglewood and Blueberry Cove
Index of This Month’s Stories:
- Happy 2022! Registration is Open!
- Winter at Tanglewood
- Blueberry Cove After School
- In Addition to In-person Programming at Local Schools:
Happy 2022! Registration is Open!
Summer’s Coming!
We are excited to announce that registration is now open for Tanglewood and Blueberry Cove summer programs!
Although we have gone back to near normal capacity, some changes have been made to the program details. Please make sure to look up the programs you are interested in and their FAQs on our website before registering.
You will find the online registration link on the Register for Camp or Events page.
A huge part of the camp experience is the campers. You make camp magical! When we think back to last summer, smiles come to our faces as we remember special moments shared. We have eight weeks of camp before us, so come join the fun and bring a friend!
Winter at Tanglewood
Have you ever heard of Tanglewood’s Village Program? It is a specially designed Open Air Classroom program for 2nd and 3rd graders that focuses on seasonal transitions and animal adaptations throughout the year.
In the fall schools have two visits to Tanglewood where they learn about making observations; participate in activities related to watersheds, forests, and wildlife, and practice outdoor skills. On the final visit, they create a “peep” (small stick creature) and build a small shelter to live in through the winter. They will return in the spring to see how their peep survived. We will share more about this in the spring!
During the winter months, Tanglewood educators visit the schools and explore the school grounds with students. Winter programs feature learning about the subnivean zone (a safe place for small rodents to live out of the watchful eye of animals like ermine), snow experiments studying insulation with Jello* “animals”, scent tracking, and animal tracking. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for snow.
We’ll share more about the Village program in the spring when Tanglewood opens back up again for school visits!
Blueberry Cove After School
Each day from 2:30-5:00 p.m. the grounds and Maine at Blueberry Cove are alive with the sounds of students unwinding after school. We are in the 3rd year of a collaboration with the St. George School, providing after-school enrichment programs for local youth.
After school, each day students are shuttled to Blueberry Cove for an afternoon full of activities like exploring the shoreline, creative arts projects, engineering challenges, game design and playing, outdoor skills, and adventures to surrounding natural areas. The afternoon is split into blocks allowing for free play, snacks, structured enrichment activities, and wrap-up/clean-up before heading home.
This service has been invaluable to families on the peninsula as afternoon childcare is hard to find, especially one that is able to roll with the ebbs and flows of changing school schedules during the pandemic. Families register in advance for this program with five to fifteen students attending each day.
In Addition to In-person Programming at Local Schools:
We have been busy delivering programming all over the northeast!
- The 4-H Northeast Collaborative team, comprising 4-H professionals from Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire are supporting school enrichment for rural, remote learners as well as learners in the classroom. We developed an AgriSTEM curriculum designed to be delivered virtually or in person by 4-H professionals. Local 4-H Centers, including Tanglewood, distributed curriculum kits containing a Samsung tablet and hands-on materials for each lesson to each learner to use in the classroom and/or at home and to keep as their own.
- During the summer, we facilitated Food Systems Feed Us: From Farm to Table; STEMgineer, and Pizza Garden programs with campers. In the fall, we facilitated Cultivating Roots: An Introduction to Hydroponics and The Power of Wind with learners in the classroom.
Tanglewood staff and learners had so much fun discovering where our food comes from, how to engineer robots, various ways to grow plants, and how to harness the wind to make simple machines.
For more information or questions about our monthly online newsletter, contact Jessica Decke at extension.tanglewood4h@maine.edu.
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