Week 9 – July 28-31, 2014: Dirt, Rocks and Clay!

On Monday’s hike in the Galisteo Basin we had a lot of fun following drainage meanders.  We picked up cool rocks after reading Everyone Needs A Rock, and messed around with found clay. Monsoons kept us in low terrain all week.

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On Tuesday we were at Tsankawi where we waited out a drizzle in cavates in the welded tuff, then donned rain gear and continued exploring. We spotted a horny toad along the trail.

Bred in captivity, a rare hybrid Gyrfalcon/Peregrine falcon.

Wednesday we all quite easily made it up to the first pool in Deer Creek – got to love the cooler weather! We had a lesson at the sandstone outcrop with the nice tilted bedding planes of rock and looked at the fossils of decayers – crinoid stems in the limestone.  We worked on learning the sedimentary, igneous, metamorphic rock song.

The elusive Mexican Spotted Owl.

Thursday Ziggy led us up the wash behind St. John’s College where we played in the damp sand and made pictures with a red sand from the decaying granite bank on the white sand of the wash. We also gained a high point on the shoulder of Sun Mountain and drew maps of our route from the van.

Spotted a tiny horny toad along the way.

Owls and Eagles stayed together all week.  Eagles cooled their jets a little and the Owls stepped up. Super pleasant weather all week and a great group of campers!

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Dirt, Rocks, and Clay! June 16-19, 2014

We began the week by learning about each other, camp rules and a Rock Song about the three types of rocks: Sedimentary, Igneous and Metamorphic.  Our adventure took us to Deer Creek where we got to see some great examples of sedimentary rock and talk about how it formed.  We collected special rocks for painting the next day, and had fun hiking and getting wet in the pools (Eagles) at Deer Creek!

Ditto for the Owls, except they explored different pools and played games!

Tuesday: We began our day with a great game of Park Ranger and some Rock Painting!  We sang the rock song and did a Dirt True and False before heading up the mountain.  The Eagles did a HUGE hike up to Raven’s Ridge!  Nice work, Eagles!  It was chilly, so we had to stay moving to keep warm!

The Owls also hiked along the Winsor Trail to a beautiful meadow where they played rock games and explored.

Wednesday: Galisteo Basin Preserve.  Morning games and working with clay were followed by a quick stop in Galisteo where the mosquitoes were out and biting – one of the drawbacks of all the lovely June rain!  We quickly aborted this location and found some great dirt, rocks and clay to explore at the Galisteo Basin Preserve.

Thursday: Tsankawi.  Our final stop for Dirt, Rocks and Clay was the amazing ruins at Tsankawi.  We talked about volcanoes and made a human volcano at Fort Marcy before we headed out.  it is always impressive to see the remains of the supervolcano that erupted and is now the Valles Caldera.  We found pottery shards and obsidian and arrow heads on our hike to the caveates.

 

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The Secret Language of Birds! June 9-12, 2014.

The Secret Language of Birds is a new theme this year, and one which we LOVED!  We talked about “what makes a bird and bird” by playing a True and False game with our bodies.  Once we arrived at the Beaver ponds, everyone received their own bird behavior checklist and we talked about why birds perform each of the behaviors.  We acted out the behaviors and had the campers guess which one we were doing. Before setting off, each buddy pair received a pair of  binoculars to use during our hike.  It was awesome to witness the kids focus and interest in finding birds and deciding which behavior they were engaged in.  We saw lots of birds, some animal tracks, and found fossils as we hiked around the entire pond.

On Tuesday we ventured to Deer Creek after a story about birds and games at Fort Marcy.

The Owls (5-7 year olds), hiked, played, did sit spots and worked in their nature journals.

The Eagles did a big hike all the way to the pools where they had a chance to cool off in the icy cold water!

On Wednesday we talked about the five different voices of birds and the kids had a chance to act out the voices and talk about why birds will use each voice.  We compared some of these to human behavior (i.e. juvenile begging!).  On the Winsor Trail we had the opportunity to hear the bird language in real life and made educated guesses at what we thought the birds were saying to each other, or to other animals in the forest.

On Thursday we talked about some common birds and played games to learn what they are. Our adventure was to the Wildlife Center where we got to get up close to owls, hawks, eagles and some small mammals including fox and bobcat.  It was fascinating to hear the stories about how the animals got there and how we can help keep them in the wild.

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