Our goals for the children’s activities at the Colonial Beach, Virginia’s Osprey Festival were to expose children and families to developmentally appropriate nature education, model open-ended and active experiential play for children of all ages, and to provide children from the surrounding rural areas and those visiting from urban centers, rich nature and creative art experiences. The Children’s Activities Tent hosted many such engaging activities and experiences from interacting with wildlife officers and experts, to meeting children’s book authors and illustrators, and meeting ambassador animals such as a hoot owl, vulture and opossum.
DEY supported the purchase of materials for children to create their own personalized Tree
Cookie Medallion. We encouraged the children to draw their favorite animal, nature item, outdoor scene, or osprey (of course!). But as is always true of children, their imaginations took flight and we saw children absorbed in creating detailed drawings of their families, Minecraft characters, and the ever-popular rainbow. We even had parents and grandparents joining in the fun and making medallions, proving once again that PLAY is GOOD for EVERYONE! All seemed fascinated with the “wood cookies” as most had never seen a material such as this before as a drawing canvas. All of the participants received a bird finger puppet for showing off their artistic enthusiasm and a “save the earth” sticker to remind them of the importance of nature in our lives.
We were positioned right next to the booth of visiting nature illustrator of children’s books, Kate Garchinsky. The children were inspired in their artistic efforts by watching Ms. Garchinsky sketch a live hoot owl.
We were able to engage several adults in conversations about the importance of play, creative and open-ended opportunities, and learning about nature in playful ways. We distributed many copies of the booklet The Wisdom of Play, which was generously provided by Community Playthings. You can see from our photographs that we had quite a diverse population of participants and a wide age range.
Thank you DEY for funding this engaging activity for the children attending our Osprey Festival!
