Director's Message:

What will it look like for you next summer at Nature Camps?

Taking the time to consider what you want next summer's NC experience to be helps maintain a connectedness with the outdoor adventures you and your family hold dear. Creating a verbal painting, as a family, rekindles last summer's sense of wonder for all -- through the fall, winter, and spring months, keeping alive those memorable experiences.

NEW FOR 2009!

Camp Little Feet, a camping program for toddlers and parents.

In the same way that Camp Wonder came into being, the creation of Camp Little Feet is a response to parents who wish there was a nature based sensory awareness experience for their toddlers, ages 2 1/2 to 4. In keeping with NC's philosophy, Camp Little Feet encourages families to be at Nature Camps as much as possible.
Early childhood outdoor educators will take toddlers, with an accompanying parent, on remarkable adventures in the woods, fields, streams, swimming pool, toddler swings, and more!

Camp Little Feet will be a morning program. Parents will have the option of staying the whole day, as they wait for their older children to return from their NC adventures. In addition to parent-toddler nature experiences, parents will have time to be with other parents while their toddlers are resting.

It is a delight to create an atmosphere in which parents can be with other parents, on the porch swings, around the sand box, at the shallow end of the pool, and in a cozy spot nearby in the woods, having their own time -- either watching their youngest children, knowing they are in the hands of experienced early childhood outdoor educators.

In Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman wrote:

There Was a Child Went Forth
There was a child every day;
And the first object he look'd upon,
that object he became; And that
object became part of him for the day,
or a certain part of the day, or for many
years, or stretching cycles of years.

- Walt Whitman

It's About a Sense of Wonder!

We hope many parents from past summers, and new NC families, will be able to make the time to be at Nature Camps, sharing mutual footprints in Camp Little Feet. Look for details of Camp Little Feet in the upcoming months. We welcome and encourage suggestions or questions. Parents: What would you like to see in Camp Little Feet?

Add a Week! One Week Extensions Now Available

Meeting the needs of parents last summer, we offered one week extensions. We will again make this option available in 2009 -- providing you with increased flexibility in planning your child's summer schedule. Through our thirty five years of experience, we've learned that children easily become acclimated to Nature Camps by the way we structure our two-week sessions. Children feel comfortable and everything is easily understood. The option to extend one's stay at NC by a week enhances these valuable experiences -- further nurturing children's inborn sense of wonder through continued remarkable adventures.

The Add-a-Week option will only be available to children who have previously completed a full two-week session, adding either week one or week two of the following session. Look for more of this new option in our 2009 flyer.

NC's Second Annual Family and Friends Work Days!

From 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Sat., May 2 & 9.

Snacks, Drinks, and Lunch will be provided. Please bring your own water bottle. Please bring tools such as rakes, shovels, pruners, wheel barrows, etc.

Projects will include: Ropes Course maintenance (spreading wood chips, etc.); hanging cargo nets and swings; weeding, planting, maintaining rock walls in wildflower gardens; spreading rocks at water pump; moving picnic tables; hanging tarps; spreading wood chips at the big swings and by (delete the word by) Lodge; hanging tarps; organizing and cleaning Lodge; hanging signs, raking leaves from pool deck; etc.

Children are welcome, though young ones must remain with a parent at all times. Counselors will not be available to watch children.
Please call 410-935-1545 or email naturecamps@msn.com if you will be able to assist us in getting Nature Camps ready for another fabulous summer!
2009 Calendar

2009 Calendar

Click here for the schedule for this summer.

Open House

Join us for our 35^th Open House on Sunday, May 17 from 1 – 4.

Returning families, come for an afternoon of reconnecting with the staff, enjoying the woods, and welcoming new families.

New families, you'll have the chance to meet Don, other staff, and veteran NC parents. You can also tour the grounds, ask questions, swing on the tall swings, and visit NC's unique Adventure Challenge Ropes Courses. NC water bottles and Camper T-Shirts will be available for purchase.

New Wilderness First Aid Coordinator

Nature Camps welcomes Heidi Silberg as our new Wilderness First Aid Coordinator. Heidi and her family are back from last summer. Check out her bio.

Nature Camps Sponsors Wilderness First Aid Certification

NC will again sponsor of SOLO's Wilderness First Aid (WFA) certification for NC staff and area outdoor education facilities. Contact naturecamps@msn.com for registration information.