Kim’s Winter Activity Guide

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Kim's Winter Activity Guide

As winter approaches you might be wondering how you can best get out and enjoy the season. Our Outdoor Activity Consultant, Kim, has curated a list of local events and activities that will have you bundling up and falling in love with winter all over again.

These activities connect with so many Pathway Landmarks, from Landmark 1(Explore outdoors together), to Landmark 11, 14 and 17 which all encourage you to try different kinds of outdoor recreation that don’t require gasoline or electricity.

There’s so much to do in Peterborough and surrounding areas this winter.

Winter Activities

Outdoor Skating

The City of Peterborough has plenty of neighbourhood outdoor rinks including Cameron Street Park, Dixon Park, Earlwood Park, Golfview Park, Hastings Park, Kiwanis Park, Nicholls Park, Northland Park, Mapleridge Park, Poplar Park, Stenson Park, Turner Park, and University Heights.

Rinks are open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. (weather and ice conditions permit)

The Peterborough Lift Lock 

Park right on Armour Road, just south of Hunter Street, and get on the ice within a minute.

Make sure that you see the green flag flying over the canal before venturing onto the ice.

 

Quaker Foods Urban Park

The newest addition to Peterborough’s skating rinks is called ‘The Commons‘ area! It’s refrigerated and has lights for nighttime skating!  

215 Charlotte Street St, Peterborough

 

Lakefield Speed Skating Oval 

The park is open from noon to 6 p.m. on weekdays and full days on weekends. Lessons are available. You’ll find it at 3358 Lakefield Road.

 

Tobogganing at Armour Hill

The legendary hill is in Ashburnham Memorial Park, on Armour Road where it meets Douro Street.

 

Cross Country Skiing

Kawartha Nordic Ski Club offers beautiful scenery along 46 kilometres of classic trails, 27 km for skate skiing, and 2 km for night skiing. There are also nine kilometres for snowshoeing. You can rent skis and snowshoes right on-site.

Address: 7107 Highway 28, Township of North Kawartha

Ski right in Peterborough in Jackson Park with the Peterborough Nordic Club

The groomed route begins at The Trans Canada Trail. The trail will be groomed west along the trail just before the 4th bridge at Atkinson Road. The groomed route is 4km in total. 

 

Outdoor workout

Peterborough’s outdoor gym is in Beavermead Park. The 12 low-impact stations overlook Little Lake. Enter the park at 2011 Ashburnham Dr. and look for the gym near the volleyball court.

There are different fitness stations with several types of exercises, as well as standalone equipment such as a recumbent bike. The gym is also fully accessible for persons with disabilities. and includes a fitness station that accommodates wheelchairs.

Go Ice Fishing

Chemong Lake is a fisher’s paradise and is a great venue to introduce kids to this annual tradition. No licence is required during the family day weekend.

Winter attractions

A half-day farm adventure for the family at Woolley Wonderland Farm in Lakehurst. It’s all outdoors with lots to do. Meet your favourite Frozen characters with Olaf and Elsa, join in the bonfire with hot chocolate, take a wagon or sleigh ride, and pet the miniature farm friends. This event runs until Jan 8.

Animal Friends

Wanderlight Alpaca experiences run through the winter and offer you and your family a chance to meet alpacas and go for a walk with them. Wanderlight Alpaca is located at 874 Lynch’s Rock Road in Lakefield. 

Don’t forget to also visit the animals at the Riverview Park and Zoo this winter. The zoo is located at 1300 Water St, Peterborough, and is open 8:30 a.m. until dusk.

Winter Events

Lakefield’s Polarfest February 3-5, 2023

PolarFest is an exciting family festival, offering something for everyone to enjoy!

Choose from activities including: Opening Ceremony with fireworks display, Snowman Building Challenge, Candlelight Skate, Ice Carvings, and for the brave the BEL Rotary Polar Plunge

Peterborough’s Snofest February 17-20, 2023

As part of this Snofest Event, meet outside in the Heritage Pavilion for a snowy Story Time in the Park with the Peterborough Public Library.  After, warm up inside the Peterborough Museum. Do a simple craft, explore the galleries, and play with the many interactives. Feb 17, 10:30-11:00 and 2:00-4:00

See more of this year’s festivities by checking the Peterborough website for information. 

Get Out and Play

The Peterborough Museum & Archives’ newest temporary exhibit Get Out and Play: Winter Sports in Peterborough will open on Saturday, December 10, and be on display until March 19, 2023.

Get Out and Play was developed in-house at the Peterborough Museum & Archives, using artifacts, archival images, and stories from its collections. Visitors will see skates, skis, a toboggan, and other winter sports equipment from days past. People can learn about the origins of some of their favourite winter sports, as well as the context of these sports and clubs at a local level

Family Literacy Day

Here is an event that’s fun for the whole family. This is a free event and families can get creative in the craft area,  pick out a book and settle in to enjoy Paddling Puppeteer, Glen Caradus, and his puppet friends as they entertain us with songs and stories about the natural world. Family Literacy Day is taking place at Peterborough Square, on Saturday, January 28 from 9:30-12:00. 

 

Family-Friendly Summer Activities

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Family-Friendly Summer Activities

Getting outside with your baby or toddler is great for the whole family.  A bit of fresh air and exercise can help you and your child calm down, relax and refocus.

A hat, some sunscreen for babies over six months and a water bottle are necessities.

Sweet Summer Fun with Babies and Toddlers

Nancy Doherty, Pathway Activity Consultant

Enjoy time together, forget about the dirty dishes and enjoy some of these experiences:

baby-girl-sitting-in-grass-with-a-handful-of-dande-BN3K3BD

1. A walk around the block may be enough for your toddler, they often like to stop and pick up every stone or stick, as they explore their world.  Outdoors our senses are stimulated; see the colourful flowers, look up at the clouds, hear the chattering squirrels, singing birds, the smell of blossoms, feel of the wind touch the rough bark on the tree.

family-picnic-in-the-park-PXV97PG

2. A picnic in a park or your backyard may be a new experience.  Talk about the ants, the feel of the grass, the blue sky; introduce new words, label the colours you see.

Unrecognizable father with small daughter on a walk in autumn forest, resting and talking.

3. A visit to a stream or creek provides opportunities for watching the water flow, throwing sticks or stones in the water to see a splash, or dipping toes in the water.  Keep your eyes open for frogs and minnows or turn over some rocks to see the crayfish.

Mother sitting next to her son on the floor covered with fur rug and showing him something curious in backyard through big window

4. Set up a tent in the backyard, babies can crawl in and play some peek-a-boo, toddlers may bring their favourite toys and play or listen to a story while enjoying a new experience.

toddler-child-plays-with-water-in-a-basin-DQEBXK5

5. Play with some water, fill up a container that they can dip, dump, and discover in!  Add sponges, rocks, shells, and cups of different sizes.  Toddlers might decide to add some grass or dirt.

Water invites all kinds of discoveries; bathing dolls or toys, add a paintbrush and paint with water, fill up a watering can and water plants, climbing in the bin, and splashing. With support and encouragement from parents, children learn to love being in nature.

Do you know that the Peterborough Family Resource Centre provides programs and supports for families with children 0-6 years of age?  Check out their website or Facebook

Currently, programs are offered virtually but watch for the Summer Schedule coming soon.

Simple Summer Activities

Kim Dobson, Pathway Activity Consultant

Looking for critters in a pond or creek: For some ideas on pond studies and what you’ll find in ponds and creeks, watch the Hidden Life of Ponds with Jacob Rodenburg or Swamped with Nature Nancy. There are so many areas in and around Peterborough to take your net and container and take off your shoes and get looking: Jackson’s Creek, Warsaw Caves Conservation Area, Millbrook pond and trout ponds,  the Back Dam in Warsaw, around the edges of Little Lake and Squirrel Creek. Imagine the Marsh Conservation Area, Miller’s Creek Conservation Area, Hope Mill Conservation Area, and any body of water excluding sandy beaches (you won’t find much life on pure sand).

While you’re there, try your hand at making a sand castle. You can either use the traditional buckets and shovels or try the drip method

More into land activities?

Try disc golf. Peterborough has several great courses: Riverview Park and Zoo, Hamilton Park, Ennismore Waterfront Park, and Viamede Resort. All you need to participate is a frisbee or discs!

Family hikes: Whether it’s a walk around the neighbourhood, a hike through Jackson Park, or further afield, like a hike to High Falls, nothing beats a walk in the woods with your family. Take a picnic (food is a great motivator for little ones on a hike) and walking shoes and away you go. Socks and shoes are helpful for stability but also because of the poison ivy and/or insects. Kawartha Land Trust has many areas with trails that are open to the public, from the Jeffrey Cowan property on Stoney Lake to the John Earle Chase Memorial Park on Pigeon Lake. Find maps and directions on the Kawartha Land Trust website

Become a citizen scientist this summer. Contribute to scientific data being gathered all over the world. It’s as easy as snapping a photo of anything from frogs, plants, insects, and posting them in apps like iNaturalist, eBird, Seek, Bumblebee Watch, Herps of Ontario (part of iNaturalist), Leafsnap. These citizen science apps, and contributing to research, have the added benefit of getting your family to observe what is around them, learning the names of these things, and learning more about them, which in turn will hopefully create a context for caring about these living things and taking care of them.

Create a Butterflyway:  Seven steps to creating a Butterflyway from David Suzuki’s website 

  1. Grow native wildflowers, Invest in a tree or shrub, Create a woodpile bug hotel, Leave sunny soil patches for bees,
  2. Provide a water source, Learn more about local bees and butterflies, Create a neighbourhood Butterflyway!
 

Unstructured free time: this is what summer is all about and it’s been proven that unstructured free time outdoors is very beneficial for child development and also for connecting to the environment. 

Unstructured play provides a variety of benefits for child and youth health and well-being, in terms of: physical health and gross motor skills, mental and emotional health, social health and teamwork, learning and attention at school, and resiliency and risk management skills.

The Canadian Public Health Association 
If your child is not used to unstructured free time outside, it might take time to build up their comfort level, stamina and also their imaginations as to what to do with this free time. Start with short time frames and some suggestions and build up to longer times and less “interference”. Most often, if given the time and space, kids will come up with imaginative things to do that you would never have considered. When you think that they are done, and they are saying that they don’t know what to do, give them more time and see what happens. This is often when the magic happens!

Bring the family to a Provincial Park, they are free this summer Monday to Thursday for day use. Provincial Parks in our area are: Petroglyphs Provincial Park, Silent Lake Provincial Park, Emily Provincial Park, Balsam Lake Provincial Park, and further afield Presqu’il Provincial Park.

Get out after dark and stargaze. Several wonderful apps for identifying constellations are: Skyview, Google Sky, SkySafari, Star Tracker and to find out where the International Space Station is, there is even an app for that, called International Space Station.

Even more activities for kids 5+

Nancy Thomson, Pathway Activity Consultant
1.  Geocaching, the world’s biggest treasure hunt!
 
If you like looking for treasures and discovering new places then Geocaching is for you.  All you need is a smart phone or a GPS unit, get an account and decide which treasure hunt you will start with.  There are likely many geocaches close to where you live and there are thousands in Peterborough and the Kawarthas to be found. Go to Geocaching.com and create your account and the geocache options will pop up.  Walk, take a bike or make an unexpected stop while traveling this summer. It is an amazing way to explore the land.

2. Build a Fort

A cool place to beat the heat this summer is in the forest and Peterborough has plenty of them to explore. Jackson Park is the first one that comes to mind and is the perfect spot to build a fort. Let the children figure out what will make forts strong, waterproof, warm at night, and of course stylish.  Please remember to ensure that the fort builders are aware of animal homes and not to cut live branches for their forts as we are sharing the land with so many creatures, big and small.

3. Get on your BIKE and ride!

The Great Trail (otherwise known as the TransCanada Trail) runs right through Peterborough and to the east and west.  There are many sections of the trail that are on old rail trails allowing for easy biking adventures while minimizing exposure to motorized vehicles.  You can bike all the way to Hastings and beyond on the trail, stopping for a picnic along the way.  Or, if you want to go the other way, head west towards Omemee and discover the beautiful lands around the county. Visit https://tctrail.ca/ and see the section of the trail you want to discover.

4. Canoeing and Kayaking the Canal

A canoe trip doesn’t just have to be in the vast wilderness.  Exploring the Peterborough area along the canal is a really fun and exciting way to spend a summer day.  Whether you start in Little Lake or in Lakefield, you can travel along the canal and stop for a bite along the way, at a local café or the picnic you brought to eat at your favourite lock. If you don’t have your own boat or one to borrow, LiftLock Paddle Co has canoes, kayaks, and paddleboards with a PFD included.  Explore the lock system or just paddle the lakes that make the Kawarthas a destination for many travelers.

5. Beach Volleyball

Bring a hat, some sunscreen and a beach ball (or volleyball of course) and enjoy the sand in your toes as you play a game of beach volleyball. There are 6 courts available for public use at Beavermead Park in Peterborough on a first come first serve basis.  If they are already rented when you get there, there is an amazing playground, field space, and beach as some easy alternatives to your game.  A visit to Ecology Park could also be a quick alternative but it is a worthwhile trip on its own.

6.  The Perfect Solution to a Hot Summer’s Night

One of my favourite memories, when my kids were young, were the nights when we went “off script”.  Instead of a regular bedtime routine, we planned a special evening on those hottest of hot summer evenings.  Packing up a dinner picnic with some cool treats, we headed to a park with a splash pad.  After dinner (instead of bath, book, bed) the kids would have fun in the splash pad, cooling them down after a hot day.  At the park, we would change them into their PJs, read a book, and head home where they would be tucked into bed (likely negotiating for one more book before lights out). Such special memories.

There is lots of fun under the sun, but here is a wonderful activity from our Outdoor Activity Consultant, Kelly, King, that brings you out after dark for a late-night adventure. 

Night Vision Journeys

Kelly King, Pathway Activity Consultant

Did you know? Red light helps to preserve our night vision because of the low frequency it has when it meets our eyes. At really low, or red light, conditions our eyes produce a chemical called rhodopsin which allows us to more easily see in the dark. From the last bright light, we see it can take about 20 to 40 minutes for our eyes to start producing rhodopsin. This means you’ll need to make sure you’re only using your red light and not looking at any bright lights like street lamps, cellphones, or watches for 20 to 40 minutes before you start seeing the benefits of your night vision flashlight!

What you’ll need:

Small piece of plastic (like saran wrap)

Flashlight

Elastic Band

Red marker

What to do:

1. Colour one side of the plastic with your red marker.

2. Cover the end of your flashlight with the red plastic and secure it with an elastic band.

3. Take your red light on your next night hike and note how much more you can see when you don’t have bright lights around you!

Kim’s Spring Activity List

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Kim's Spring Activity Guide

Our Outdoor Activity Consultant, Kim, has rustled up some exciting Spring Activities to keep our Pathway community busy!

1. Kites

learningliftoff.com

As spring can be breezy, it’s a great time to learn about wind and make and fly a kite
 

 2. Help the Birds 

Encourage birds to nest around your property by providing mud and nesting materials.

 

MUD

  • Choose a spot at the edge of a flower or vegetable garden to establish a mud hole. Use a hose or a bucket of water to wet the earth.
  • Squish the soil using your hands, a stick or a shovel, until it reaches a muddy consistency.
  • Try to find clay soil. Don’t worry if the mud contains small bits of grass or other plant fibres. 

NEST LINING MATERIALS

  • Stuff a mesh onion bag with materials such as dead twigs, pine needles, leaves, feathers, moss, dry grass (as long as it’s chemical-free), strips of bark, and plant fluff from plants such as cattails or cottonwood.
  • Hang the bag from a clothesline or tree branch in your backyard.
  • Some materials that were previously recommended for nesting are now considered unsafe. Do not provide hair (human or animal), string, yarn or loose bits of thread, as birds can become entangled in these materials. Likewise, do not provide pieces of felt or cloth, dryer lint, plastic, tinsel, cellophane or aluminum foil; these can be choking hazards or cause internal blockage.

3. Create a Wild Bee Sanctuary

For a detailed outline visit this link at the David Suzuki Organization 

  • Fill your yard with flowers
  • Plant native
  • Go organic
  • Add water  
 

b. Make a Bee Bath

Use a shallow plate and place it at the ground level where you’ve noticed bee activity. Place a few flat stones in the plate to create landing pads or islands and safe places to crawl out should they fall in. Add fresh water but don’t submerge the stones. Birds and butterflies will use it, too. Replace the water every few days to eliminate mosquito larvae… more here

Make a bee home

Honeybees and bumblebees live in social colonies, but most wild bee species are solitary. About two-thirds of solitary nesting bees use tunnels in the ground to lay their eggs. About one-third use hollowed-out plant stems or tunnels in dead trees or fallen logs… Want to discover the best homemade housing you can make for bees in your backyard? Read more here

4. Plant a Pollinators Garden 

Check out this amazing resource from Bee City Canada on how to create a habitat. and Follow it up with the Planting for Pollinators blog from Kidsgardening.org 


5. Create a Spring Checklist 

With your kids, make a checklist of things that make you think of spring. Go on a hike in the forest, check off all of the things that you see and feel on your list. Try to ensure that the list is multi-sensory, so things like feeling the warmth of the sun and different smells of the seasons are also on the list. Feel free to add to the lists as you are walking and noticing more things.

6. Colours of Spring

Pick up some paint chips from a hardware store. On your outdoor adventure, hand them out to your kids and see if they can find matches to many different colours. They may think it’s impossible, but this gets them to really look at items to find a match. Remember to look up, blues often match the sky!

If paint chips are not available to you, crayons will work too.

7. Meet a Tree in your Neighbourhood

Have your kids pick a tree that you really get to know over time. They can get to know it in so many different ways (draw, take bark rubbings, look with a magnifier, or use a camera). In the spring, they will be looking for the buds starting to explode into leaves. Most people think that buds form in the spring, but with careful observation, you will see that buds are actually on the tree all winter!

8. Disc Golf

Get your family involved in this fun, active, burgeoning sport. Peterborough has three easily accessible, free courses for you to enjoy. The courses are at the north end of the Riverview Park and Zoo, TASS, and Hamilton Park just south of Jackson Park. In outlying areas of Peterborough, there is one at Mount Julian Viamede and Ennismore Waterfront Park. Or, you can make your own course anywhere you would like by simply identifying objects as your targets. All you need is a frisbee, or a disc, and a good arm! www.peterboroughdiscgolf.ca

9. Take a Hike

Three Activities for Earth Day

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Three Activities for Earth Day

Here are three wonderful activities from our Outdoor Activity Consultant, Nature Nancy, to celebrate Earth Day. Enjoy making a ‘Sense Poem’, capture ‘Nature through the Window’, and find out ‘Who Lives Nearby’. Don’t forget to report your Landmark to get points on the Pathway Individual and Group Leaderboards and be entered into the monthly prize draw.

1. SENSE POEM (GR. 3-8)- USING ALL YOUR SENSES TO CREATE A POEM

How many words can you think of to describe the smell of a flower? How many words can you think of to describe the movement of a cat?

Take a sheet of paper and a pencil and find a comfortable place to sit outside. Sit there for several minutes and use all of your senses (likely not taste unless you brought out a snack). Ask yourself all of these questions.

What do I feel?

What do I smell?

What do I see?

What do I hear?

What do I taste (this can be imagined)?

Answer each question with some words that fit with your experience.

For example, I see….bright yellow flowers, fluffy clouds, windy trees, busy ant.

In order to create your sense poem, take away each of the questions and just use the answers that you wrote next to the question. Try your own sense poems and compare on different days/time of day.

Here is my example:

Monday Morning by Nature Nancy 

Cool wind, tickling grass, warm sun
Oats roasting, fresh-cut grass, sweet lilac waft
Bright yellow flowers, fluffy clouds, windy trees, busy ant
Honk, vroom, screech, caw, buzz, whoosh, chirp chirp Chocolate…Mmmmmm!

 2. Nature Through the Window (Gr. 3-8)- Creating a Frame in a window to observe and draw the out of doors

You will be looking at nature from inside and out. Follow these steps:

1. Make a frame using a piece of construction paper (or plain white paper) by cutting out a rectangle from the middle.

2. Find a window in your home and place the frame on it. You may be looking at a combination of things in nature and human-made items outside. Move your frame around the window and see if it changes what you see. What do you see? Birds, trees, weather, insects, flowers….roads, buildings? How did your scene change when you moved the frame?

3. Compare the smells, sounds, and feeling you detect when you are inside and compare that to when you go outside.

4. Leave your construction paper frame on a part of your window and sketch what you see through the frame.

 3. Who Lives Nearby? (Gr. 1-6) Creating a map of your neighbourhood and finding evidence of other creatures sharing our habitat.

  1. With paper and pencil in hand, walk around your neighbourhood and observe
    examples of creatures living in this habitat.
  2. In order to do this, you will need to make a map of the area that you are
    observing. When you find evidence of different creatures that you recognize then
    record it on your map. See the example to the left.
  3. For example, you may see a robin’s nest in a tree and will mark that on your map where it was found in your neighbourhood. Enjoy!

Winter Bingo

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Winter Bingo

 

Looking for a fun winter activity for all ages? Here is a free winter Bingo game cards from the Pathway!

Visit a special place, explore your senses, discover winter-themed words, and most of all, have fun!

This winter bingo helps with Landmarks 1,3,4 and 7.

Landmark 1. Explore outdoors together for at least an hour a week.

Landmark 3. Exercise the senses daily.

Landmark 4: Visit a favourite outdoor place each week throughout all seasons.

Landmark 7: Share a nature-based picture book, song, poem or game each week.

 

Download your Bingo Card Here!

 

 

Winter Wonderland: The Night Sky

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Winter Wonderland: The Night Sky

Winter is a perfect season for an often overlooked family activity – exploring the sky at night.  With winter’s early darkness and often crisp, clear weather, the stars take on a special brightness that is nothing short of breathtaking.

Night scene with the Milky Way in the background

 

January and February are perfect months to view one of the most striking and unforgettable of all the constellations – Orion, the Hunter.  Rising in the southeastern sky in early evening, Orion travels (like the sun) from east to west across the winter sky as the earth turns and night progresses, to finally set in the west before morning.  Orion is easy to find, by facing south and looking for the three stars in a row that make up his belt.  His shoulder and knee are two of our brightest stars, Betelgeuse and Rigel.  Just below and beside him is Sirius, the dog star – Orion’s faithful friend.

 

Indigenous storytellers also saw a human-like figure in this unique combination of stars.  The Ojibwe know him as Biboonkeonini – the Wintermaker.  Wintermaker stretches out his long arms to beckon the cold and winds of winter.  He also ushers in the traditional storytelling season of winter.

Early on a crisp, cloudless winter night, pack up the family, bring a thermos of hot chocolate and go out stargazing.  Turn out the house and yard lights for better viewing, or travel to a park or open area with few lights. Look for patterns in the stars and make your own stories.  If you’re lucky, you may even see a shooting star!  What an awesome reminder of the wonders around us every day.

Star watching connects with Landmarks 1, 3, 6, 11, 14, 17, 25.

Summer Report Highlights

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Summer Report Highlights

We’ve had some super ideas from families and other groups this summer.  Some of our favourites include:

  • The James family learned how to geocache with their 10-year old boys
  • The Nature Ninjas tried lots of new outdoor activities!  They built an obstacle course in their backyard, and the kids challenged the parents to see who was fastest completing the course; they tried making paints using soil and crushed plants, and made pictures with all-natural materials
  • Babbling Brook Daycare visited Jackson Park, and in one day, they saw a monarch butterfly, a grasshopper, a cardinal, as well as fish and geese in the pond and creek;  they also made beautiful corn husk dolls when the corn was ripe
  • The Warrens visit their favourite donkey on weekends, and feed her delicious treats
  • The Chickadees researched edible plants in their own yard and created their own field guide; they also created clothes made from flower petals to dress up sketches of people

So many great ideas!  Why not send us yours?

Family Cycling Adventures

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Family Cycling Adventures

Here’s a great idea for being active and spending time with those you love, even during social distancing in the pandemic.

child riding bicycleThe Ernsting family meet up for family cycling adventures on nearby trails.  Kids, parents and grandparents can all join in.  Pack a delicious lunch or snack as an added enticement for the trip!  Make sure everyone brings water to drink, uses sunscreen and wears a helmet.

Going exploring on bikes relates to several of the Pathway Landmarks:

  • LANDMARK 4 – Visit a favourite outdoor place every week (Age 4-5 years)
  • LANDMARK 9 – Visit an outdoor place that is special to you (Age 6-7 years)
  • LANDMARK 13 – Travel by yourself or with a friend on a familiar route (Age 8-9 years); Let the children help plan the route if you’re working on Landmark 13
  • LANDMARK 14 – Try several kinds of outdoor recreation that don’t need gasoline or electricity (Age 8-9 years)

If you live in the Peterborough region, we’re blessed with wonderful trail systems, both in town and in the county.  We also have great cycling support services.  Get started close to home with the City of Peterborough Trails Map.  Peterborough and the Kawarthas also have some great cycling route maps and other info for keen cyclists.

Keep trips short if you’re travelling with young children, and lengthen the trip as kids build strength and confidence.  Try cycling to a place where kids can explore and play, to break up the trip and give kids a rest.  Sharpen your eyes and ears while you’re travelling to listen for new sounds or look for interesting bugs, birds or animals along the way.

If you need help with repairing or finding a bike, or some guidance on how to cycle safely, contact BIKE, Peterborough’s community bike shop.

BIKE and GreenUP have changed-up their Pedal Power program, normally offered to schools in June.  This year, it’s Pedal Power from Home and is available to families online.  While the available prizes wrap up at the end of June, the excellent cycling workshops are available throughout the summer.  They’re filled with fun activities, bike drills and information focused on road safety and bike handling skills that families can do from home.

Immaculate Conception – on the Pathway

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Immaculate Conception – on the Pathway

“At Immaculate we don’t see the Pathway program as a checklist for individual classrooms. We are embracing the program and looking for ways to build relationships in the outdoors between younger and older students. We are weaving the landmarks into the fabric of our school. We are a school that is based on teamwork and providing leadership opportunities for our students.” 

Lindsay Bowen, Gr 2-3 teacher, Immaculate Conception C. E. S.
A nature walk with Immaculate Conception C. E. S. students.

January 24, 2019 – Immaculate Conception Elementary School is one of the Pathway’s pilot schools in the City of Peterborough. They’re doing so many great things! Here’s a small sample:

  • Pathway tracking sheets are posted in the hallways throughout the school. They’re a reminder of the Landmarks for each age group, and an inspiring record of what’s happening in the school, right now! 
  • Kindergarten classes go for a nature walk every week, and bring back treasures for their nature collection; they had a visitor talk to them about ants; they went hunting for ants, drew pictures and made ant sculptures with recycled materials. 
  • Grade 1-3 classes had an exciting visit from “Nature Nancy” from Think Outside; they visit favourite outdoor places every two weeks, and do activities to celebrate the season every week. 
  • Grade 4-5 classes go for walks every month to a favourite nearby place; they started plants from seed in the classroom, which they’re caring for over the winter, and they’ll take care of the school’s Food Forest this spring; they plan to borrow GPS units from a local high school and start geocaching as well. 
  • Grade 6 classes go for walks to the Art Gallery, Del Crary Park, the Museum, and they take nature walks with their kindergarten friends; they tried out a new sport – “sit volleyball” and they’ve built statues from found materials and taken pictures of changes to the natural environment. 
  • Grade 8 students have taken on a leadership role in planning and conducting projects to benefit the whole school community; they’ve been working with GreenUP to promote walking and wheeling to school, organizing a school fitness program, and they’re working on plans for an outdoor classroom and possible greenhouse. 

Keep up the great work, Immaculate! They’d like to hear what other schools are doing, so share your ideas through info@pathwayproject.ca 

Stories in the Soft Snow

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Stories in the Soft Snow

A lesson in animal tracking with Jacob Rodenburg

“We humans often think we’re the only ones who write stories, but in truth animals write stories in the soft snow every winter, and we can follow them and learn what they were doing…It’s just nice for us to know that animals have a life – they’re looking for food, they’re finding shelter.  It’s great to get out in the cold winter with your family and follow tracks.” 

Jacob Rodenburg, Executive Director, Camp Kawartha and co-author of The Big Book of Nature Activities: A Year-Round Guide to Outdoor Learning

January 23, 2019 – Some animals hibernate but you don’t need to!  In this lovely video lesson in Animal Tracking, Jacob Rodenburg, Executive Director at Camp Kawartha shares the joy and rich learning that arise when a fresh blanket of snow reveals the oft-hidden lives of animals all around us, through their tracks in the snow.  All we need to do is venture out and follow along.

VIDEO: A Lesson in Animal Tracking with Jacob Rodenburg

Watch as Jacob introduces us to animal tracking in the snow, demonstrating a great winter tracking activity we can all try with the children in our lives, as well as what to look for as we venture out and onto a fresh blanket of snow.  This clip is both a playful demonstration and chalk full of fun facts and important naturalist insights.

Ready to try?  Jacob shares two great steps for getting started:

Step 1 – When you look at an animal track, try to figure out what direction it was going in?  Often when animals walk they have a scuff mark at the heal which is a good hint which way it was going.

Step 2 – How was it moving? Walking? Stride is close together.  Why is this stride so long?  Was the animal running?

As you follow its trail, what was the animal doing? Look for: was it running, was it walking, was it eating?

Look alongside the sidewalks or the trails you travel.  Have you seen the tracks Jacob stamped in the snow?

Thanks to Jacob for sharing the stories of animals in the snow!

Follow an animal Pathway – where will it lead?

Want more info?  Enjoy these articles: Take it Outside: Enjoying the Gifts of Winter, by Jacob Rodenburg and How to be a Winter Wildlife Detective, by David Bree of Ontario Parks.