About Northwest Park - Things to Do

Here's a list of activities, games, hikes and other ideas for you and your class or children to do at Northwest Park. (*) Denotes activities, books, videos, or worksheets that Northwest Park can provide.

Please contact Kathryn Pelton in advance if you would like any of these materials, at 860/285-1886 or pelton@townofwindsorct.com.

• Go for a hike
• Trail maps available online or at the Park
• Visit the gift shop. Items range from $1.00-$30.00
• Nature Center scavenger hunt for ages K-5th grades*
• Animal Barn scavenger hunt for ages 3rd-5th grades*
• Visit the Tobacco Museum Archive and Museum, appropriate for 4th grade and higher. Please call well in advance to arrange a tour.*
• Visit the Animal Barn.
• Visit our new boardwalk on the Wetland Forest Trail.
• Good for wildlife observation and listening.
• Read a book from the Northwest Park Library.
• Watch various videos from the Northwest Park Library.*
• Visit the Park before your class arrives, and make your own worksheet or activity.
• Create a nature journal in class and bring it to the Park for writing or drawing exercises.
• Descriptive writing projects:e.g. nature poetry
• Hula-Hoop Sampling
• Have your students concentrate on one area for a few minutes. Record what is observed.*
• Go for a Native American hike.
• Study Native Americans before your visit, and try to locate items from nature they used in their lives.
• Math outdoors- measure distances, count trees, measure the time it take to run, hop, skip or walk certain distances, graph trees or car colors in the parking lot… Find and measure the circumference of the smallest and largest trees.
• Make a map.
• Inventories. Make an inventory of tree types, animals, flowers, colors, shapes, animals, mushrooms, and leaves
• Go for a color, shape or number hike/hunt.
• Hole Hunt. Search high and low for the tiniest and largest holes. What might live inside? But don’t put your hand in there or a stick.
• ABC scavenger hunt*
• Egg-Carton Sorting. Collect seeds, pebbles, leaves or other natural objects. Remember to put everything back.
• Create a nature story while in the forest or field.
• Make grass or acorn cap whistles.
• 100 inches hike. Investigate a special area in the forest or field. Record observations. Bring magnifying glasses.
• Follow an ant hike.
• Bring a sketchbook and sit in the forest, field or barn for awhile.
• Create a farm, forest or field mural or book.
• Project WILD, WET and LEARNING TREE have many great ideas.

Contact Kathryn Pelton if you would like something specific. Many of the above ideas are from Developing and Using a School Nature Area: SNAP Manual and Taming the Wild Outdoors. Northwest Park owns a copy of each of the books, if you would like to look through them for more ideas.