Cold Creek Conservation Area
Summer is a beautiful time of year to explore the outdoors. Although many homeschoolers take a more relaxed approach to learning during the warmer months in Canada, homeschool field trips are still planned during summer. Environmental experts teach us with more passion about the natural world than some books can; and simply being in nature is profound.
This summer, a few of our homeschool girls took a trip to the Cold Creek Conservation Area in Nobleton, Ontario (about 45 minutes north of Toronto). Our booked program for the day consisted of team building exercises, trust activities, high ropes and rock climbing.
We had a designated area to leave our belongings and eat lunch. We also played our first team building challenge in the pavilion. The object of the game was to get from one end of the drawn game board to the other by following the correct path. It was all about guessing the next correct square to step into, then remembering all the correct moves, while communicating this effectively with each other.
Our second activity was getting a marble into a cup using only pipes. In teams, each girl had to hold a pipe and connect it in a way so that its position would make the marble drop into a cup. The person who had the marble in their pipe could not move their feet. The marble only dropped into the cup once the girls came up with a good strategy and communicated effectively. Initially, there was a lot of frantic running, jostling and screaming, but this method quickly became very obvious that the marble would never get near the cup!
After a quick water break, we played our last challenge in pairs. The girls had ropes tied around their wrists which were criss-crossed to their partner’s rope. The goal was to get untangled without taking the rope off your wrists. After moments of bending, twisting and even stepping into spaces created by the ropes, the girls received a hint that they could be set free while even sitting. Not that it had to be done sitting, but all the physical movement of trying to pry free was unnecessary. The secret to this trick was demonstrated to the girls in the end.
Next, we walked over to a small pond to go canoeing. With lifejackets on and after listening to a few instructions, the girls were very eager to hit the water.
The girls started off in a canoe accompanied by an adult, then they circled the island alone with their friends. This time around, more canoes ended up in the grass. However, once again, they had to exercise working together to get out of difficulties and steer the canoe in the right direction.
After lunch, the plan was to go on the dynamic 40 ft high ropes course to test their courage and strength as well as the 35 ft climbing tower, but thunder was repeatedly heard, so we stayed inside and played games instead.
The indoor games were very diverse – silly, messy, and tactful – but all fun.
It was a nice trip full of many activities, laughs and kind staff members. Thank you, Sr.Shehnaz for planning this educational outdoor adventure!
Does this trip sound like one you would like to plan? Then check out Cold Creek Conservation Area’s 2018 Program Guide – HERE
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