Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happy Thanksgiving from MHC CNI!!!!
Make sure you try to take advantage of the great fall weather we have been experiencing during your Thanksgiving break! There are many ways you can enjoy the outdoors during the fall. The following are some ideas
Go on a hike and observe the leaves changing colors
Start a pick-up tag football game
Ride your bike on a nature trail instead of a road
Make a nature collage
Jump in some leaves
Look under fallen leaves and discover who lives in them
Feed our bird friends that do not migrate
Build a fort

There are millions of things you can do during this time of year! If you have gone outside and taken part in something cool outdoors please feel free to post it!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!

Screen on the Green

Take A Child Outside week went very well this year! The culminating event that took place was Screen on the Green at Hooker Field. We partnered with YMCA, SEMAA, and Martinsville Parks and Rec to conduct this event. Despite the cold weather we had dozens of excited families participating in this event. A special thank you to everyone who volunteered for this event and all the families that came! Thank YOU!!!

Screen on the Green at Hooker Field!!!

It's almost here! Screen on the Green is TOMORROW!! Yeah!!!

Come out to Hooker Baseball Field to enjoy a wide variety of games and crafts followed by the showing of a box office hit PLANET 51!! Staring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jessica Biel, and Justin Long! This space themed event will be fun for all ages!! We will have Marty the Mustang on the field and food available for purchase!

Activities start at 7pm and the movie will start at 8pm! :) $2 entry fee.

Activities include:
Relay Races
Races against Marty the Mustang!
YMCA Games
Build-your-own rocket station
Making star finders
Face painting
Baseball accuracy contests
Building gliders
Disc golf
SEMAA Rockets
Games with Parachutes!!!

SEE YOU THERE!! :)

TACO WEEK 2011!!

It's that time again!! Take a Child Outside Week is here!! We will be celebrating this wonderful week September 24-30! We are currently planning the week. The culminating event will be

Screen on the Green! September 30 at Hooker Field. Activities will start at 7:00pm and the movie will start at 8:00pm. We will be working with SEMAA to provide an out of this world event! We will be watching the movie Planet 51 starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Jessica Biel, Justin Long, and Seann William Scott!! The activities will include miniature building rockets and other space crafts, relay races, accuracy contests, face painting, and other games! Food will be available for purchase and the admission fee will be $2 at the gate. In the event of inclement weather we will be having this event at VMNH in the Great Hall!

Screen on the Green

The Screen on the Green that was scheduled for July 8, 2011 has been postponed do to inclement weather until September 30 during Take a Child Outside week. See you then!!

Summer Camps!!

VMNH received a $5,000 grant from the Bank of America that went towards the VMNH Education Department to implement their camps for free to the community. We did a number of great camps such as Doodle Bugs Summer Science Explorers, Junior Naturalists Camp, Engineering Challenge, and the Great Lunch Adventure. MHC CNI helped conduct the Junior Naturalists camp where we had a number of students from ages 6-12 participate in nature and outdoor programming! We had a blast with the students!

June 26-July 1, 2011 VINYL Workshop!!!

Sharing Nature is the name of the book series written by Joseph Cornell that encourages interaction between students and nature. The teaching style is called Flow Learning and its the ability to teach the whole child (emotionally, mentally, and physically) while directing their focused energy onto nature.The Virginia Museum of Natural History partnered with Sharing Nature Worldwide to conduct the first ever Sharing Nature Natural History workshop that combines youth leadership with natural history using Sharing Nature principles.

The workshop is called the Virginia Institute of Natural Youth Leadership (VINYL) and this six day workshop trained educators and community leaders how to use sharing nature techniques to teach natural history and foster youth leadership within their students. We had 17 participants from various areas in Virginia and ever some educators from New Hampshire participated in this workshop. The workshop enabled us to showcase our wonderful natural areas in Martinsville-Henry County such as Philpott Dam, Fairy Stone State Park, and Frank Wilson Park. They also had concurrent natural history sessions taught by trained professionals such as VMNH curators, park rangers, and educators from Virginia Tech and Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. This was a wonderful workshop and we are currently evaluating the workshop to see what our next steps will be.

June 10, 2011 Screen on the Green!

This Screen on the Green was located at the Beaver Creek Reservoir and we were going to watch the movie Alpha and Omega. An hour before the movie we went on hikes, got our faces painted, created awesome puppet wolves, and lots of other fun crafts! We were having a great time until the severe thunderstorm came in. We had to cancel the Screen on the Green due to the storm. The next Screen on the Green will take place July 8, 2011 at Southside Park!

May 4-5, 2011

MHC CNI Welcomes Dr. Stephanie Baird Wilkerson to VMNH!! She and her organization will be spending two days evaluating the success of this program. The MHC CNI family welcomes you to Martinsville! :) Enjoy your stay!

And we would like to think all the community stakeholders for participating in these evaluation sessions! Thanks!!!!

April 22, 2011 Earth Day Festival!

Earth Day Festival!!!

This year's Earth Day Festival took place at the Smith River Sports Complex and had kayaking, inflatable slides, the daring inflatable Jacob's ladder, moon bounce, games, obstacle courses, face panting, blind folded games and activities, and a number of exciting activities that were conducted by local organizations. Over 400 community members participated in this free Earth Day Festival! The perfect conclusion to a very fun and successful Earth Week!

April 22, 2011 Screen on the Green!!

Due to inclement weather Screen on the Green had to take place inside at the Rives Theatre. We had over 60 people participate! Attendants were able to construct a recyclable craft with SEMAA, get their faces painted, take part in magic tricks, play a variety of recycling games, dance, and take pictures with Marty the Mustang! After the fun activities we watched the movie Yogi Bear staring Dan Aykroyd, Junstin Timberlake, Anna Faris, and Tom Cavanagh!

April 20, 2011 and April 21

CITO Hike/Bike the Dick & Willie took place April 20. The Southwestern Piedmont Master Naturalists lead a group of community members down the Dick and Willie passage and conducted a Cache In Trash Out event where they use geocaching to take part in a trash pick up! Great job keeping our community clean!

Crafty Earth took place April 21 and was lead by Henry County Parks and Recreation. Participants developed their own Earth Day Crafts using recycled materials!

April 19, 2011

Star Party!!

SEMAA, Martinsville Parks and Rec, and VMNH partnered to present Star Party!! Educators from VMNH and SEMAA lead a star gazing and participants were able to view Saturn and other planets and stars through very power telescopes! We had over 50 people attend the star party!

April 18, 2011

Fit for Earth Day??

This Earth Week program enabled participants to hike through the new fitness trail at Philpott Lake with the Friends of Philpott and test how fit they were. This hike was a lot of fun for all ages!

April 17, 2011

The Martinsville Family Nature Club conducted a Sunday Outing in Frank Wilson Park. Lots of families were able to enjoy a wonderful hike on the new trails in the park! While on the hike they learned about the wonders of nature and the wildlife that live in the park!

April 16, 2011

Earth Day 5K Despite the inclement weather, the Earth Day 5K still took place and had over 90 participants! :) Way to go everyone!! :)

Edible Plant Identification, Mother EARth Mysteries Special Saturdays Program, Wilderness Survival, Environmental Expo at Philpott, and Fairystone State Park Nite Hike were all canceled due to harsh weather conditions. That's ok everyone, these programs will be back in 2012!

Earth Day at VMNH

April 15, 2010 Earth Day at VMNH is a conference style event where we have special presenters from community organizations to lead during concurrent sessions for students. We had over 400+ parents and students attend the museum. We broke the day into two time frames so more classes from Martinsville and Henry County schools can have an opportunity to attend this wonderful event! We had presenters from Danville Science Center, Southwestern Piedmont Master Naturalists, Martinsville SEMAA program, VMNH, and Master Gardeners. Programs took place in Frank Wilson Park, VMNH classrooms, and exhibit areas.

Earth Week Celebration!!

It's here! The Earth Week Celebration is here!! Earth Week officially starts tomorrow April 15!!!! Please visit www.mhccni.org or www.vmnh.net for more information regarding this celebration! Earth Week is a series of programs, events, and festivals conducted annually by MHC CNI the Saturday before Earth Day through the Saturday after Earth Day. The purpose is to celebrate Earth Day and learn about the wonderful programs and actions that are taking place in the community, even learn ways that you can go green in your life. This year we will be conducting Earth Week a day earlier and will include Earth Day at VMNH (a conference style event for students), Screen on the Green, Earth Day 5K, guided hikes, an environmental expo, star gazing, geocaching, among other exciting activities!! We will be closing this event with the Earth Day Festival at the Smith River Sports Complex!!!

Piedmont Kite Festival

The Piedmont Kite Festival was a success!Thank you to all my volunteers that worked very hard during this event to make it so wonderful! We had over 760 people participate in the event! Thanks to our awesome volunteers, participants were able to enjoy a great time doing the following activities; listening to live music, getting their faces painted, building kites, painting kites, blowing bubbles, building helicopters, playing disc golf, testing their bird sports trivia, learning about bird migration, and pushing themselves to the limit in the Bird Olympics game and Food for the Brood game. Representatives from HC Patriots RC club, Civil Air Patrol, Girls Scouts, USACE, SEMAA, Martinsville Parks and Recreation, and chick-fil-A did a great job with their activities during the festival! Pictures to come soon! If you want to read more about it check out this link to the Martinsville Bulletin!

Piedmont Kite Festival

Happy Friday Everyone!

Just a reminder that March 12, 2011 we will be hosting the Piedmont Kite Festiaval at Jack Dalton Park from 10:00am to 3:00pm!

Volunteer Requests!

If you would like to volunteer for MHC CNI please contact me at tamara.poles@vmnh.virginia.gov. We currently need volunteers for the Piedmont Kite Festival taking place March 12, 2011, you can stay all day or take part in one of the two shifts. Shifts are 9:00am to noon and 11:45am to 3:30pm. Volunteers that stay all day will be eligible for free food!

We will also need volunteers for our large Earth Week Celebration that will take place April 23 at the Smith River Sports Complex. This event will be from 10:00am to 4:00pm however volunteers will have to be there no later than 9:00am. More information to come on about this event.

Curriculum Development

As I type MHC CNI is facilitating a curriculum development session with fantastic teachers from Martinsville and Henry County public schools! We would like to thank them for all their hard work! You guys are doing amazing and i can see why you are such an asset for the Martinsville and Henry County Public School Systems!!

Piedmont Kite Festival 2011

This year's Piedmont Kite Festival will be taking place March 12, 2011 from 10:00am to 3:00pm at Jack Dalton Park! Bring your own kites! See amazing demonstrations that would not be possible without wind! Listen to live music from Kim and Jimbo Cary, learn about the wonders of wind, play flying games, make a kite, and be able to get your facepainted! Food and drinks will be available for purchase. Exhibitors will include Henry County Parks and Recreation, Martinsville Parks and Recreation, Henry County Patriots, SEMAA, USACE Philpott, and the Martinsville Composit Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol.

Busy times for MHC CNI

MHC CNI has been working diligently on our third year's programs and projects. We have a lot in store for you this year and we hope you will enjoy! We are currently creating a curriculum, the Piedmont Kite Festival, Nature Guides, publishing papers, Earth Week, Earth Week Festival, Sharing Nature and Natural History workshop called VINYL, and summer camps! We will keep you posted!