2013 Piedmont Kite Festival

Go fly a kite! Plans are underway for the 2013 Piedmont Kite Festival. This year's festival will take place March 16, 2013 (rain date March 23) from 10:00am to 3:00pm. This will be our 4th annual festival at Jack Dalton Park. This year participants will be able to make and fly kites; participate in a variety of family-oriented outdoor activities and enjoy live music from Kim and Jimbo Cary.

Earth Week Celebration 2012

April 20 - 28- We will have a wide variety of activities taking place throughout the community this week! Click here to print off your Earth Week passport. MHC CNI representatives will be present at each event to stamp your passports. Bring your stamped passports to the Earth Day Festival on the April 28th to be entered into a prize drawing.

Friday, April 20

Starry Night at the Smith River Sports

Complex

8 – 9 p.m., all ages

Spend an evening under the stars, and learn all about the amazing things you can see beyond Earth

FREE

Saturday, April 21

Environmental Education Expo

at Philpott Lake Visitor Center

1 – 4 p.m., all ages.

Come to Philpott Lake Park to enjoy fun demonstrations and educational displays by area organizations. Demonstrations include fly tying, casting for kids, kayak information, and more.

Philpott Lake Park Overlook

1058 Philpott Dam Road.

FREE

Earth Day at Fairy Stone State Park

10 am – 3 p.m., all ages.

Activities include Tree ID walks at 10 am and 1 pm;  and making recycled flower pots, 

seed collectin, and young children's activities from 1 - 3 pm.

Meet at Shelters 3 and 4 at Fairy Stone State Park.
FREE after parking fee.

Sunday, April 22

Sunday Stroll and Scavenger Hunt at Philpott Lake

3 – 4:30 p.m., all ages

Find hidden clues on the trail, and see if your nature knowledge can lead you to the finish! Meet at the Philpott Lake Visitor Center.

FREE

Friday, April 27

Screen on the Green

6:30 p.m.

Come out to the Collinsville YMCA to see a box office movie!!! Earth Day games and activities will begin at 6:30 p.m. and the movie will start at 8 p.m. There will be food available for purchase.

Fee: $2. 

Saturday, April 28

Earth Day Festival

sponsored by EMI Imaging and Recycling

10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Come to the Smith River Sports Complex for food, prizes, and fun activities. There will be games,

obstacle courses, crafts, face painting, and a number of organizations from the area providing fun activities.

FREE

Bring your passport to be eligible to win the grand prize!

.

 

Piedmont Kite Festival 2012

It is time for the Piedmont Kite Festival!!! March 17, 2012 from 10:00am to 3:00pm, we will be conducting our 3rd annual festival at Jack Dalton Park. This year participants will be able to enjoy live music from Kim and Jimbo Cary, the Henry County Patriots will be demonstrating their radio controlled airplanes, custom face painting by Spellbound, SEMAA providing cool flight crafts, YMCA fun and games, and VMNH games! I hope to see you out there!

Committee Updates

o Henry County Public Schools- received a solar panel grant through the Department of Mines, Minerals, and Energy. They have purchased educational energy kits and trainings for the schools. They are currently installing new energy software for teachers and students to aide with the kits. In addition to working with the new grant, they are also developing summer camps.
o SEMAA- They will be taking two field trips, one to the Air and Space Museum and one to Morehead Planetarium and Science Center in Chapel Hill. VMNH will be working SEMAA to conduct Star Lab programs. SEMAA is currently working on summer camps
o NCI- New lecture series begins soon and will focus on gardening and health. NCI is also working on developing new summer camps for this year and will keep the organizations in the committee in mind for partnering opportunities.
o Henry County Parks and Recreation- The winter program guides are now available
o YMCA- Are beginning their DOT program, where students exercise for thirty minutes a day for ninety days. January 19, will be their Healthy Living expo. They will also be participating in Trout in the Classroom this year.
o Friends of Philpott- Handicapped playground at Bowen’s Creek to be completed by April. They are also working on a two week IDIE summer music program for kids.

Happy New Year!!!

Happy 2012 everyone! I hope your new year is off to a wonderful start! We are currently planning some great events for 2012! Our first event in the Piedmont Kite Festival!!! So mark your calendars for March 17, 2012 for the festival! :)

Happy Holidays!!!

MHC CNI wishes everyone the best over the holiday season! Be safe and make sure you enjoy the outdoors!!!!!!!!

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!