Let it snow!
And it did, just in time for our snowshoe event on Friday, February 24 at Warner Park’s Rainbow Shelter. We had 25 kids from the Northport and Packers Avenue Apartments as well as kids from the general public. The temperature was around 20 degrees so it was cold, but not too cold to hold the event.
The first thing I noticed was that some of the kids came unprepared for the cold. They didn’t have warm coats, mittens, hats and boots. This is something that we can’t control, but we can bring along some extra hats, mittens and coats for the next time. We also had kids who were practicing Muslims at the event. This means that they couldn’t eat the marshmallows in the hot cocoa and the marshmallows that we used in the s’mores. They do not eat gelatin as it’s a meat-based product. This is also something that we can plan for at the next event by buying gelatin free marshmallows and hot cocoa mix without marshmallows.
I think the kids still had fun. They got very creative. Some of the kids took the chocolate used in the s’mores and melted it in hot water to make their own hot cocoa.
“Look what I made!” said one boy who melted chocolate into his hot water to make hot cocoa. How creative!
We started the day by getting the snowshoes on. That went pretty well. A few kids had some trouble getting the straps on, so we had plenty of volunteers to help. We had three different sizes of snowshoes: Adult, Youth, and Small Child. That pretty much covered the size needs of the kids. The older kids did need to use adult snowshoes. We purchased our snowshoes from Red Feather Outdoors and from REI.
The most surprising thing I noticed was how much the kids wanted to run. They loved having the snowshoes on their feet and running around in them. Because it was so cold, we took the kids on a short 20 minute hike through the woods and then headed back for s’mores and hot cocoa. We were fortunate that the City of Madison let us use the heated shelter at the park for our hot cocoa and s’mores. The kids enjoyed warming up and had fun eating the s’mores in comfort.
Our intention is that these kids remember this event and the fun that they had in winter and choose to play outside in the future. We reminded the kids that they come back to the park anytime and that they can rent snowshoes at Hoofers on the UW Campus. We are planting the seeds of future outdoor fun!
To see more photos of the event, click here.
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