Programs 
PreK-1st | 2nd-3rd | 4th-5th | 6th-8th | 9th-12th
FREE Discovery Backpack Program
Enhance your students exploration of nature with our Discovery Backpack Program! This program makes it easy for groups to interact with nature and learn together during a self-guided or docent-guided visit to the Norman Glenn Nature Trail. The backpacks, funded by Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network, are filled with tools to assist students' nature exploration on the trail. Backpacks are available by reservation only.
Teaching Artists
Our Teaching Artist program allows you to schedule a private lesson for your class or group with artists from our community. Topics include basket weaving, gourd birdhouses, stained glass, beaded jewelry, book making, block printing, weaving, carving, artists trading cards, and more. Request a menu of offerings from our office or call to learn more!
Museum Tour - All Ages
The Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art is proud of its extensive collection of wildfowl decoys and artistic carvings. They are a unique art form indigenous to the Chesapeake Bay, closely tied to the history of the region. Guided tours are available to help students best appreciate the wonders within our museum and tie the exhibits to their curricular studies.
Guided Nature Trail Tours - All Ages
Guides will lead your class through the Norman Glenn Nature Trail along Schumaker Pond, identifying many of our wetland plants, animals, insects, and birds. Binoculars and trail guides are provided!
Self-Guided Visits (All Ages)
There are many ways to greatly enhance your self-directed museum visit and nature trail explorations. Activity guides, scavenger hunts and other exhibit materials are available by request during reservation.
Pre- and Post- Visit Classroom Materials
We have developed activities and lessons that you can conduct with your class before and after your field trip! They are available upon request to assist you with integrating a field trip into your in-class curriculum. These activities can help create a continuous learning experience for schoolchildren, one that is more meaningful than an isolated field trip.
Nature Tales for Tots
FREE every 1st & 3rd Wednesday (10-11am). Ages PreK-1st. View our programs and schedule.
Play with Clay
Students explore their five senses while creating 3-dimensional shapes using cutouts, impressions, and imagination.
Nature Tales
Students learn key concepts in nature based on seasonal themes. After a brief discussion on the topic, children listen and interact with a storybook reading and make a craft to take home.
Plant Prints and Rubbings
Students will learn about leaf size, shape, and color as well as learn new, simple techniques to take the wonders of nature indoors.
Nature Sense
The call of a bird, the scent of a trail, the shape of a leaf and the texture of bark are all ways to identify plants and animals. Improve observation skills through this interactive sensory program.
Nests & Eggs
They come in many colors, shapes and sizes. Learn about nest materials, eggs shapes and baby birds.
Thicket Theater
Students take part in a play about the food web. Learn what happens when toxins are added to the system.
Fish Printing
Learn the Japanese art of Gyotaku, using real fish models. Students will learn about native species and leave with a finished piece of artwork.
Soap Carving
Learn techniques for carving using safe and fun tools and a bar of soap. Leave with a
completed project.($1 additional material fee per student).
Animal Detectives
Students use an animal detective workbook and a variety of clues such as sounds, tracks and scat to solve an animal mystery.
Bird Beaks
Birds have special beaks for tearing, scooping, cracking or picking. Students learn about beak shapes through the reading of Bird Beaks and the study of replica bird skulls. Students then use different tools to simulate eating various types of bird food.
Birds in Art
This program introduces students to drawing body shapes to create realistic birds based on the museums' collection in the Championship Gallery. Learn how to blend colors using paint.
Build-a-Bird
Learn about behavioral and physical adaptations of birds and create your own bird. Enhance your birds' adaptations through a variety of mixed media.
Paint a Miniature
Learn how carvers bring the artwork to life with paint. Paint a miniature wildfowl replica and leave with a finished piece of art. ($5 additional material fee per student).
Tracks and Traces
Students investigate the lives of animals through the tracks and other signs they leave. Learn the different types of signs and track patterns, and head out on the nature trail to uncover the stories animal tracks and traces can tell.
Bird Olympics
Special adaptations allow birds to fly, find food, and migrate long distances. Students learn the amazing attributes of birds by comparing their own abilities to those of birds. (from Flying WILD)
Nature Journaling & Field Sketching
Reflect in the outdoors using pencils for sketching and pens to record findings in nature. Leave with a journal.
Eco-Collage
Magazine and newspaper clippings are chosen and arranged on 5x7 cards. Students make up to three cards each. After the cards are made each student describes their favorite piece and its significance.
Mapping the Chesapeake
Follow Captain John Smith's shallop trail along the shorelines of the Chesapeake. Learn how to read a map and plot a course on the Bay.
Backyard BioBlitz
How much do you know about the natural world where you live? We'll discuss biodiversity basics and then conduct a survey to see how many plants, insects, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and other critters we can find in less than an hour!
Build a Bird House
Birds have specific habitat requirements in order to raise their young. Learn about these requirements and how humans impact these resources. Students then build a bird house to take back to their home or school. ($7 materials fee per student)
Block Printing
Learn to carve relief designs on linoleum blocks for use in printing on cards, fabric, walls and other surfaces. Leave with a completed block for printing (additional $2 material fee per student)
Nature Photography
Learn tips for capturing the beauty of nature on film. Spend time on the Norman Glenn Nature Trail capturing photos of insects, plants, water, birds, and movement. (Camera required)
Basics of Carving
The students will learn woodcarving techniques, take home a fine art project, and gain a stronger appreciation for the heritage of our region. Class size is limited to 12. This is a three-h
our class. ($5 materials fee per student)
Birds in the Hand and Field
A unique opportunity for students to see songbirds up close at a banding station. Birds are banded and measured to collect information to help understand bird populations and habitat requirements. (Program is weather-dependent and requires travel to off-site bird banding station)
Field Studies
Students investigate the natural history of bird groups including identification, habitat requirements, populations and migratory patterns. Field studies are currently available for songbirds, waterfowl, shorebirds, and raptors.