Beach Days

Eve! 

Grace holding a crab she found!

 Surfer boy!

 Happy beach baby!

Grace wearing socks to the beach (as only our Grace can..perhaps she will start a new fashion trend)!

Many more picture to come...

Happy Weekend

Pineland Farms: Family Education Programs

A very large part of our summer days have also been spent at Pineland Farms.  Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning Pineland offers educational programs for families.  These programs provide terrific hands-on learning opportunities about a variety of topics.  This summer we have participated in harvest lunches (the children harvest their own food from the farm's garden and gather eggs from the chickens and make their own lunch), tractor days, making salsa (all ingredients are gathered by the children from the farm), the joy of chickens, growing green and udderly amazing cows.  

The pictures seen here were taken back in July when we attended the composting for kids program.  As you can see, it is definitely a hand-on program, which I think is the very best way to learn!  In the picture above and in the one below Grace and Jack are searching through their plate of compost, specifically vermicompost (worm composting), to find the red earthworms that were working hard to turn our food scraps into nutrient rich compost.  Eve also had her own plate and loved finding the worms, however, she was sitting on my lap so I was not able to get a good picture of her enjoying this too.  I just love how Grace, Jack and Eve love to learn so much and that they are never afraid to get their hands dirty in order to do so!

Grace was excited to find several earthworms in her plate of compost.

Just before each program begins the children are given a sheet to color that relates to the topic they will be learning about that day.

Grace working hard to color her compost picture.

In this picture Grace, Jack and Eve are listening to a story about composting.  Most of the programs begin in the classroom at the farm where coloring, story time and learning take place before we adventure out to the farm for some more hand-on learning.

Paula is one of the educational instructors at the farm.  Here Paula is showing Grace one of the earthworms she found in her compost.

Pineland Farms is one of the most beautiful places!  The winding road you see to the left is where we walk after the classroom learning has taken place.  This road leads up to the family farmyard, which contains the family garden, cows, chickens, sheep, goats, rabbits and an additional classroom area.  This is where we harvest vegetables, fruits and herbs, collect eggs and interact with all of the animals.

On the walk up to the farmyard, Eve was especially taken with this one cow and she sat down for several minutes to admire it!

Grace and Jack also stopped for awhile to watch the cows in the field.

Jack walking up to the farmyard.

Grace & Eve

This picture represents Grace so well...she went right up to the fence to get a better view of the cows and to see exactly what they were doing!

Once we reached the farmyard Jack was a HUGE helper in preparing the compost for the garden.  Jack really loved this portion of the program.

Eve carefully examined the compost that Jack had spread near the tomato plants.  

Jack with his bucket of compost!  This was serious work for him.

 Jack could have stayed all day preparing the compost and spreading it on the garden boxes.  

 

Beach Days

This is how we have been spending our summer days.  We feel very fortunate to live so close to the beach.  Every afternoon after Eve's nap we head to the beach until dinnertime.  It is the perfect way to celebrate summer and these are the days that we will certainly look back on and remember in the middle of winter!  I have so many pictures of Grace, Jack and Eve at the beach and I will be posting some of my favorites soon.

Cloud Paint!!!

 This is one of our all time favorite sensory activities.  We call it "cloud paint" (shaving cream).  As you can see we have lots and lots of fun with this activity!

In Full Bloom

Here is one of the beautiful sunflowers from our garden that started from a tiny seed back in early April.  It was carefully planted and tended to by Grace, Jack and Eve.  You can click here to see how this flower began.  Our garden is in full bloom now and we are all enjoying daily treats of tomatoes, kale, herbs, summer squash, snap peas, alpine strawberries and green peppers!

Our Last Morning in Vermont...

On our last morning in Vermont we went to the Farmer's Market in Middlebury and had a tour of Poppy's office.  It was so sad to have to say goodbye to Maddy & Poppy but we are already talking about and counting down the days until we return to Vermont next July!

In the picture above, Jack is enjoying Poppy's office and he was excited to see a picture of himself on Poppy's desk!

My favorite three girls enjoying a few minutes together before we left for Maine.

 Maddy giving Eve lots of goodbye kisses.

I hope you enjoyed the snapshots of our week in Vermont.  I will be back to posting about our summer and daily activities soon!

 

Day 6 Of Our Trip to Vermont: More Horseback Riding!

Jack riding Rockstar!

Grace riding Rockstar! 

I love this picture of Grace and Jack.  Grace is riding while Jack is waving to her. 

 Jack petting Rockstar.

Grace 

Jack