Week 2: June 16th-20th
This week, Farm Friends was full of visitors to guide us through some big projects and some new learning!
First, we had Wendy from NorthWinds Jacob Sheep Farm teach us more about the type of sheep that call Williams Farm home: Jacobs! Wendy shared with students a skull of a Jacob sheep in order to talk about particular adaptations of this unique heard animal. Then, Wendy took small groups of students and taught them how to use a peg loom. Together, we created a beautiful rug out of Jacob wool that will grace the walls of our shop for all Farm Friends to admire. We are so grateful to keep this tradition going!
On Wednesday, we had Jessica from FeltLike join us to begin our lessons on wool usage. Each student was able to take a large tray of Merino sheep wool and, using dyes primarily made with food coloring, dye their wool any color they wanted! Then, we wrapped the wool in plastic. Jessica took this wool home to warm it so that they dye stays, and then this wool will be used in future lessons to teach students how to card wool, use a drop spindle to create yarn, and then use this yarn for projects. Having students take wool from the beginning of the process all the way through to the end will be an amazing learning experience!
And finally, on Friday, our Foraging Friend Angie came to the farm to teach students their first foraging lesson, and they officially became Leaf Lookers! Students took a trip through the paths in our 10 acre woods, and using Angie’s vast knowledge and a handy tree identification book, students were able to determine many different types of trees and plants growing in our woods, and discussed their uses and unique characteristics. Students took some of their found leaves back to the shop in order to do some leaf drawings using charcoal made from our curly willow tree! Their last activity of the lesson involved a sweet treat: discussing how some leaves they found (like hickory and sumac) are made into delicious syrup! Students taste tested these syrups, and all of them seemed to approve!
There were many, many other fun sheep and wool based moments from our week together. Some of them included more work with wool- students independently worked with wool roving in order to begin needle felting, and many beautiful ornaments were made. Wool yarn was also used to make some beautifully weaved baskets. And, it was almost like the sheep knew that it was “sheep week”: We had our last lamb addition born on Thursday: little Junebug. Students were the first to welcome her to the world!
Other fun that I just cannot leave out: water play, “shearing” shaving cream off of drawn sheep, “herding” balloon sheep with fly swatters, finishing our mud kitchen, making giant forts, and bubble snakes are just a few of these memories that make me smile!