Week 3: June 23rd-27th

The rain couldn’t keep us down this week! In fact, you know what makes our new mud kitchen even more fun?? Extra mud! We also enjoyed rainy hikes in the woods, puddle jumping, and a few dance parties when the thunder rumbled. Of course, students got to see the mucky side of farm chores, but we didn’t let that get us down at all.

This week was all about handwork and fiber arts, which built on our sheep and wool activities from last week. The amazing Ms. Deanna came in for some extra sewing machine lessons, and many many self designed pillows and stuffies were made. Some students opted to hand stich their pillows and stuffies, which lead to some great lessons around different types of stitching. We also did some loom work, with some beautifully weaved tapestries created. Some of our youngest friends practiced paper weaving as well. It was rewarding to watch students grapple with these skills and to see them focus so much of their concentration on embracing these new art forms.

We also had many team building activities this week, which was kicked off with a visit Monday from Munchkin, a miniature horse. Munchkin is a registered therapy animal and works at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. His owner, Amanda from Raising Hope Ranch, wrote a children’s book that celebrates differences, as Munchkin is not only a miniature horse, but he also has dwarfism. We had so much fun reading Munchkin’s book, creating a horse craft, and even having students read to Munchkin!

Celebrating what we all bring to our Farm Friends team continued through different team games, such as the tarp challenge, the hoola hoop line up, noodle freeze tag, and the human knot. We also worked together to do some food work this week, including some delicious spinach and fruit smoothies and a sheep snack. The week ended with preparing for bird week next week. Students helped Make-It-Mr.-Landon measure, cut, and sand cedar planks in order to make their beautiful bird houses. They even made enough wood pieces for friends to make even more bird houses next week.

Looks like the sun will be shining for week 4, and we can’t wait!