A Day at the Farm...Among Other Things

Yesterday I chaperoned the Lewis School field trip to the Howell Living History Farm. This was really a cool trip. It was a perfect brisk fall day & the sun was shining. It was great being outside with the kids all day. Although it was a bit cold & I was pretty wiped out by the time we got home.

They learned about corn harvesting & had some hands on experience. This farm does everything the way it was done back in the 1800's. It was really neat for the kids to be able to see this and experience it first hand. The whole thing was so well done & very informative.

Rachel took this picture of the horses on the wagon.

Rachel took this picture of one of the pigs.

Rachel & Kendall feeding the chickens

Rachel with her piece of corn that she was off to shell.

If you live in the area this is a place I would definitely recommend. The kids all had a great time. I think when the kids get a hands on opportunity like this to experience history they retain so much more of what they learn.

They had one whole segment on the cooking from that time. The woman made popcorn & corn bread. Everyone got to taste it & they gave us the recipe. The melted butter on top of the corn bread & then drizzled it with honey. It was still warm form being baked in the wood burning stove. The kids participated by helping to churn the butter. It was really cool to see how it was all done & the snacks were quite tasty.

I have to add on this little bit about Caleb. Last week he got this foam eyeball from school for Halloween. Immediately he had an idea for creating a creature out of it. So he asked me for some red pipe cleaners & some googly eyeballs. It always makes me smile when the kids want to create something. Here is his finished creation...

I think it is pretty creepy cool if you ask me. The funniest thing was that when he was done he came over to me to show me & said, "Hey mama, I think you should take some pictures & scrapbook this." So seriously...how could I resist.

And just one more thing...

Here is a layout I did of our trip to Norz-Hill Farm to get pumpkins. I just love how it came out. I used a LO I saw on the multi-photo layout blog as my inspiration. I don't do too many two pagers these days & that site always gives me tons of great ideas. There are some really talented people over there. Be sure to check it out!