Farm Week

Preschool ended.  And as I thought more about the summer ahead, I decided to take some inspiration from a good friend of mine, Heather Rinas, and create some theme weeks for us.  The idea being that I could organize our activities and adventures around a theme for that week, appealing to my love of planning, and helping us avoid starting each day with a discussion over what we should do today.  The problem for us is never finding something to do - there's so much that we love to do around Shaker and Cleveland!  But now we can use our theme weeks to explore new places and revisit some of our old standbys trying to make new discoveries.  

So first up was Farm Week.  I have to admit I was excited about this idea (like I said, I like to plan).  But I never imagined just how excited Addy would be about the concept.  She really, really got into it.  In fact, as the week drew to a close, she must have said to me five times, "I wish Farm Week didn't have to end."

We started off the week with a visit to the Children's Museum, thoroughly enjoying ourselves in their Big Red Barn room.

Driving the animals safety.  You may ask why...well, according to Addy, the barn was on fire.  This is in fact the second time this particular barn has been on fire (it was during our last visit as well).  And so Addy screams, "the barn's on fire," and starts carrying animals out and into the jeep to transport them to a new barn.  At some point, Graham and I are going to have to explain to her about the whole, "you shouldn't yell 'fire' in a crowded movie theatre thing," but for now we've managed to escape with only a few strange looks.

We sang a lot of songs - many, many rounds of Old MacDonald, played some games, and did a lot of crafts throughout the week, which we then used to add to our farm-themed decorations for the playroom.  Here are our pigs, which like to play in the mud (read - girls, you get to slather them in as much brown paint as you like!)

And our fluffy sheep.

And because it's not just animals, but fruits and veggies that we find on farms, Addy decided to make some of her favorite crop - strawberries.

Part of the reason I picked this week for Farm Week is because it coincided with the first week we picked up our first CSA (community supported agriculture) bag.  Addy and I met the truck and then took turns guessing at the contents as we unloaded the bag - collard greens, radishes, kohlrabi, pea tendrils, green leaf lettuce, red russian kale and a 5 1/2 pound pasture-fed chicken.  Oh, and of course the strawberries.  We've even more greens this week already than we have the last six months combined!

We capped off the week with a visit to the Lake County Farmpark.

Cora loves, loves, loves cows.  And so the dairy barn was our first stop.  She was hooked.

6-day old baby pigs.  So cute!

Addy encouraging Cora to pet the sheep.  Not that Cora needed much encouragement, but Addy loves to show Cora the way.

Grinding grain into flour.

And riding the horses!  I'll try to get the videos up soon.  Addy, the very serious, focused rider, inquiring about the name of the horse.  And Cora, ecstatic to get on the horse (unwilling, in fact, to get off the horse), pointing to all the other animals she passed and waving to people who she saw watching her.

All in all, a great week!