Summer Themes: Farm Week

Yee-haw! It's farm week at our house, and I'm pretty sure it's going to be my favorite week this summer, if only because I haven't had to do a thing except bring E. to camp at an adorable farm in Scarborough, Maine and then pick her up a few hours later, happily dirt covered and filled with stories and songs all to do with farms.

Besides attending camp, we've also been reading stories about farms, like:

• On the Farm by David Elliot (a fun rhyming tale about all the animals and happenings on a farm)
• Deep Sea Farm by Dahlov Ipcar (a story about a merman who farms on the bottom of the ocean - totally appropriate, I think, since Scarborough is also a coastal town)
• Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin(a fun farm setting, and I sort of feel like it introduces the concepts of unions...a little Animal Farmish)
• Brown Cow Farm by Dahlov Ipcar (a farm themed counting book)
• Down on the Farm by Merrily Kutner (a rhyming story that follows a little goat all over his farm) 

To finish out our week, we'll likely visit a local farm (I love Scarborough, but it's farm from local for us) and do some strawberry picking and buy some local produce to do a little cooking project with.

I hope to post some pictures of the farm where E. is going to camp at the end of the week - it's really worth a look (and I can't say enough how much fun it's been to send E. there; I know she's really loving going and this week is going by a mite bit too fast for her liking; if we were closer I would have considered two weeks rather than just one!).

A Little Note (that might turn out to be longer than "little"): You might be wondering why I chose farms as one of my themes for our summer fun. I was a really lucky little girl - my grandparents had a farm. They raised cows for beef (organic, grass fed, way before it was cool) and kept a large veggie garden along with high bush blueberries. Both of my grandparents had grown up on farms. Eating fresh and local wasn't a hip lifestyle choice for them; it was the only choice if their families wanted to survive huge catastrophes, like the Great Depression

For me, their home was a little piece of Eden, where I roamed around, helping my grandpa feed the cows and picked my snacks and lunch from the garden. I even saw baby calves born and got to ride on a great big green John Deere. These experiences shaped me in a very appreciable way. I knew what hard work looked like. I understood where food comes from. I was a very small part of a very old tradition, something that was deep within my family. And, above all, I was doing something very, very fun!

I wanted these experiences for E. While we live a pretty rural area and live right down the road from a farm (we frequently have to drive around escaped cows on our way to town), E. hasn't had the chance to really spend time at a farm and see how it works. I felt that camp and doing some activities at home would help give E. just a little piece of what I was so lucky to grow up with.

Summer!!

School's out for summer! After eight weeks back to work post maternity leave and what seems like the longest weekend of my life (we had to go back for JUST ONE MORE DAY on Monday), we're officially on summer vacation.

And this summer we're trying something a bit different. While looking for a bit more structure to help me keep both E. and myself occupied, I've found myself coming up with theme weeks. Obviously I don't want to take the fun and sweet, lazy flow out of our summer, especially since E. will be starting Kindergarten at the end of August. It will be a busy time, for certain, so I don't want to overwhelm her with lots of "work."

I've tried to pick themes that we can all enjoy, be involved in, have some fun trips, but also be able to find things to do at home. I also wanted to be able to be flexible, plan around things we naturally do during the summer, and leave myself feeling like we weren't tied down to doing really specific things.

Each week has one sort of "field trip" planned. Some are as simple as visiting an art gallery in town (we have THREE) or going for a hike on the trails near our house. Others require more planning and a bit of money, like visiting a train museum in New Hampshire or seeing a play at a local theater (which I'll have to post about sometime - if you're ever in south western Maine, Deertrees Theatre is the place to be).

I'm also pinning up crafts and other activities like crazy (my summer themes pin board can be found here). I'm planning on doing one small activity or craft each day along with reading books that are related to that week's theme. Along with those, I wanted to work with E. on her letters and numbers. She has a lot of it down and I think that she's developmentally ready to tackle something a bit more intense and enjoy the challenge of it (versus feeling overwhelmed). I also really want to do a cooking or baking activity. E. loves to cook and I love trying new recipes, and I need to work on my patience with having other people (particularly small people) in the kitchen with me.

So, with all that said, here are our themes:

• Farms (this week E. will be going to camp at Broadturn Farm, so most of the activities will be through that; I'll supplement with books and a cooking/baking activity)
• Fantasy and Fairytales (we're planning on going to a puppet show of Pinocchio this week)
• Gardens (I'm hoping to get a lot of work done in my own garden)
• The Ocean (we go to the ocean a lot, so this week should be easy to work in)
• Arts and Crafts (E. is very excited about having an art show at the end of this week for our family)
• Healthy Me (I currently see a nutritionist and I will be taking E. to one of my appointments during this week - maybe we'll even do a special trip to the grocery store and farmers' market, too)
• Maps and Geography (this might be the week I'm most excited about - I love making and following maps!)
• Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (I'd love to visit an airport and watch the planes take off during this week)
• Kindergarten Readiness (this will be our last full week of summer; the main focus will be helping E. get ready for the big change, visiting the school, playing at the playground there, planning fun lunches and snacks for her to bring)

My biggest goal for each of these theme weeks is to keep them fun and fairly cheap and to relax. I'm very good in getting wrapped in how I think things should be, but frequently my original vision and how things turn out can be quite different and that's okay (I tell myself repeatedly).

 Above all, I'm really keen to see how everything turns out, and if all goes well, to think about what we'll be doing next summer!

Balance

When I decided to set up this blog, the intention was to open a discussion about being and playing with your kids while working, full-time, part-time, out of the home or in. While I've certainly have been working hard to strike that balance of work and play in my family's life, it hasn't left me much time to blog about it. It's been a bit disappointing, because I really like the idea and had very badly wanted to keep up with this, but it just hasn't happened.

Now, that might be a set up for me to say, "I quit!", but I'm not.

First of all, I think that the idea of exploring how to have both a meaningful working life and a meaningful home/parenting life (and within that, meaningful relationships with your children and your partner) is a good one. Lots of parents work a "regular" job in addition to having the job of being Mom or Dad, and we often feel strapped for ideas on how to work out the time to be with our kids, be with our work, and then be with ourselves. And then, when we do find ourselves with the time, we're not always sure what to do with it (or how to identify that we've stumbled across that time). Anyway, the point is, I still want to write about this, even if I'm not sure anyone is listening.

Secondly, I've been working 35-40 hours a week. Plus being home with my kids and husband. Plus cleaning. Plus cooking. Plus, plus, plus, plus. There hasn't been a lot of room for here, but that's about to change (and then change again in the fall).

The beauty of working in the traditional education setting is that we have the summers off to decompress. And, in my case, to blog. So, yeah, it's sort of counter-intuitive to blog about playing and being with your kids as a working parent while I'll not be working, but...you do what you gotta do, right? And it'll give me time to introduce my themed weeks that I'm doing with the Girl and get more established, because, come September, I'm back to work again, but in a different capacity.

(I suppose now is an okay time to mention that I officially resigned from my position at my school and took a very part time evening position in another district and will also substitute teach one or two days a week. I will be working *maybe* 20 hours a week and the Babe and Girl won't have to go to daycare - they'll either be with me or Daddy or sometimes my parents.)

Source

The change in my schedule is going to give me, I hope, a chance to strike a balance and focus more on the things I love most: my family, my home, and my writing, and I hope to do a great deal of that writing here.

P.S.: I'm doing some more writing on my more personal blog This Domestic Life. Go check 'er out!