Farmschooling

Last summer we had an amazing opportunity to move home to the family farm for 6 mths while my husband was deployed. Our children loved living on the farm and farmschooling and I loved getting back to my roots. We came back to Jersey last fall to welcome daddy back home and return to our lives as normal. We however have found we really miss farmschooling!

At this point in our lives it is not possible to have the full blown farm we want. We simply move to often to make that type of long term commitment to one location. We are however blessed to live on a small "urban farm" in the middle of a state forest.  Our current rental was previously used as an "urban farm" and still has the infrastructure in place. The fences and barn are in place and ready to go for any small animals we want to add to our lives. We have been toying with the idea of adding some of the farm lifestyle back in to our lives. While it is tempting to get some chickens and goats we know it is not in the cards for us at this moment in time.

With that in mind we recently began looking into the homeschool classes offered at a local educational farm. We love the idea behind their lessons and the experiences for the kids. We however did not love the price.

One class per week, for 8 weeks, would be $500 if all six of our children were to participate. There would also be an hour and a half  round trip commute each week.

While my husband and I were looking over the syllabus he asked if this was something I could teach on my own.

Um.......yeah! I could!

I spent some time researching what we would like to cover and started coming up with ideas for our family to complete. I also worked through our Frontier Girl badge list in an effort to cover a new badge for each area of concentration.

Want to see what we came up with?

Here are some of my notes!

*Wilderness Survival
      Build a shelter
      Identify dangerous plants and animals
      First Aid
      Pocket knife safety badge

*Vegetable Gardening
       Plant seeds
       Tend to their garden
        Identify common pests and know how to combat them
        Build compost bin
        Visit local produce farm

*Mushroom farming
        Learn about types of mushrooms
        Identify edible versus poison species
       Chose spores and set up terrarium 
        Make a meal with your mushrooms

*Herbal Gardening
        Plant an herb garden
        Learn which herbs are used for medicines
        Learn how herbs can be used in pest control
        Make a craft using herbs

*Chickens
         Identify 5 different types
         Know what a male, female, and babies are called
         Learn about nutritional requirements
         Make a 3D diorama of how they should be housed
         Raise baby chick for 2 weeks (rent a chick program)

*Wildlife tracking
         Learn to identify 5 different types of tracks found in backyards
         What do these animals eat?
         How to keep wildlife from damaging gardens


I am looking forward to getting started on this list! I also am looking forward to sharing our experiences (and challenges) with you as we work on our projects!

Here we go!