Well two weeks ago we had a wonderful birthday party out at the farm for River and Rosemary! It was too bad that Rose had the chicken pox- she did not look too happy. The party was very well attended and we had a great time! The kids made necklaces with leather lacing and shells that had holes in them. Also they made their own fossils by pressing natural objects into air dry clay. I told a native american story with two puppets and we had a yummy cake! A great time was had by all. We were lucky the weather cooperated too and it was sunny out. I think a lot of people are interested in helping out at the museum soon.

I am looking for people who would like to volunteer to lead playshops this Spring- so call me- new contact phone- 968-1986. 

Well we had a nice time on our school day out program. And though it was cold, it was not raining, so there was a little bit of outdoor time. We had Anil and his two sons join us, plus a few more kids from the Village School and Waldorf School. We made collages about the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water, which will be on display at the museum. Also we became "museum detectives" and looked all over the museum for patterns in nature. A bird's feather, an insects spots, a spiral in a fossil, all of these were patterns. And we learned about the difference between repeating and growing patterns. Then we sat down for another art project (can you tell I used to be an art teacher??) and we glued shells of varying sizes into shoe box lids in our own patterns. Some people made repeating patterns, some did growing patterns, and some were both! It was very interesting. Then we fed apples to the horses (after eating our own lunches) and had to pack up and say goodbye.

Hi everyone! Well, what a great day we had at the museum on Saturday- the Kalapuya Harvest Playshop was so great!! It was well attended with about 18 kids. We were so thankful to have Matt and Anna there, who shared with us their expertise in Native American tools and ways. We got to go to different "stations" and try out things like building a camas pit oven out of pieces of felt, pounding acorns, making cordage, and seeing how a pine needle basket was put together. Then we got face painting with some red ocher (a natural mineral.) We had a nice lunch and then got to see how fire is started with a bow drill and with flint and steel! I still need to brush up on my skills with fire starting, as I can get a coal easily onto my tinder pile, but getting it to burst into flames seems to be hard for me. So Anna won the fire starting race. 

We had a private birthday party here last weekend and it was a lot of fun! Salma turned 6 years old. Her mom rented the space from us, and organized games and food treats. She had us looking for buried fossils (in corn meal) and playing pin the tail on the bunny (it is a picture of checkers, the bunny they got to pet.) And there were also sack races!

We had a nice walk down to the pond where we saw frogs, and we got to pet the pony and feed the ducks and chickens. A great day was had by all! Thanks to Dina and her family for the great time!

pin the tail on Checkers!

sack races!

Digging for buried fossils!

 
And yummy treats!