Mountains and Lambs
What a beautiful and fun week we had! Sometimes there are just too many fun and interesting things to do every day and we can't even get to all of them. That was what a lot of this week felt like. We went to the forest on Monday. It was a long, rather icy walk but the temps were warm and there was no wind and it was nice to visit the forest in the snow. We did some talking and thinking about mountains this week, and on the way to the forest we noticed the many mountains that we can see along our walk.
That little bit of fresh snow made for some nice sledding again this week on Tuesday and Wednesday! The cold temps later in the week also allowed us to make some cool ice windows.
On Tuesday we stayed at school, and talked some more about mountains and the plates moving around on the surface of the earth. We did some demonstrations of tectonic movement and some explorations in creating mountains using sand in a tray with two plywood "tectonic plates" underneath the sand. Sometimes the trays collided and the mountains pushed up. Sometimes they separated and a ravine was created with mountains on either side. Then we used spray bottles to create erosion which made river valleys and lakes. There were eons of geologic activity going on in our 15 minutes exploration session. We really compressed geologic time.
On Wednesday we talked about another way that mountains get created: volcanoes! We read The Street Beneath Our Feet, which is a really cool picture book that takes the reader on a journey through the layers of the earth all the way down to the molten inner core and back out again. We talked about all of the magma down below the crust of the earth, and how it comes out up to the surface sometimes and flows out of volcanos. Then once it cools, it is new rock that becomes part of the mountain. Although our mountains here are not currently volcanoes, Mt Ascutney was once one.
We went outside and made our own volcanoes in the snow. It was very exciting! Grandma Bonnie had prepared an empty water bottle with baking soda in it for each child. They buried them in hills of snow and made their volcanoes, then we took turns watching as everyone poured their own bottle of lava colored vinegar into their own volcano and watched it explode.
Then we went inside and made some play dough models of the earth and all its layers. It was very fun to cut them open and look inside!
On Thursday we celebrated the midwinter turn toward spring by visiting SVTFarm in Wells and seeing lambs and calves. I have so many sweet photos of this day, I can't fit them all here. I put some of them up on Instagram. It was a cold on the outside warm on the inside kind of day, with cold temps and winds but warming to the heart. We hung out a lot in the sheep barn, had some warm sun bread and tea, got to meet and greet a 2 week old lamb, got to feed the sheep some hay. We fed our leftover snack to the chickens, trudged out into the field to see the shaggy little calves, and met a very excited and friendly Ashes the sheep dog. We happened to be there for his first birthday and we sang him happy birthday.
Thanks so much to everyone who could make it to the field trip! A special thanks to all parents who drove children other than their own. Thanks for those who helped transport gear and who brought donuts and hand warmers and helped keep an eye on everyone. A big thanks to Laura and Moxie at SVTFarm who welcomed us and took time out of their busy lives. For anyone interested and able to support SVTFarm and the thoughtful and caring stewardship that they give to their land and their animals, I highly recommend it. You can buy some products on their website, or if you want to join their CSA you can contact them there. They also do some regular farmers markets in New York, and regularly have products at the Laughing Child farm store in Pawlet, (where you can also get a really delicious sweet potato pie). If only all meat and fiber animals got the kind of attention and love that these animals do from Laura and Moxie and their son, Jimmy