Summer Camp

Week 1: Animal Husbandry Haymaker’s Village, June 22 - 26, 2026

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​​Not only do human beings gather grasses and plants, but many creatures build nests and gather from the wonderful gifts of nature for their winter stores. As the grasses and flowering plants emerge in spring, the cycle of life is bringing forth nourishment for all to share. The Animal Husbandry Haymaker’s Village will set the foundation for summer camp, establishing the role of the human being to care for plant and animal life on the farm and working together as a Village. Children will prepare their snack together, visit and care for animals, and build their village shelters through the process of making hay. During camp we will practice cutting the hay with the scythe and the sickle. Then we will rake and gather the hay and load it onto the hay racks with hay forks and our hands. The sun and the wind can dry it for safe storage. The sheep and goats eating under the hay racks as we build our shelters will teach us that yes, animals too, have a hankering for crunchy foods. Younger children will enjoy playing in and around the hay racks made from young trees and saplings from the farm forest. In our experience, children will enjoy learning about and being trusted with these ancient hand tools. When we are hot or tired we will seek shelter from the sun, in the fragrant a-frame hay shelters built by the children during the process of hanging grass to dry. 

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​Week 2: Fiber Arts Village, June 29 - July 3, 2026

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This week will focus on our Grass-Wool-Craft curriculum. In addition to caring for the farm and preparing snack for each other each day, the children will become fiber artists and learn about a sheep-to-doll/puppet-craft process. In the company of sheep grazing in the pasture and enjoying the hay made the week prior, children will choose to make a doll or a puppet and learn about various wool processing techniques: washing, carding, spinning, dying, felting, and sewing wool. By the end of the week each child will have a handmade woolen doll or puppet of their very own! Our handmade friends will evolve in character with the acquisition of new skills and handmade accessories made from nature findings, and simple crafting materials. Depending on how industrious we become as fiber artists, we may set up shops at the end of the week to trade our creations.

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Week 3: Forestry and Woodworking Village, July 13 - 17, 2026​

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​Now that we have established our village in the hay field and have learned about how to work with the animals to keep us warm and make woolen crafts, we will add forestry and woodworking to help our village grow. Our village is now diverse enough to include farmers, medicine makers, artists, chefs, and woodworkers. We will explore the imagination of the village more deeply and set up shops under the hayracks (built by the Animal Husbandry and Haymaker’s Village) for buying, selling, and trading fiber, woodworking, and nature crafts. Children will also harvest food and prepare medicine and crafts for our Village Day. On Village Day, at the end of the week, villagers will exchange their creations for that of their neighbors, culminating in a village celebration that parents are invited to.

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Week 4: Farm to Table Village, July 20 - 24, 2026

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This week we will deepen our farming and culinary skills. In the past weeks children will have practiced caring for the animals and harvesting and cooking out of the garden. During our theme time, we will focus on the soil-to-sun-to-table process, growing and preparing food to share in community. Each group will prepare something from the farm that can then be used for a Village Feast on Friday that parents are invited to. We will work with vegetables from our farm as well as products like eggs from our parent farm, Temple Wilton Community Farm (TWCF). Children will collectively prepare farm fresh vegetable soup, fire roasted sourdough bread, farm fresh yogurt, wild fermented vegetables, herb infused oils, and butter, and more to be shared during the Village Feast. This week will feature special farm visits to TWCF to learn about several aspects of farming in addition to the daily visits to the dairy barn and chicken coops to help Farmer Silvano with washing the eggs.

 

Week 5: Resilience through Sculpture Village, July 27 - 31, 2026

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Our village is becoming more diverse. During this week, we will deepen our relationship to the fiber and woodworking arts, our harvest from farm and garden, and will add sculpting with beeswax and clay. The imagination of the Village, will for those involved in past weeks, be living deeply in the children, making it easy for new children to experience the “Wild Rose Village” even if they did not come to previous weeks of summer camp. We will learn how to withstand change in the village, (new crafts, and new crafts people) and we will explore the processes of change, resilience, and transformation through the utter flexibility of clay and beeswax. Our first creations will be “destroyed”–dried and crushed with hammers in the case of clay, and warmed into shapelessness in the case of beeswax. Then the children will be invited to create again. Clay dust will be remoistened and reshaped, while beeswax will be warmed and reshaped. Our village of farmers, woodworkers, medicine makers, artists, crafts people, and chefs will prepare everything that is needed in a resilient village community. Like the previous week, villagers will exchange their creations for that of their neighbors culminating in a village celebration that parents are invited to.