Whether we are sharing our favorite cucurbit recipes at Squash Tasting on weekends, or teaching visitors the difference between an heirloom variety and a newer variety, we are always teaching. We want to connect people to the land, show them where their food comes from, and, overall, spread the love of pumpkins!

We have about 4,000 school children come our to the farm every year during pumpkin season. It is one of my favorite parts of the season, I wish we had the time and the staff to walk around with each group and show them how many wonderful lessons there are on the farm. We aren’t able to do that at this point, so we have worked really hard at coming up with activities for teachers to take back to the classroom with them. Some of our activities we have found online, and others we have created or adapted to be our own. We have even enlisted other staff members, many of whom are educators themselves (we have teachers, retired teachers, librarians, principals, and professors among our diverse staff) to help us create activities and resources for teachers and parents who want to take a little of The Great Pumpkin Patch home with them.

Be sure to check our Pinterest board for some wonderful activities and resources at http://pinterest.com/the200acres/. Here are two of our own original activities, check them out and please let us know what you are doing in your classroom so we can share that too!!

We are always looking for ways to do things different, a little outside the box. We have so many ideas and we are always trying to put our spin on things to make our place unique. Field trips are the same way; we want this to be the one place that teachers have to bring their students back year after year. And one that the kids are so excited about they have to bring their parents back. So be ready, because our minds are already thinking about what we can do next year to make field trips more educational, more fun and more us!

~Ginny