Search Results for: blog family travel taking your children to a strawberry farm

Homeschool Field Trip: Peachy Keen

Summer is the perfect time to take advantage of Mother Nature’s bounty and look beyond the walls of your home for some fantastic homeschool lessons. For clans with students of varying ages, a field trip to a u-pick farm can be a real treat.  Most states feature fields, orchards and sprawling acreage designed to give city folk a taste of country life.  These green spaces are bursting with seasonal produce including corn, strawberries, tomatoes and my daughter’s favorite—peaches. Picking sweet, juicy, tree-ripened peaches lends itself to a slew of hands-on lessons.  For starters, a field trip to a peach orchard … Continue reading →

Bug Off

I went to our local strawberry farm and all I got was this nasty bee sting. Not exactly a winning t-shirt design, but 100 percent true, nonetheless. A couple of weeks ago our entire clan headed out on our annual trek to the u-pick strawberry patch to pluck my daughter’s very favorite fruit. After two hours in the blistering heat, we came away with about 10 pounds of the sweet and succulent summertime treat. In addition, I scored a bee sting that turned my shoulder as red as the ripest strawberry. While I am not allergic to bee stings, for … Continue reading →

Cheap and Easy Summer Fun with Kids

As I mentioned in a previous blog, you don’t have to fly to Disney or rent an expensive RV and hit the road on a two-week vay-cay to make lasting summer memories with your kids. If the struggling economy has you scaling back on your summer vacation plans, then consider sticking closer to home and bonding with your children while taking part in the following activities: Berry Picking Strawberry picking is a summertime tradition in our family. Each June, we drive to a nearby farm and pick pounds and pounds of fresh, juicy berries. The family-friendly activity is geared towards … Continue reading →

Strawberries Galore!

I’m not sure who was more thrilled to see the “STRAWBERRIES 99 cents per pound” sign hanging at the grocery store, my berry obsessed daughter, or me, her penny-pinching mother. My first thought after seeing the unbelievably low price for fresh strawberries in April was: Rotten fruit. I figured the market was trying to get rid of expired produce and would be happy to take 99 cents rather than dump the berries and take a hit. As it turns out, the cheap strawberries are perfectly wonderful and come courtesy of unusually cold weather in Florida. According to our market’s produce … Continue reading →

Summer Fun for Preschoolers

Preschoolers love to exercise their independence, so many of the activities that might keep them amused during the summer months should be designed so they can work with minimal parental interruption. Give yourself a break by allowing your preschooler to work on projects independently. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t supervise your child, it just means that you should allow him to work at his own pace and solve problems on his own. Here are a few ideas to keep summer fun for your preschooler: GARDENING Introduce your child to gardening by visiting a local botanical garden or farm (u-pick strawberry … Continue reading →

Is Your Preschooler Overscheduled?

This summer I decided to give my car a break. Instead of pulling in and out of karate, basketball, swimming, piano, soccer, gymnastics, art, cooking, and ceramics class parking lots, our family vehicle has been cooling its wheels in a shady garage. Score one for the aging Nissan… and for the aging mom. The preschooler, well, she’s not sharing our joy. Not entirely anyway. After months (make that years) of juggling a less than relaxed routine of classes, activities, playgroups, and kiddie seminars, I figured I’d trade in the overscheduled routine for a more laid back summer schedule; one that … Continue reading →

Summer Fun for Kids in the Great Outdoors

I may be the only one in our entire county who is not praying for rain right now. Farmers need the precipitation badly and others are bemoaning the drought-like conditions as well, but I couldn’t be happier for the streak of cloudless days we’ve been experiencing. If you have kids, then you have to admit it’s much easier keeping them busy during the summer in the great outdoors than holed up inside. This summer we’ve tried to spend as much time outside as possible. We’ve been strawberry picking, biking, swimming, and hiking… and we have the souvenirs to prove it. … Continue reading →

Fresh Berry Recipes

Strawberry picking season started on Saturday (at least at our local farm). So, tomorrow my preschooler and I will head out to the fields and pluck 10 pounds of fresh, juicy strawberries. I have big plans for those luscious red berries, including using them in the following simple recipes: FRESH STRAWBERRY TARTS Ingredients: 2 cups fresh strawberries 1 tablespoon sugar 1/4 cup orange juice 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed 1 8-oz. package cream cheese, softened 2 tablespoons honey 1 cup heavy whipping cream Powdered sugar Directions: Place berries in a small bowl, sprinkle with sugar, and toss gently with … Continue reading →

Having Fun at a Farmer’s Market

Now that the weather is warming up, farmers markets are springing up around the country. In warmer climates these massive markets are open year round, but here in the chilly Upper Midwest, outdoor farmers markets are seasonal (and the indoor ones are only held bi-weekly). Their fleeting appearance from May until October is one of the reasons they are so popular in my neck of the woods. Another reason produce-loving residents flock to farmers markets here is that they are just plain fun. When was the last time you took your children to a farmers market? My preschooler loves visiting … Continue reading →

Make a Watermelon Ice Cream Cake and other Cool Summer Treats

My preschooler loves strawberries. But, she’ll gladly gobble up watermelon when it’s around. During the summer months I try to keep as much of the refreshing fruit around as possible. When I was a kid my brothers and I would rock, paper, scissors for the last piece of watermelon, yet I know there are many people who don’t particularly care for the juicy summer fruit. Fortunately, your family doesn’t have to love watermelon to love this next recipe. They’ll have to tolerate the sight of it, but they don’t have to enjoy the taste. That’s because the recipe doesn’t call … Continue reading →