July 2012

Pumpkins All Year Round!

Children love the jolly jack-o-lanterns, but at Spindlewood we like to keep our pumpkins alive all year round, beginning with hunting for them in the overgrown summer garden.     Then we keep one to stand guard until the frost on the pumpkin finally renders it food for the sheep and chickens.     We save some […]

Pumpkins All Year Round! Read More »

Gardening with Small Children: A World of Wonder and Rhythmic Impression

By Lisa Boisvert Mackensie “There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.”- Elizabeth Lawrence   The young child is still very much in a state of at-one-with-the-world, completely open to receiving sense impressions from the world. A garden provides

Gardening with Small Children: A World of Wonder and Rhythmic Impression Read More »

Children In Nature

Here at The Orchard, our in-home, LifeWays-inspired child care place, being outdoors, rain or shine, hot or cold, is a given.  It is also a challenge because, although we value and promote unstructured free play outdoors, we look for opportunities to share nature together. Apart from unstructured, surprise encounters with nature, this happens in two

Children In Nature Read More »

Milwaukee LifeWays Gains Paradise Farm

Paradise Farm is the home of the new garden for LifeWays Early Childhood Center in Milwaukee.  Mary O’Connell, director of LifeWays, and her husband Jim have recently become owners of this historic farm about 45 minutes northwest of the city. It’s the perfect location to grow natural, pesticide-free produce for the children and caregivers at

Milwaukee LifeWays Gains Paradise Farm Read More »

Outdoor Play!

Outdoor play!  Grass to roll down, gardens with mint and nibbles to eat as it is all edible, a pit to dig in, rain water to play in, room to run with little hills and slopes, boards and driftwood to balance on….no expensive outdoor play equipment needed! Dirt is not dirty, rain is for catching

Outdoor Play! Read More »

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I didn’t mean to be a gardener. Somehow it just happened -or did it? My earliest memories of gardening were the ones of an annoyed teen being forced to help dig and build beds for a large succulent garden that would one day become the front yard for a LifeWays center in San Diego set in

How Does Your Garden Grow? Read More »