Featured Events, Resources, & Opportunities

Hilltown Mobile Market is back for a 4th season! This year, they are operating an online store of products from 20 Hilltown farmers & producers where you can shop weekly for freshly harvested produce, meat, dairy, eggs & pantry items. Ordering will be packed & delivered to 18 pickup locations throughout the Hilltowns with convenient hours. They are also offering choice-based Farm Shares where you can spend down your balance throughout the season whenever & however it works for you! Share options range from $150 – $500, with a fully reimbursable option for those with SNAP/HIP. The Market will also be offering door delivery for residents at Westhampton Woods, Hamblin Court, Highland Village Circle, Hillside Terrance, Nash Hill, & The Maples.

Yoga Sanctuary has two week-long programs for kids this summer! Yoga Monkey Kids (ages 6–10) weaves yoga and creative movement, mythic storytelling, creative crafts, and games into one fun and enchanting week! Play Practice: Exploring Yoga & Theater (ages 10–13) includes yoga techniques, theater games, and creative exercises designed to unleash each student’s unique expression, as well as foster dynamic group creation. Plus, all the summer fun of daily outdoors time and a special day spent walking and swimming in our beautiful local nature! Both programs include a special sharing for parents on the final day. Yoga Monkey Kids: June 25–29, 9–2 pm. Play Practice: August 1–5, 9–2 pm. www.yoga-sanctuary.com/kids-summer-programs; studio@yoga-sanctuary.com
➡️ Now through June 15, mention “Hilltown Families” and receive $25 off each program.

List of Weekly Suggested Events

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Self-Directed Learning: Summer Camping

The long days and warm nights of summer provide the perfect conditions for family camping, a tradition that serves as one of childhood’s most classic summer adventures. Camping trips allow children to learn how to live outside of their homes and provide them with the opportunity to engage in experiential learning about their surroundings during all hours of the day (and perhaps the night, too). From afternoon playtime in the woods to an evening of fireflies and campfires to the misty early morning hours that bring endless bird songs, camping trips offer constant exposure to the world’s sights, sounds, and smells. As a bonus, children who connect with their surroundings are more likely to practice environmentally friendly and conservation-minded behaviors as adults. Read more in our post, “Summer Camping Adventures Promote Nature-Based Play and Learning.”

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Self-Directed Learning: Bioblitz/Biodiversity

Want to host your very own bioblitz? Resources for blitz-planning are available on the National Geographic website – the organization has provided everything from instructions for early planning to a suggested materials list! A bioblitz can offer self-directed learners a unique hands-on learning experience that will make them aware of the amount of biodiversity in their neighborhood and will teach them to identify new species. Communities will benefit from these events as well – neighbors can gain a greater awareness of what’s in their backyards, and perhaps even become better connected to the natural world that surrounds them! 

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Self-Directed Learning: Entomology/Beetles

Mass Audubon invites families to go on a beetle scavenger hunt! “There are at least 107 known species of beetles in Massachusetts, 30,000 in the United States, and 350,000 around the world. How many beetles can you find? While on the hunt, don’t forget to watch how they defend themselves, listen to the sounds they make, and observe how they communicate with each other.” Use their free downloadable activity page, It’s Beetlemania!, to guide you!

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Self-Directed Learning: Light Pollution/Citizen Science

The night sky is a community-based educational resource available to everyone by simply stepping outside your home. Become a citizen scientist by gathering data on your observations of the celestial bodies above and participating in the project, Loss of the Night. Created by German researchers, Loss of the Night is designed to collect information about the amount of sky glow (also known as light pollution) present in populated areas all over the globe. An additional goal of the project is to help users learn more about the stars that they see above them and the seasonal changes in the sky. Read more about this citizen science opportunity in our post, Citizen Scientists Wanted to Map the Stars. Participation with support learning about light pollution’s impacts on our native species while supporting interests in astronomy and the scientific process.

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Self-Directed Learning: Telling Time/Sundials

A community-based educational resource available to everyone is the sun! We sometimes check the sky to keep time using the sun to see its position, but this method isn’t very accurate. On the other hand, shadows can give a more precise reading of the time, but only if the correct tools are used! Families can create their own sundials using simple materials around the house, allowing shadows to become their new clock. Beginning at noon on a sunny day, this project requires monitoring on the hour, every hour during the daylight portion of a 24-hour-period. The results are a nature-based time-telling device that can spark explorations of geometry, time structure, and ancient history. Making your sundial can also support the scientific understanding of the earth’s relationship with the sun and the development and practice of language skills when done with young children.

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Self-Directed Learning: Native Orchids

“Writing professor Kyhl Lyndgaard finds that 19th-century attitudes about ‘Indian removal’ were echoed by a notable shift in the common names of native orchids.” This is the sentence that begins the article, “Taking Off the Moccasin Flower and Putting On the Lady’s Slipper,” published by Potash Hill, the magazine of Marlboro College. Learning about the history and origin of different native plant species names can support a wide variety of subjects, including Native American studies, U.S. history, ethnobotany, poetry, and ecology. In Lyndgaard’s article, these subjects are tied together by weaving a story about Indian Removal through poetry, history, and the renaming of the Moccasin Flower. Read more in our post, Nature-Based Learning: Learning through the Lens of the Wild Orchid.

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Self-Directed Learning: Bridges

The Keystone Arches, part of a railroad bridge over the Westfield River, are not only a beautiful structure but changed the landscape and transportation far beyond Western Massachusetts. Without this bridge, we would not have what is currently the longest and highest railroad in the world, the Western Pacific Railroad. What’s so special about arches? Using our local bridges as a catalyst for learning, get curious about their designs and impacts on local history and development.

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Weekly eNewsletter

Online and in-person events and resources shared above are done so as a courtesy and not as an endorsement. While we do our best to share accurate and up-to-date information, please take the time to confirm information, age appropriateness, registration requirements, safety protocols, and associated costs.

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Hilltown Families’ list of Suggested Events is supported in part by grants from the Agawam, Amherst, Becket, Bernardston, Buckland, Chester, Chicopee, Colrain, Cummington, Easthampton, Goshen, Granby, Greenfield, Hadley, Hatfield, Heath, Hinsdale/Peru, Huntington, Leyden, Montgomery, Mount Washington, Northern Berkshire, Orange, Otis, Palmer, Pelham, Rowe, Shelburne, Shutesbury, South Hadley, Tolland, Tyringham, Westhampton, Windsor, and Worthington Cultural Councils, local agencies which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.