Featured Events, Resources, & Opportunities

List of Weekly Suggested Events

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Self-Directed Learning: Summer Sense of Place

Once we round the corner of August into the final weeks of summer, our senses connect us to the season through sounds, textures, and smells unique to this time of year. An orchestra of insects begins to escalate during these weeks, with the call of heat-loving cicadas up high in the trees in the afternoons, the trill of ground crickets from fields and meadows in the early evenings, topped off with a serenade of katy-did, katy-didn’t of katydids in the evenings. During these days, when the sun is high, humidity rests on our checks and shoulders, and the colors and textures of chicory, Queen Anne’s lace, and goldenrod wave us by as we travel towards community-based summer destinations. The green leaf volatiles of freshly mowed grass, paired with the smell of ozone, petrichor, and geosmim of summer rain, trigger childhood memories for adults while strengthening a sense of place in our children. August contains a catalog of sounds, textures, and smells unique to this time of year and specific to the region. By being mindful of how we connect to place through our senses, getting curious, and letting interests lead our learning, our sensory perceptions of our summer landscape can easily support education in subjects like chemistry, biology, entomology, meteorology, and botany. Today’s self-directed learning module integrates mindfulness with phenology to support studies that can connect us to place.

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Self-Directed Learning: Tomato Season

Late July and August is the season of tomatoes! Looking through the lens of tomatoes, there are many directions your curiosity can lead you. Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? Surprise your kids with that answer, and then go down the rabbit hole of how plants’ anatomy guides us in classifying fruits and vegetables. An excellent opportunity to support interest in botany. Once you have that squared away, self-directed learning can illuminate interests in agriculture, food history, and culinary arts through tomatoes in today’s self-directed learning module!

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Self-Directed Learning: Shadows

When the hot summer sun is high in the sky, what might be the first thing you look for (other than a cold body of water)? A shadow! Summer shade is a well-appreciated shadow on a hot August day! Another well-known shadow, one full of myth and folklore, is the earth’s shadow on the moon’s surface as it moves between the sun and the moon. Following your interests through the shade of shadows can not only touch on myth and folklore, but it can also support an interest in storytelling! In today’s self-directed learning module, get inspired by several methods for telling stories through the use of shadows! Start with an online search to discover the stories different cultures have around the earth’s shadow on the moon. Consider hand shadow puppetry and shadow art, then give storytelling through the medium of shadows a go in your own home. 

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Self-Directed Learning: Sweet Corn Season

August is the season of sweet corn! Sold at most farmers’ markets and local grocery stores in late summer, corn is a summer staple with a rich history and loads of learning opportunities. Corn can be a catalyst for learning about different Native American cultures and current efforts to save heirloom varieties and traditional preparation techniques. Corn can also be a helpful lens for learning about botany, agriculture, physics, culinary arts, and folk music. In today’s self-directed learning module, let corn lead the way in sparking your curiosity and supporting your interests!

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Self-Directed Learning: Sandy Shores

Sandy shores are relaxing destinations many families head towards or dream about during the summer months. Shoreline spaces not only support recreation but are also crucial to the livelihood of many! Today we explore traditions in catching fish, foraging seaweed, aquaculture, and earthscape art! Let these points of entry inspired by summer vacations ignite your curiosity to learn about other cultures and the various forms of art.

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Self-Directed Learning: Shooting Stars

Much of what transpires here on earth is seasonal or cyclical. From the earth’s 24-hour orbit on its axis to its 365-day orbit around the sun, we can track many of these cyclical patterns in terms of hours or days. But they also exist in terms of years! Even millennia! Comets are an excellent example of a larger cyclical pattern we track according to time. Annually we pass through the same tails of comets, but on a larger scale, comets orbit around the sun, passing by the earth on a more cosmic timeline. For instance, the newly discovered Comet NEOWISE passes by the earth every 6,800 years! For today’s self-directed learning module, we will let comets lead the way, asking questions, and seeking answers: What’s the difference between comets, asteroids, meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites? What do you see during a meteor shower? What is NASA’s plan to save the earth from a giant asteroid? What do we know about the Chelyabinsk Meteor? – When is the next meteor shower? Shoot on over to the American Meteor Society to find out!

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Self-Directed Learning: Rainbows

Rainbows have been capturing human imagination FOR-EVAH! With summer rainstorms come the opportunity to spy a rainbow in the late afternoons when conditions are just right, sparking imagination and priming curiosity about rainbows. If you’re a fan of rainbows, you already know the sense of awe that arises from within when one graces the summer sky. But what if you understood the science behind rainbows, knew various stories and myths behind rainbows, and how they have inspired art and imagination in the humanities? Today’s self-directed learning module takes these points of entry and leads us “somewhere over the rainbow” into a better understanding behind the magic of rainbows while supporting studies in meteorology, physics, science, and history.

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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.