Peace and Plenty Farm on September 27, 2017 hosted the Festival of Courage for North Fork School of Integrated Studies families and community members to celebrate this bountiful time of year, the power of the sun, and to gather strength to move forward to the dark time of year. NFSIS students performed the play of Michael taming the Dragon “We will teach him to plow, we will teach him to sow” the children chanted as the dragon became their ally rather than their tormentor. Legends of Michael and the dragon can be found in Persian, Greek, Babylonian, Hebrew, Christian legends as well as pre Christian fairy tales.
This school field trip included activities for children ages 2-15 and a variety of adults. Activities for the preschool children included berry picking and gathering seeds. Young students visited the chickens, groomed a cow and learned about bees by seeing them at home in their hive. Other students went on a scavenger hunt where they found catkins and leaves from a variety of trees, found the nest of birds of prey, crossed a bridge without their feet, explored a pioneer camp and found arrowheads. Middle and High school students from Paonia Experiential Learning Academy helped the younger children in their explorations. A giant feast featuring our local bounty fed the crowd of about 100 people. The children had a great time running and playing around the farm. We closed the day with song and dance and parted with full hearts and great joy.
Many thanks to Paul and Pat Frazier for hosting this festival, to the NFSIS teachers for the play and the songs, Sami Akert for crafting capes,crowns and medallions for all of the children, and the NFSIS festival committee for helping to facilitate the day.
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