Week 37!

June 19, 2012

Last Day


As it turns out, we did not "finish" our Village at Marlborough School.  We did not have time for appraisals or the auction.  My hope is that by keeping this blog I can look back through to determine where we might accelerate things for next year.  Having said that, it is quite amazing what this group of homesteaders accomplished in just 29 hours.  Participants in our summer program have about 125 hours just for Village (this excludes time for swimming, eating and other play) and a consistent supply of adult help .  We did exceptionally well!

The first half of our class was spent taking our homes out of the woods, knocking down fences, and returning the forest to its pre-Village condition.  Some valuable lessons were learned about home construction at this time.   Many houses were full of mud, ants, spiders and/or mouse droppings.  Next year we will try harder to build safer homes for our peeps.

The second half of class was spent doing "pluses and wishes", a daily favorite from our summer program.

Pluses (things we really enjoyed this year):
  We liked...

• lots of kids played this year!
• more kids than last year
• liked making second peeps
• we all got along
• great location
• made wooden houses, not cardboard
• not overly structured- organized chaos
• good land
• one or two big problems to bring the village together 
• being with friends
• designing houses and peeps

Wishes (things to keep in mind for next time):

  We wish...

• there wasn't the big murder trial
• nobody would go murder crazy
• there was no framing
• more people were more involved
• we had more time
• there was less bickering
• there was more working and building- less time spent on meetings
• Village was more than once a week
• we got more land
• there were better walkways on the acre
• no more meetings!
• animal transportation

Other comments:

"It seemed that many people just wanted to be divided and make war all year.  More than half of the town was armed like an angry mob."

"It would be fun to do a themed village next year"

"The clans put us way behind"

"We need more jobs next year"

"Town meetings are essential for towns"

I can hardly wait to see what we come up with next!