Turn Back Time

Turn Back Time Turn Back Time’s mission is to help people recognize nature’s ability to teach and heal. Turn Back Time operates on a 58 acre homestead in Paxton, MA.
(51)

This property boasts a Turn Back Time (TBT) is a non-profit nature-based education center located on 58 acres in Paxton, Massachusetts. Our mission at Turn Back Time is to help people recognize nature’s ability to heal and teach with a commitment to offering programs to under-served populations.. We align with this mission through educational programs, nature play, and farm education. We connect p

articipants with nature through thoughtful and engaging programs, blending structured and unstructured exploration of the outdoor world within a welcoming and harmonizing environment. The property has expanded from humble beginnings to now include an active beaver pond, an extensive forested trail system, and a fully functional working farm. The farm includes a barn with classroom space, stables, green house, commercial garden beds, and a milieu of farm animals to interact with. Our in-resident animal friends include a whole clan of chickens (most uniquely named by children!), a horse, pony, goats, and a miniature donkey named MoMo, who all adore attention and care from our students and guests. Together, within our varying programs, we have the opportunity to witness nature’s splendor as it changes throughout the seasons; engaging our imaginations, activating our senses, and deepening our inquiry and knowledge of the natural world through active investigation. Our programs create resiliency as we build a relationship between the learner and the natural world; providing opportunities to take supported risks appropriate to the environment and to ourselves. These opportunities in nature give individuals of all ages the time, space, and permission to learn, gain new experience, and grow in confidence and love for themselves, for others, and for this earth we call home.

What an incredible Holiday Mini Camp!🔥 Roasting marshmallows over the fire❄️ Sledding⭐️ Ornament decorating🐓 Animal Care...
12/07/2024

What an incredible Holiday Mini Camp!
🔥 Roasting marshmallows over the fire
❄️ Sledding
⭐️ Ornament decorating
🐓 Animal Care with the chickens, bunnies, horses and goats
🍩 Donut & cookie decorating
☃️ Snowpeople Building
🩵 Friendship & community
We hope to see you at our Holiday Open House on Saturday December 21st from 1-3 for even more Solstice & winter fun!

🌲 This week Kinderkamp got to sew and design their very own Gingerbread! The creativity was flowing with the endless sup...
12/05/2024

🌲 This week Kinderkamp got to sew and design their very own Gingerbread!

The creativity was flowing with the endless supply of buttons and fabric! 🧵

🪡 Sewing was such a fun activity that really strengthened our fine motor skills. It was a little tricky to start threading but once they figured it out they were loving the process. We stuffed them and added a backing to bring them to life!

We were so proud of how they came out! ☺️

🍂 The Tuesday homeschool group started our theme that will take us through to winter break: hibernation!We have spent th...
12/03/2024

🍂 The Tuesday homeschool group started our theme that will take us through to winter break: hibernation!

We have spent the last few weeks making food for ourselves (milling our own rye flour to make rye-based shortbread cookies!), and now we get to think about what kinds of food animals in New England are eating this time of year and how they keep themselves safe during the cold winter months. ❄️

Today, we practiced the scientific method by first discussing the question "what might the wild animals at Turn Back Time eat this time of year?" Then, we did some research in our book for the day, Hibernation, by Carolyn Scarce.

🐿️
We took a walk through the woods to observe what is available to the animals, and we made hypotheses about which items the animals would like to eat. As we went, we collected a little of each kind of potential food. We are testing our hypotheses by leaving a buffet of options out in an area of the woods where we know that people don't often go. Next week, we will return to find our conclusion by seeing what has been taken and what is still left out!

🔍 Looking to support a non-profit this Giving Tuesday? 🌲 Turn Back Time can always use your support! 🍁  Our mission at T...
12/03/2024

🔍 Looking to support a non-profit this Giving Tuesday?
🌲 Turn Back Time can always use your support!
🍁 Our mission at Turn Back Time is to help people recognize nature’s ability to heal and teach. We align with this mission through educational programs, nature play, and farm education. We connect participants with nature through thoughtful and engaging programs, blending structured and unstructured exploration of the outdoor world within a welcoming and harmonizing environment.
💌 Share this post to help us provide high quality, access let nature based education to children and families!
🙌🏼 THANK YOU!

You can donate by either hitting the button or clicking this link!

https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2283520

🧈 Homemade Butter!Making butter is a loved tradition here at tbt. Right before thanksgiving break each child gets to bri...
11/27/2024

🧈 Homemade Butter!

Making butter is a loved tradition here at tbt. Right before thanksgiving break each child gets to bring some home to share with their families.

The children and teachers are always fascinated by the whole process every year!

It is only one ingredient- heavy cream! Put it in a mason jar and shake it up (for awhile!) It’s a great way for the children to get their wiggles out. It gets them fully engaged and curious about how the butter will turn out!

Halfway through we opened the lid and let everyone see how it was getting thicker, we even got to try some buttermilk. When it was finished we all tried a little bit of the butter on a cracker and it was delicious! ☺️

From the tbt family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

👏🏼 We want to send out a huge thank you to Bill and Nikki! They volunteered and dedicated an entire Saturday to build mo...
11/27/2024

👏🏼 We want to send out a huge thank you to Bill and Nikki! They volunteered and dedicated an entire Saturday to build more bunk beds for our cabins.

We can now accommodate up to 12 people in our cabins for AirBnb or WPI residencies. The expansion is greatly needed and appreciated!

Thank you so much for your help and support! 🧡🤗

Check out our Airbnb if you haven’t already! Link is below 👇🏼

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/649155734310747091?source_impression_id=p3_1732734295_P3FSqobn6DTnHrst

🦃 Turkey Feather Sun Catchers!Kinderkamp spent the last week collecting turkey feathers from our turkey tom. Our student...
11/25/2024

🦃 Turkey Feather Sun Catchers!

Kinderkamp spent the last week collecting turkey feathers from our turkey tom. Our students have nicknamed him “The Boss”! We love to visit with him! The feathers that he molts ensure that he has new feathers for winter!

✨ We pained the feathers and added some beads and crystals to make a beautiful turkey feather sun catcher!

🪶

🐴 Meet the Crew!Our farm animal friends are the heart of tbt! These cute familiar faces are such a gift to the farm   an...
11/20/2024

🐴 Meet the Crew!

Our farm animal friends are the heart of tbt!

These cute familiar faces are such a gift to the farm and they teach us SO much!

🐐🐓🦃🐰🐴

They teach us empathy, compassion, and regulation. Animal care also teaches us how important it is to care for something other than ourselves.

Not only that, but the pure joy and love the children have for these animals is truly what makes it all worthwhile!

The social & emotional connection that they provide is something we will always cherish.

🚜🌾

🦃 This week we introduced an exciting project that combines hands-on learning with a focus on gratitude. Preschool is cr...
11/19/2024

🦃 This week we introduced an exciting project that combines hands-on learning with a focus on gratitude. Preschool is creating a gratitude paper chain! This activity gave us a chance to talk with the children about what gratitude means—feeling thankful for the people, experiences, and things that bring joy to our lives. As we passed the talking piece, we invited each child to share something they are grateful for, whether it was a favorite activity, a kind friend, or a special family tradition.

🍁 As part of this project, the children practiced their fine motor skills by using scissors and glue to create the links of the chain. We encouraged them to take their time cutting strips of paper and connecting them into colorful loops, building their hand strength and coordination. They showed so much pride in their work!

⛓️ Not only does this activity support development in a variety of skills, it also serves as a beautiful visual reminder of how gratitude grows when we share it together. We’re excited to see the chain grow longer each day!

Acorn Flour Play-Dough! 🍂This week Kinderkamp completed the incredible journey of our acorn flour and it was very reward...
11/15/2024

Acorn Flour Play-Dough! 🍂

This week Kinderkamp completed the incredible journey of our acorn flour and it was very rewarding!

From collecting, cracking, (finding Weevils!), grinding, and blending the acorns we ended up with a surplus of acorn flour! We then made homemade play-dough, everyone taking turns and adding all of the ingredients.

To our surprise it smelled incredible. It was a warm nutty maple syrup smell! Everyone loved it!

The play-dough itself was such a wonderful sensory experience with little bits of acorn meat within the dough! Every child got a little to take home to their families and share their creation.

It was a long process but worth every effort!

🌲 Hi families, can you believe the holidays are right around the corner? Have your kids and their friends join us for a ...
11/14/2024

🌲 Hi families, can you believe the holidays are right around the corner? Have your kids and their friends join us for a celebration on the farm.
❄️ Would you like to get some shopping time? How about giving your kids a safe way to enjoy some socialization. We are running our Holiday Minicamp once again!
🗓️ This is a drop off program appropriate for ages 4-14 on Saturday December 7th from 10:00-1:00.
🌟 Each participant will have a chance to experience the farm, make a craft, enjoy some food and participate in games and dancing.
✅ Please register at the link below before spots run out!
https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/pxydjzp

💫 Emergent curriculum is a very exciting way to work. Some days the universe drops something new at Kinderkamps feet, an...
11/14/2024

💫 Emergent curriculum is a very exciting way to work. Some days the universe drops something new at Kinderkamps feet, and we pivot to soak up all the learning right away.

Going along with our regular morning routine, we were surprised to find a rabbit right in the middle of the fire circle. Why was it there? How had it died? What happened?

The children did some hypothesizing, looking at the area to find some clues and thinking of their past experiences to come up with ideas about what had happened.

Finding an animal who has died floods us with a mix of emotions. We are sad, curious, a little excited to try to solve a mystery, and even a little worried. All of those emotions are OK to feel, and it's important to recognize that different people feel different feelings about death and respect our beautiful differences.

Living and working on a farm can really help define feelings about animal's deaths. Over time we come to realize that it's the quality of an animals life that matters the most. We pondered about the life of the rabbit, what made it happy, and how it felt being free. The children are sure the rabbit had a happy life living in the wood pile next to our fire pit.

We read a story called Rabbityness, which is a story about death and, coincidentally, a story about a rabbit. In the story we are taught to, over time, look at the gifts the deceased has left the world.

For the children who were feeling curious, we brought out some reference books to learn a little more about wild rabbits. The children identified that it was a cottontail. They wondered why it's eyes ere still open, and marveled at the beautiful texture of its fur.

We talked about the difference in the lives of wild rabbits and domesticated rabbits. We decided a wild rabbit feels happiness being free, and that a domesticated rabbit feels happy when children love and care for it. We went to visit and cuddle with Leo, our farm rabbit, to send some positive energy into the world.

Lastly, Kinderkamp buried the rabbit in the forest. We all collected things from nature and placed it on the grave as a tribute.

What a full and educational experience!

🍂 Because of an Acorn.. 🍂Kinderkamp has spent the last week working with Acorns and this journey has brought some intere...
11/07/2024

🍂 Because of an Acorn.. 🍂

Kinderkamp has spent the last week working with Acorns and this journey has brought some interesting emergent curriculum!

The acorn plays a massive role in the forests ecosystem. So we were really excited to start working with them and learning more!

We came up with a plan to make Acorn flour in a multistep process. With the flour, we are going to make homemade acorn flour Playdough!

First we collected Acorns (intentionally checking them thoroughly for damage or holes). Then we placed them in a dehumidifier so they would be easier to crack open! The children absolutely loved cracking them open to find the acorn meat.
We placed the acorn meat in water to get them ready for blending.

During our cracking process we noticed some of the acorns now had holes in them! Acorn Weevil Larvae were inside! We examined and investigated the Weevils and learned all about them.

Did you know that squirrels prefer the acorns with weevil larvae to those without! So fascinating! We decided to bring the weevil larvae down to the chicken coop. We fed it to our favorite chicken friend named Judy, and she absolutely loved her treat!

The children are super excited for the next step in our acorn flower process and they are loving how something so simple can turn into quite the adventure!

🦴 Preschool is LOVING their bone exploration and investigation!While utilizing a variety of tools such as magnifying gla...
10/30/2024

🦴 Preschool is LOVING their bone exploration and investigation!

While utilizing a variety of tools such as magnifying glasses, rulers and paintbrushes they discussed what they noticed about bones and skeletons. They measured and compared the sizes, shapes and colors.
🔎
This lesson is a great opportunity for students to build knowledge around the importance of bones and skeletons. As children work to distinguish fact and fiction, exploring bones up close helps diminish any fears that may arise as we see these items displayed in spooky ways!

The most magical sight to see ~ huddled heads! 💫Exploring, discovering and creating with nature is exactly what is happe...
10/28/2024

The most magical sight to see ~ huddled heads! 💫

Exploring, discovering and creating with nature is exactly what is happening every time we see huddled heads!

Such important play! Where community is naturally grown with new and old friends! 🍂🪲

🏆 Our Annual Benefit Golf Tournament raised over $7500 for our Scholarship Fund!Thank you to our Sponsors for making thi...
10/23/2024

🏆 Our Annual Benefit Golf Tournament raised over $7500 for our Scholarship Fund!
Thank you to our Sponsors for making this possible!

🥇Gold Sponsors $750-$1,000
Fidelity Bank
Cornerstone Bank

🥈Silver Sponsors - $250-$500
Pepin Comanies (Pepin granite, Pepin car wash, Pepin storage, Pepin waste)
Country Bank
B&D Supply
Mel Chacharone
Danari, Fanno, Danari LLC
Reliable RN
NFI

🥉 Bronze Sponsors - $125
The RV Guys
Cournoyer Vegetable Farm
Safety Northeast Insurance Agency, Inc.
Aho Air
CC Lowell
Bruce Coffin CPA
Flex Con
The Grange

Looking to support Turn Back Time and our mission to help people recognize nature’s ability to teach and heal? Please make a donation today through our PayPal!

https://www.paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/2283520

Address

250 Marshall Street
Paxton, MA
01612

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Turn Back Time posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Turn Back Time:

Videos

Share

Category