Wild Willow Kidz

06/04/2026

Great summer activity! Jerry is so helpful and informative! Check out Billy Boat Boats at the boat house in down town Orange!

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Billy Goat Boats is a family run, family friendly Boathouse located in downtown Orange MA. Come explore the beauty of central Massachusetts and the Millers River with your entire family

06/02/2026

Life is not perfect and raising a teenager is freaking hard… .but we all do the best we can with the resources we have in hopes to raise successful happy humans.

I have my 14 year-old son volunteer to work on Tuesdays for our towns senior meals program. He started doing this back in the fall.
A handful of volunteers put on a large meal for 50 or more of our town senior citizens every Tuesday and my son is one of the workers. He cooks and he helps clean up.
No, he doesn’t do this without a fight and most days I’m dragging him out of bed to get him there😆🤦🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️
Even thought I don’t think I could get him to admit it, I do really think he enjoys it.

Volunteer work is important and a big piece of our life.

He packs a lunch every Tuesday and we deliver it to our neighbor who is unable to make it to the luncheon currently.

He just sent me this picture asking if I thought he had enough food for her. He was worried that this might not be enough. That is plenty of food and it looks quite delicious!😆🤤💕

Regardless, if you are a homeschool family or not, remember that even in the hustle and bustle of life, volunteer work and community service is so important, giving back in little ways can make a big impact 💕

05/28/2026

What a day! Today we celebrated another successful homeschool co-op year!

Five years ago, I embarked on this journey of creating a co-op. I had no idea what to expect or that it would become such an amazing piece of our lives.
It has not been easy and I have learned a lot along the way, but it’s safe to say that this year was the best year yet!
It is an amazing thing to build your village and raise your babies alongside people that have similar values, interests, and life goals.

Yesterday, as we were cleaning up our classroom space, the kids were all so upset that that was going to be our last classroom meeting for a while. They were all so sad that we’re taking a break. I assured them that we will still get together over the summer and have fun. We’re just not doing our twice a week structured lessons. I think I’m doing something right if these kids are sad that it’s summer break. Nobody is sad for summer break in public school 😆

I was brushing my daughter’s hair out this evening and she was telling me how much she loves Co-op and that she’s never going to leave it. She also said that when she is an adult, she and her friend Nora are going to run the co-op so I can retire 😂

*We are officially at capacity for next year with no more openings 🤯💕

05/25/2026

Generations of families gave everything so the next generation could grow up free.

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05/23/2026

Our favorite Memorial Day weekend tradition!
We love helping to swap out the old flags at the cemetery in our town! Today we made quick work of it, eight of us swapped out every single flag in less than 30 minutes!!

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05/22/2026

Someone is going to shape your child’s understanding of money, fairness, freedom, and what they owe the world.

It might be a screen. It might be an algorithm. It might be a public school teacher with completely different values than you have. It might be whatever captures their attention for a few hours on a random afternoon.

Or it might be you.

Intentional parenting doesn’t mean controlling every idea your child encounters. It means making sure that before the world gets to them, you’ve given them something solid to stand on.

The Tuttle Twins books are built to help you do exactly that — giving kids a foundation of values and thinking tools that stick.

I’m not a perfect parent, I don’t believe anyone is but building a strong foundation for my children has always been top priority and Tuttle Twins resources have been a big piece of that.

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05/20/2026

Remembering local history on the anniversary of one of our most tragic events.

💔
“Whatever Turner’s reasons were, for King Phillip’s War was over and peace talks were taking place, nothing can change the fact this day resulted in the deaths of 415 native women, children, and elders.“



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On May 19, 1676, Captain William Turner led a band of untrained militia from Hadley to Peskeompskut (“the place where fire bursts from the rock”). Here a gathering of natives had camped on the river bank to fish at what we now call Turners Falls, MA. Amongst Turner’s men, the town of Hatfield provided two individuals recognized to the history of Shelburne: Lieutenant William Allis and the “boy hero” (later Revolutionary War Captain) Lawrence Kemp.

Whatever Turner’s reasons were, for King Phillip’s War was over and peace talks were taking place, nothing can change the fact this day resulted in the deaths of 415 native women, children, and elders. There was one colonist death. Allis lost his son in the ambush, shot by a fellow gunman who glimpsed him stepping out of a wigwam.

In 2004, the town of Turners Falls hosted a reconciliation ceremony and established an annual Day of Remembrance with the Nipmuc and Abenaki nations, relations of the Peskeompskut victims.

The Shelburne Historical Society joins them this year with our hearts and minds turned to maintaining our mission. Let us continue to educate generations on our local history, notwithstanding the true stories of the people we memorialise, and move forward to a better future.

“(We) buried the hatchet. It is very uplifting and hopeful, how looking at past history and how taking responsibility can change the direction of things.”
—Diane Dix, Nolumbeka Project

05/19/2026

Reveal/2nd half of last weeks Petri dish  experiments.
Amazon box, library book, dog paw, scraping from under long fingernails, gas pump handle , shopping cart handle, and shopping cart seat we’re all as expected ….pretty gross

The one that surprised us was the toilet flush…. We may redo this one at different locations, but I think most of us have heard in the past that you need to flush the toilet with the lid shut because so much splatters out when you flush…. Well, we held this petri dish below toilet seat level with the lid open for a flush, and it didn’t grow anything on the petri dish. There was no splatter or wet spots…. We Found that very interesting.🤔

As much as I despise toxic chemicals, I am one that always wipes the handle and seat of my shopping cart at the grocery store and Walmart… I do this because of a brain stain that I have from many years ago… I was sitting in my car at Walmart getting my stuff together to get out and I saw somebody walking in holding a baby probably about eight months old or so… poor parent must’ve been stranded with nothing to change a diaper, and this kid had a massive blowout… I think most of us parents have been there, total p**p explosion, leaking out the onesie, down the kids legs and up the back…. I got out of the car and followed this person in because we were both going into the store and then I watched the person take that baby and sit them right in the top of the cart with their blowout.🤮🤦🏻‍♀️
Never again did I forget to wipe the seat with the sanitizer wipe😆😜💩🤷🏻‍♀️