School and Youth Programs at the NH Farm Museum

The New Hampshire Farm Museum provides a wonderful, hands-on opportunity for your students to explore New Hampshire’s agricultural heritage and see where farming and technology intersect with New Hampshire history.  Students who visit the museum have the opportunity to tour a working organic farm and learn about agricultural practices such as the “three sisters”, a method of co-planting corn, beans, and squash that the European settlers learned from the Native Americans. In addition to being a working farm, the museum is home to a vast collection of historic agricultural implements and artifacts of rural life including Daniel Webster’s plow and Horace Greeley’s privy and two historic farmhouses. No visit is complete without a chance to interact with the heritage breed farm animals!

Any of the following educational programs offered by the museum can be easily adapted to fit your curriculum and meet your class’s specific needs.

The Ox-Cart Man: Farms & Families at Work
Program recommended for grades k-3. Offered May-mid-November. Cost $6 per child. 10 student minimum-60 maximum, Approx. 3 hours

In this hands-on program based on NH poet Donald Hall's story, The Ox-Cart Man, children explore the way families lived and worked in the past throughout rural New England. The students tour the 18th-century farmhouse cape and learn about the roles of each member of the household and how each was needed to make the family's living. In gathering farm products to bring to market, they learn about the artifacts and objects of daily life in Colonial times. On their hunt through the barn they search for many of the farm objects depicted in the story and learn about barter and trade. Students make butter, meet our sheep, chickens, turkeys and pig, work with wool, try a planting or harvesting activity and help pack the ox-cart for the trip to Portsmouth.

Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn: Rural Life & Technological/Agricultural Evolution
Program recommended for students grades 3-8. Offered May-mid-November Cost $6 per child. 10 student minimum-60 maximum. Approx. 3 hours

The Jones Farmstead consists of a set of connected farm buildings referred to in an old children's rhyme as, "Big House, little house, back house, barn." Each piece of this connected farm structure tells a different story about New Hampshire history from Colonial times to the Twentieth century. In this hands-on program students learn about rural life and technological and agricultural change in New England as they tour the historic farmhouse, hunt for artifacts in the barn, and participate in farm chores. Students will view "Hands to Work," a short film which uses oral histories and historic photographs of New Hampshire farming. They will try farm chores like grinding corn, carrying water with a yoke, and doing the wash. They will visit the farm animals and make butter. This program can be used supplement lessons on the transition from farms to factories as part of economic evolution or adapted to fit a range of other learning goals.

Hands to Work Program for Pre-schoolers
Program recommended for children ages 3-5 yrs. Offered May through mid-November. Cost: $5 per child. 10 student minimum- maximum: 25. Approx. 2 hours.

Children will learn all about the work on the farm and how the children helped in this completely hands-on program for pre-schoolers. They will grind the corn to feed the chickens, do the wash with washtub and wringer, pump the water at the well, feel the wool from the sheep, churn the cream to make butter, plant a seed or harvest the vegetables depending on the season and explore the Big Yellow Barn to hunt for fun things related to the farm.

An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving on the Farm
Program recommended for children grades K - 5. Offered November 1st through November 20th. Cost: $7 per child 10 student minimum- maximum 45. Approx. 2 ½ hours.

New Hampshire has a special connection to Thanksgiving as it was our own Sarah Josepha Hale who persuaded President Lincoln in 1863 to declare it a National Holiday. Students will enjoy a tour through the historic farmhouse with costumed roleplayers portraying the Civil War Era. Then they will learn to grind and pound flint corn to make our cornbread and to churn cream into butter for our bread and press apples to make cider for us to drink. We will also explore the 104 ft. long great barn on a special barn hunt and visit with our heritage breed turkeys and other farm animals.

Planning Your Group Visit
School, homeschools, scouting or camp groups are all welcome at the New Hampshire Farm Museum We need a minimum of 10 children or $60. to run a program. The museum accepts school and youth group visits from May 1st through December. Visits can be scheduled Tuesday through Friday 9:00 am to 4:00 pm depending on the program.

To Schedule Your Visit : Please call 603-652-7840 or email: info@farmmuseum.org.

We recommend one chaperon per ten students. Chaperons or home school parents are charged at half the student rate. There is no charge for teachers, group leaders, counselors or bus drivers or children ages 3 and under. In good weather students can pack a lunch to eat in our picnic area. We have an outdoor handicapped accessible restroom/port-a-potty. We can show students historic games like hoop rolling and graces for all to play with during lunch. We welcome students to shop in our Country Store if permitted during lunch break. The store contains many inexpensive items, educational toys, juice and soda, penny candy and farm grown produce and eggs.

Homeschooler Ian Treadwell and the sheep

Role-Playing day camper

Gloucester Old Spot pig

Learning about chicken care

Day campers taming
turkey poults