School and Homeschool Programs
School Programs
Fosterfields Living Historical Farm and Cooper Gristmill offer programs serving over 6,000 school children annually. Programs are currently booked through June 2019 and we are now accepting reservations for fall 2019. To book a program, please email Sharon Phillips at sphillips@morrisparks.net or call Sharon at 973-631-5343.
Each program costs $125/per class.
Fosterfields Farm Options:
Farm Friends
Grades: Pre-K
Duration: 1.5 Hours
Offered : Fall, Spring
Visit with our farm animals—horses, cows, pigs, sheep, chickens! Do a few farm chores, such as churning butter and throwing cracked corn to the chickens. See how our farm is part of its community, and explore nature with all of your senses!
Cara’s Farm
Grades: K, 1, 2
Duration: 2 hours
Offered: Fall, Spring
See the farm as it appeared in the late 19th and early 20th centuries through the eyes the young people who lived here. Experience firsthand some of the chores of the time period. Students role-play and participate in activities such as corn cracking, butter churning, and washing and drying laundry. Meet the many farm animals including Jersey cows, draft horses, pigs, and chickens.
A Tale of Two Houses
Grades: 3, 4, 5, 6
Duration: 2 hours
Offered: Fall, Spring
Become acquainted with early 1900s Morristown society. Learn about the people who lived and worked at Fosterfields Farm and in the Foster family home, The Willows. Through role-playing, students compare and contrast the lifestyles of the Fosters and their farm laborers and domestics. Explore social customs, effects of immigration, educational opportunities, and the varying degrees of economic prosperity as experienced by the former Fosterfields residents. Both the farm and The Willows are included in this tour.
Barnyard in Winter
Grades: K-8
Duration: 2 hours
Offered: Winter
Gather around the Farmhouse kitchen table to prepare a holiday treat; learn about the Woods family’s British Christmas traditions and marvel at their decorated tree! Learn about ice cutting and use tongs to store ice blocks; saw and stack wood; brush cows, and measure the fresh milk
Cooper Gristmill
Industrial Revolution
Grades: 9th-12th
Duration: 2 hours
Offered: Fall, Spring
Our gristmill operates using a fully automated system invented in the late 1700s – a precursor of the factory processes we associate with the Industrial Revolution. Many of the machines added into the system later were made in the late 1800s, as people continued to make the process as efficient as possible. Students will tour the mill and see the system at work as we discuss the ways these inventions changed production, consumption, and daily life.
Simple Machines
Grades: 3-8th
Duration: 2 hours
Offered: Fall, Spring
Did you know that the Mill is actually one huge compound machine, made up of many simple machines working together to grind flour? Combine science, math, and history to learn how the six simple machines make everyday life easier. Students will have the chance to participate in hands-on activities to discover how these machines operate the mill’s equipment, with special focus on pulleys and levers.
Family Life in Milltown
Grades: 1-6th
Duration: 2 hours
Offered: Fall, Spring
In this interactive program, the concept of community is developed using Milltown, which once included homes, mills, a store, and a school. Discover family life in this 1880s community while engaging in historic daily chores such as sawing wood, washing clothes, sewing with a treadle sewing machine, grinding coffee, and visiting the general store.
Miller’s Pancake
Grades: PreK-1
Duration: 1.5 Hours
Offered: Fall, Spring
This program is adapted from Eric Carles’ book, Pancakes, Pancakes! and includes a reading of that story. Students will discuss how flour is made, touching the grain before and after it is ground. They will also have a chance to hear and feel the rumble of the mill as it makes flour, and then assist in putting together the pancake ingredients.
History and the Old Mill
Grades: K-6
Duration: 2 Hours
Offered: Fall, Spring
Grain has long been a staple in the human diet, though the ways we prepare it have changed over time. Experience how grain was once hand-ground into flour and meal using a variety of methods. Through simple demonstrations of a waterwheel and a gear model, learn how the power of the Black River makes the same work much faster. Tour the Cooper Gristmill and see this energy in action as it produces several hundred pounds of flour per hour.