October 6, 2025
Important Dates…
Tuesday, October 7: Dine to Donate, 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Chipotle in Troy.
Friday, October 17: School CLOSED for Teacher Professional Development/Conference Preparation.
Saturday, October 18: Autumn at Overfield. Games and food will be available from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Pumpkin Glow walk will be open from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Monday, October 20-Friday, October 24: Visiting artist, Jake Lockwood of Muse Machine, at Overfield for week-long residency.
Insights from the Outdoors
The term microadventure was coined by Alastair Humphrey and is defined as short and simple adventures that fit into everyday life without a lot of preparation, time, or money. These adventures help you get outside and explore either as an individual or as a family. It can be something as simple as going into the school garden after pickup, or more challenging like camping at a local park. The idea is to find something that is achievable to help your family successfully spend more time outside. The more you are outside, the more questions are asked, curiosity stirred, and a greater love and understanding of nature occurs.
Many of the small groups lead around Overfield campus are microadventures. For example, Overfield children have a strong interest in arthropods (exoskeleton, segmented body, and jointed legs) and mollusks (soft body without an exoskeleton). Lately, we have spent a lot of time in the woods, the vegetable and garden sitting, slowing down, and looking closely at the creatures we find. We not only investigate them with magnifying glasses, but I often take out my phone and zoom in on what they find. Using this simple technology helps the children see the face of a moth, the simple eyes of a spider, the iridescence of a snail’s shell, the bubbles on a praying mantis egg sack, or a ladybug eating an aphid. These close-ups inspire questions, lots of questions, and those questions are fun to dive into and figure out together. One of the many important points of these microadventures to the woods, garden, or front lawn is we are outside learning and exploring together. You can see some of what the children find on these microadventures on my naturalist Instagram account, Chattering Wren (@chattering_wren.)
Robin Ramsey – Naturalist
Please join us in celebrating a recent honor–Overfield has been given the Connect to Nature site award by the Miami Valley Chapter of the Leave No Child Inside consortium! Big thanks go to our Naturalist, Robin Ramsey, for keeping nature at the center of all we do at Overfield, and to our teachers and families who continue to support the value of nature in children’s lives. Robin and Beth Poronsky received the award on behalf of Overfield, and participated in a full day professional development event with other people from all over Ohio working in the fields of nature education and conservation. As they sang in a lively tune at the event, we know that children need nature, and nature needs children–and you will see children out in nature no matter the weather every day at Overfield!
Please join us in welcoming back theater artist, Jake Lockwood! Jake will be joining us as an artist in residence for the week of October 20th-24th to involve the children in the wonderful world of theater! We will have a celebration of the residency on Thursday, October 23rd at 6 pm; more details about this to come, but mark your calendars now! We can’t wait to create with Jake!
Autumn at Overfield is fast approaching! This fun-filled day will take place Saturday, October 18th from 11 a.m-2:00 p.m. for games and food, and from 7 p.m.-9 p.m. for the Pumpkin Glow. We need your help to make this day a success!
Volunteering
Please volunteer to set up, clean up, or to work one of many fun stations!
Chili Cook-Off
Do you have a winning chili recipe? Enter it into the Overfield Chili Cook-off! The soup with the most votes wins a $50 gift card and the soon-to-be-famous Chili Master engraved spoon. Sign up to enter your famous chili!
Pumpkin Glow
Buy a pumpkin from the Overfield Pumpkin Patch! Then, carve your favorite design and bring it back on the day of the event to add it to our 9th annual Pumpkin Glow–an illuminated trail of carved pumpkins. Pumpkins and carving stations will also be available the day of the event. Pumpkins are $6 and can be purchased via Zeffy, or by putting cash or check payable to Overfield Family Partnership in an envelope labeled “Pumpkin Sale” and turning it into the Overfield Office. Once you have paid for your pumpkin, you can pick it out from the Overfield vegetable garden.
Other Exciting Activities
The day will also feature art experiences, nature activities, a hayride, face painting, hair tinsel, an obstacle course, concessions for sale, children’s games, 50/50 raffle, exciting raffle prizes, music with Carla Briggs, and apple cider by the bonfire during the Pumpkin Glow!
