Life Skills Programs

Inclusive Circle

The Inclusive Circle program meets on Saturdays from 10:00am-12:00pm and you may come as often as you wish, space permitted. This program includes children with special needs, their siblings or friends and depending on the ages of the participants the program will include some of the following: Horsemanship, organic gardening/sustainable living projects, arts and crafts, music and dance movement, rock climbing and other fun activities which brings together those with and without special needs. Limited space is available for this program.

For further information please email our Life Skills Director, Kristin Macchi.

Inclusive Circle, Horsemanship & Sustainable Living Application Releases (Life Skills Programs)

Horsemanship
This is a wonderful program that offers older children, teenagers and young adults who are interested in the field of caring for horses to gain hands on horsemanship experience. They can learn skills such as feeding and watering of the horses, daily maintenance of a barn, cleaning, bedding and care of saddlery. Often our riders want to have more "horse" time and horsemanship lessons are a wonderful way to fulfill that. Many children who live in the city or attend inner city schools could benefit from being part of this program. Families, friends and others in the community can participate in this program as well - thereby sharing in the experience. Winter classes are offered on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Our Inclusive Circle program often includes a shorter, group portion of this program. Please email our Horsemanship Coordinator, Stephanie Ault for more information.

Sustainable Living

An important part of this program is to teach our participants how to help make changes in a society that is slowly moving towards being more sustainable. We will introduce both simple and complex ideas which can be implemented at home and in every day lives which help the Earth and all who are on it. Through this program we can teach our students about organic gardening, compost, recycling, alternative energy, carbon footprints and the rewards from respecting and being close to the Earth. Students will plant, maintain and learn to take pride in the herbs, vegetables and flowers they grow. All our students can choose to learn to prepare healthy meals using the fresh ingredients they produced.  They will also have an opportunity to set goals, implement and achieve success in the TBF Organic Gardening Annual Fund-raiser.  Students who participate may help decide how to best use the earnings to benefit TBF.  Leaders in the “Sustainable Living” movement will be invited to conduct lectures in areas such as alternative energy source, energy conservation and sustainable farming and eating. Our Inclusive Circle Program often includes shorter, age appropriate portions of this program.