Category Archives: Farm

WF Farm Day! 3.14.12

Posted on by

Good Afternoon!  We could not have had a better day for the farm.  Yeah for early spring time. I’m running short on time today, so I will give you the condensed version of our day.  For the full farm story through the pictures, go to flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/weefriends/sets/72157629585631847/!  

  We loved (see pic below if you think love is too strong of a word), fed, and watered many animals today including goats, chickens, turkeys & cows. It tooks lots of teamwork to do these jobs.

 

 

 

 

 

Our big work today was helping to clean out the shed that has filled over the winter with assorted farm tools and “stuff”.  The children made trip after trip clearing out all of the stuff which was extremely helpful to the farm! 

 

We took a long walk, exploring the woods, log cabin, and prairie.

 The kids helped Tami load a truck of logs for our playground.  Kai especially was focused on helping and he stuck with Tami until every log was loaded. (The little girl in the picture is a “homeschooler” that is a helper on Wednesdays at the farm.)

  On the way home, a few friends felt the impact of our busy morning…

 

 

 

 

Back at WF, Melinda and Lisa reported a spectacular morning!  Here are a few highlights that they reported to me:

  • Nate and Steven were fascinated by the seeds in the red/yellow/orange sweet peppers that were being cut for Wee Sprouts this morning.  The spent a good amount of time examining them then Melinda led them into planting them in soil.
  • Lisa led a small group of friends through a bear hunt outside.
  • They all took a long walk:  they collected pine cones, they observed the fire truck, ambulance and police responding to a call, and they went to the church to see/hear the church bells that signal our lunch time everyday at noon.

 

 

 

 

 

For breakfast we served whole grain oatmeal and fresh pear slices.  For lunch we served brown rice and chicken, corn, and applesauce. 

Have a great day!

Tami

WF Farm, 10/12/11

Posted on by

Today at the farm, our focus was to continue to get the younger children more comfortable with the animals, smells, noises, and slippery spots on the ground (sometimes it’s just mud, but sometimes it’s pooh!).  So we spent our morning seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting things.

Shortly after we arrived, I caught a chicken.  Most of our younger group is still rather intimidated by the chickens, so this was an opportunity to touch, smell, and hear the chickens up close.  (No, we didn’t taste them:)  As we touched the chickens, we compared how different the combs and waddle felt to the softness their feathers.

We also fed the goats.  Touching the grain is sensory experience that all of the children enjoy.  They run the grain through their fingers, sometimes gently and sometimes squeezing it tightly to change how it feels.

We compared  how the goats tongue felt to the cows tongue as they ate grain from our hands.  (The goat’s tongue is very soft, while the cow’s tongue is hard and also rough textured like a cat.)

Sunscreen, the fabulous farm kitten, blessed us with some sweet loving moments.  The children listened to her purr and felt the softness of her furr and the prickle of her whiskers.  Thankfully, nobody felt the sharpness of her claws!

 Next, Charlotte brought out a variety of fresh farm fruits for us to sample: grapes, persimmons, and paw paws.  

 

 Several friends enjoyed the sensory experience of walking, stomping, and yes, even jumping in the mud.  Their boots stuck to the mud and it squished and it squelched as they squealed. 

 The geese were in rare form today and at different points they were being very loud.  The children watched them closely and listened to them call angrily to each other.  (Well, at least it sounded angry. They may have just been making lunch plans.)

 While in the woods, we listened to the leaves crunch as we walked.  The children also gathered nuts from the ground.  They noticed that the opened shells of the walnuts had a strong smell.

In the prairie, we listened to the wind and played with the ripe, fuzzy milkweed seeds.  We threw the fuzzy seeds the air and watched them blow away.  It was another great day to be at the farm!

Back at WF, Melinda had a delightful, peaceful morning with the standby group.  They spent a relaxed morning reading books, painting at the easel, playing games with the parachute, and helping Melinda with lunch and cots. 

WF Farm, Wednesday 9.21.11

Posted on by

To set the mood for this blog, I must share this picture that I couldn’t resist taking this morning…

Now that we are all feeling friendly, I will share some of the highlights from our unbelievably educational and fun farm trip today:

We held chickens.  For the past few trips, Annie and Jane have been unsure about how close they wanted to get to the chickens.  Today they both held one!  Their bravery and confidence also inspired our younger girls, Arleigh and Alma to have a turn holding them too.

 

 

The children mixed the grain and fed the chickens.  Owen was able to manage the smaller bucket alone, but it took Ada, Macy and Owen with some help at the back to get the big bucket of corn into the feeding dish.

Next we fed the goats.  Alma was very uncertain about letting the goat eat grain off of her hand.  First we held her hand over our hand, and she allowed them to eat.  Very soon though, she gained confidence and shouted, “I fed the goat all by myself!”  Her expression below says it all!

Kai noticed that one of the goats did not come over to eat.  This young goat was laying over by the fence, which is not typical behavior for a goat when food of any kind is near.  We shared this information with Charlotte and our farm trip took a whole new path.  The kids were able to share in the diagnosis, care and treatment of this goat. We also went out into the field and caught all of the other goats so they all could have a preventative dose of medicine. 

Feeding Luna, the young cow, was the next thing we did.  Luna wasn’t sure what she thought about us.  She can be a bit shy.  However, Ada, since her first farm trip weeks ago has been determined to “hold a cow”.  She talked soothingly to Luna and offered her grain.  Luna quickly learned that the WF group had lots of love and yummy food and she blessed us with lots of her time. 

We took a short walk to finish our trip.  In this short walk, we found a small frog and took turns examining him (his body was sparkly!) and holding him (he was feisty).  I laughed so hard I had tears when the little bitty frog jumped from Owen’s hand onto his shirt.  His expression was priceless!  But, after a moment to recover, you can see below that he was happy to have the frog there.

 

Finally, we did some milk week explorations.  Milkweed is the favorite food of Monarch butterflys and caterpillars.  We looked at the milk drip from the plant and looked at some of the dried milkweed seeds.  We also examined the milk weed beetles.

Have a great afternoon!

Tami

WF Daily Explorations, Wednesday 9.14.11

Posted on by

314

As soon as we arrived at the farm, we received a text from Charlotte to quickly go to the woods so we could see a very young hawk that was in the path. We were able to go within 3 feet of the beautiful young hawk and do a close examination of him.

298

315

The hawk was very nervous at first about having us so close, but the children did a fantastic job of staying quiet and still. Gradually we moved closer and closer and he relaxed his posture and his eyes and did not move away. He really watched us with curiosity!

In the same area of the hawk, there was an enormous spider web with a enormous spider eating fly. We watched the spider for a few minutes too.

Since we were already in the woods area, we took a walk through the prairie and woods first before visiting with the farm animals.

 

323

The first thing that really interested the kids on our walk were all of the nuts that were on the ground. We collected all different types of nuts. We also found a walnut in all of its stages: in the green outer shell, partially peeled, walnut shell, and nut open and eaten.

334

We found a tiny fuzzy caterpillar next. The children took turns holding (and dropping!) him. The little critter was quite resilient and crawled over every one’s hand.

362

353

As we walked the children noticed the plants and how the tops were dry. We began to collect an assortment of seed pods. We investigated how the felt, smelled, and watched how they moved in the wind. We also brought back an assortment of seeds to examine at Wee Friends.

389

394

386

Finally we were back to the barn. Since the children were so busy in the woods and prairie today, we had just a short time to help with a few chores and visit the animals.

402

398

Just a few more shots..

368

383

382

346

On a final farm note, our our 2 monarch caterpillars from last week made their chrysalis (one at WWF, one at WF). Also, the fuzzy brown caterpillar made his cocoon. Now to wait and watch!

186

For lunch today we had brown rice with pork, mixed vegetables and sliced granny smith apples.

The quote of the day: “Impossible is something that not even God or Santa can do.” Kai, age 5.

Have a great day!

WF Farm! 8-30-11

Posted on by

What a beautiful day to experience the farm!  Since I am short on blog time, I will share many pictures (full set uploading to flickr as I write) and few words. 

We started our trip by reuniting with many of the animals:  the chickens, goats, cats, horses.  The children helped to mix the grain for the chickens & turkeys and feed them. 

On our walk through the woods we held a toad, a caterpillar and we had an up close look a variety of birds and a gazillion butterflies. The kids spent time in the woods looking under rotten logs for bugs, climbing on fallen trees, and exploring the log cabin.  While we walked through the prairie, we really noticed sounds: crickets, frogs, birds, &  wind through the tall flowers. 

At the end of our trip, Charlotte had each child learn about horse safety and they each had a turn using proper mounting technique to climb on Taffy and sit on her for a few minutes while she stood still.  What a treat for all of them! 

We brought back a gorgeous flower bouquet for our table and a caterpillar to see if he will make a cocoon for us.  (The caterpillar brought in last week by a Wee Friender hatched today into  a moth.)

WF Farm, 6.6.11

Posted on by

052

HATCHED THIS MORNING… 5 BABY DUCKLINGS!

What a great way to start a Monday! We just missed the hatching, but were there to see and hold the new babies. They were so new they had difficulty not falling over! One of the jobs we did today was to

030

fix an outdoor enclosure so that mom and her babies could stay safe until they are bigger. The WF kids used wire cutters to cut away damaged chicken wire and then we replaced it with new. Everyone was able to have a short cuddle with the incredibly sweet new babies! We also fed, groomed, and watched the goats get milked by Ms Charlotte. We fed the 021chickens scraps and filled chicken water. After our hard work, we took a water break. We also picked (and ate most) strawberries from the garden.

It was another great farm trip!

WF Farm, Monday, 5.23.11

Posted on by

Today, we spent our time at the farm investigating the marshy area of the pond.  We used nets to catch as a variety of living creatures:  a tadpole, several small fish, mosquito larvae, dragon fly larvae, a HUGE beetle (identified as a “toe biter” by Charlotte’s daughter Robin), several waterbugs, crawfish, fly larvae, snails in all shapes and sizes, a variety of marsh plants, and tons of small organisms that are just moving about in the water. 

Another highlight was we were able to  investigate a baby dragonfly that had just hatched.  Because his wings were not dry yet, he let everyone examine him closely without flying away.  What a treat!

Unfortunately, I forgot the WF camera, so I have just a few pictures from my iphone to share.  But, the children really had a marvelous time scooping the water with their nets, sorting through their nets to see what they caught, and then sharing their catch with friends.  Also, this was a great chance for the children to assess how far they could step into the marsh without the water going over the top of their boots.  At some point, each child “filled” their boots with marsh water, but everyone handled the cold water and “dumping” their boots with good humor.

We brought back much of our marsh catch and placed it in the aquarium in the art room.  Ask your child to show you!

WF Daily Explorations (and Farm for 3 yr olds), May 9, 2011

Posted on by

FARM DAY for the 3 Year Olds (and Taylor, my helper)!

Wow! We could not have had better weather for our farm trip this morning.  We had warmth, sunshine, and a nice breeze.   While at the farm this morning, the three year olds were able to experience:

Caring for the chickens:  we found new feeding dishes for the grain since the caged chickens kept knocking their grain container over.  We also replenished their water and found some time to snuggle with the chickens.

We picked dandelions.  And picked more dandelions.  And more dandelions.  This time of the year, the ground is covered in them!  The children made huge bouquets.

We took a nature walk that had us examining:  a blue hatched bird’s egg, ant hills, beetles, lady bugs, flowers, a slug, centipedes, mushrooms, & fallen branches.

We held the week old baby goats.  Goodness they are sweet!

We took a nice pony ride through the apple trees. 

While we were gone, Laurie and Melinda took the rest of the children for a walk to Potawatomi Park.  The children practiced street crossing safety, learned about “boundaries” (specifically of the playground), and talked at length about shadows.  Other highlights:  the new Band-Aid matching game and an exciting spontaneous science lesson in our outside sandbox examining the absorption of rain water with sand.  (Sorry, no pics of WF since I had the camera at the farm!)

WF Farm, 4.11.11

Posted on by

Although we still had some chilly weather, we had a fabulous trip to Prairie Winds Farm today!  Some of the highlights were:

The WF kids did lots of animal feeding today!  They moved large bales of hay by using teamwork to pull a sled.  (If you haven’t lifted a hay bale recently, they are VERY heavy.)  They fed the horses, the cows, and the goats the hay. 

The kids filled 4 chicken cages with grain and we worked together to move one of them onto a fresh grass patch.  It was messy work as the ground was muddy!

The kids moved a large water tub across the field to make shelter for a goose that had made a nest by the barn.  While the goose wasn’t real happy that we were nearby, she will appreciate the protection from the animals and weather.

We spent some time with the goats.  Ms. Charlotte  explained that the goats were pregnant and talked to the kids about the visible signs of their pregnancies. 

We took a long walk through the woods and found a cool red backed salamander that everyone held for awhile.  As we walked we ran into a HUGE snapping turtle!  He was incredibly neat to examine! The kids learned that snapping turtles are water animals and that this particular turtle was likely on land to lay her eggs.  They also learned that snapping turtles can really hurt you if they bite so they are not animals to try to touch.