Harvesting Corn

Earlier this week a parent brought in corn stalks and we added them to our harvest garden dramatic play.

The stalks are in the corner.  Today we harvested cobs off the stalks.

It took some effort but the cobs finally came off.
Then the cobs needed to be husked.

Not many of the cobs had kernels on them.  The one that did I cut the kernels off and cooked them in the microwave.

Mmmm good!

Shake Pudding

The recipe.

Mix instant pudding powder with milk.

The small measuring cup with the handle makes it possible for the children to pour the milk themselves.

Put the lid on tight.

The container is actually for cooking an egg in the microwave.

 Now the fun part- shake, shake, shake!

Ready to open.

Mmmm, banana.

Dairy Farm Field Trip

What a beautiful day for a field trip.
We visited a dairy farm this morning.

This is the milking barn.  The cows had already been milked this morning so we saw the equipment that is used.

The farmer told us that the cows line up to get milked and that the same cows are always in line first and the same ones at the end.

Pete wanted a closer look at the suction cups that go on the cow's teats.

 The milk goes through here to be filtered then is stored in this large tank.

 The farmer has a calendar to keep track of the cows that are milking, pregnant and soon to give birth.

The next barn housed the cows.  They were busy eating.

But didn't mind us checking them out.

One cow had a little nibble on Pete when he tried to say hello.

We were impressed with how big their tongues are.

 

The farmer milked a cow for us then Pete had a try.

On to the calf barn.  We had to check out to see if this one was real or not.  Decided it was not.

 The calves ranged in age from 1 week to 5 months.

 

It took the calves a few minutes to become comfortable with the noise and little hands pointing at them.  Then they started licking.

 

A highlight was seeing the farm machinery.

 

They are filling these long air tight plastic bags with shredded corn to use later as feed for the cows.

At the end of this wonderful tour the farmer provide snacks of yogurt, chocolate milk and cookies.

Thank you.

Udder Painting

Tomorrow we have a field trip to a dairy farm and hopefully see how a cow is milked.
For the last two days at the art table we have been trying our hand at milking the cow painting.

I filled a rubber glove with paint and suspended it from a frame.  Poked a hole in a fingertip and put paper underneath.

At first the children and parents experimented with the glove.  How much do we squeeze to get the paint to come out?  Do we need to use both hands?

Ah success!





What fun to watch the stream of paint come out and land on the paper or the floor.

Today we tried balloons instead of rubber gloves but found that they didn't work as well.

Still a lot of fun.

And messy!

 Right to the last squeezed out drop.



Beautiful pieces of art.