Investigating Farms

What is a farm?  What or who lives on a farm?  What does a barn look like?  Those are a few questions that have been going around the classroom the past week and a half.
   
These questions were prompted over several years of hearing parents ask me to arrange a field trip to a farm.  I’ve heard from the parents and seen the children play with the barn and farm animals and have finally found a farm that has a variety of animals and willing to let us come for a visit.
       
To begin our investigation I set up this invitation to play with farm animals
                                          in a barn.
         
I wanted to see where their interests really lie.  Is it in the building or the
                                       animals or both.

It is definitely the animals.  We started singing ‘Old MacDonald’s Farm” and the toddlers’ faces light up when you make animal sounds.  Even the older children
                                     enjoy that song.
          
If we are going to focus on farm animals we will need a home for them so I
                      asked the children to design a barn. 
         
      The books were available for research and inspiration.
     
The question prompts were for the grown ups to ask, which I did as
                                    I sat with a few.
 
     Next week we’ll build our barn and focus more on animals.
          We also have our field trip to the farm on Tuesday.