A Morning Walk

Every morning, that I'm with our Little One, we go for a stroller walk.

I specify stroller because we can go farther than if she was walking.

(we do her speed walks at other times)

A great destination for us is about 6 blocks away from our house.

What we like about this yard is that it is an ultra-mini farm in the city, right in our neighbourhood.

Benches have been set up between the sidewalk and street so we can sit and enjoy all the work they have done.

When we get there the Little One gets out of the stroller and looks around.

 

First stop is at the chickens!

They are not out everyday but we are always thrilled when they come out to see us.

We've learned a few things about chickens over the past few weeks.

They scratch the ground and then they peck at it (we're not sure if they are looking for worms or bugs) and they go "buuuuck, buck, buck, buuuuck", which we try to copy.

This ultra-mini farm has apple trees

and raspberries.

We had a conversation about not picking other's fruits unless there is a sign saying we can.

This morning my grand daughter reminded to stop and look for the little things.

Like snails and ants.

And bumblebees!

 We enjoyed taking the time to look around that we did that all the way home

 We found a community garden that has fun, informative signs.

We talked to people walking their dogs.

 We found other gardens that had lots of flowers, pig statutes and bird houses.

We counted the bikes as they whizzed by (there were a lot).

We watched the BIG lawn mower cut the grass in the park.

It was loud and a little scary.

And right by our house we saw this crane.

Wow!

All of this during a walk around a small part of our neighbourhood.

Hope you enjoyed our walk.  We did!

Our Chicken Play

For the past couple of weeks the children have been playing in our 

chicken coop.

To see the beginning of this project visit Chicken Coop Research.

The day after we painted the coop we added nesting boxes.

Shoe boxes that the children brought in.

We filled them with chicken, duck and rooster stuffies.

There were a few baby chicks too.

Then we added eggs, lots of eggs.

A few baskets were needed for collecting the eggs.

And a bale of hay finished off the feeling of being in a barn.

As the children collected the eggs I thought of a way to extend the play

and interest toddlers in the play.

I brought out the silo we had use for a farm play last year.

The tube was used for feeding the animals

but today it became an egg production tube.

So much fun to send the eggs through the tube

and collect them on the other side.

And repeat, again and again and again.

One day I noticed that someone had taken the coloured rice from the sensory table

and dumped it on the bale of hay.

A mom told me that her little one wanted to feed the chickens.

So I brought out some bird seed and let them take care of that chore.

Next week our real chickens eggs arrive.