Our Horse Stable

This month we have learned so much about horses and where they live.

This week we worked on creating our own horse stable.

It has two stalls.

The first with double doors that contains, at the moment, a bale of hay.

The other side has a swing door and some grooming equipment.

Just like at Sprout Meadows grooming the horse has been popular.

As well as feeding the horse.

Once the frame was built we talked about what colour it should be.

We have seen two barns now and the children have their idea from books

of what colour it should be but we used a picture from our

visit to the Therapeutic Riding Stable for inspiration.

We went with white with green doors just like the Therapeutic stables.

As the children play, the hay from the other stall has slowly migrated to the horses 

stall which meant we had to do some 'mucking out'.

Many times I would find several children tucked in the stall with the horse.

Telling stories and getting to know each other.

Year of the Horse

We did a simple craft this morning.
         
With a precut horse head the children could draw on features, glue on
              eyes and wool for the mane plus a few extras.
 
           I like how he represented the mouth with one piece of wool.
                      
    Clever to use longer pieces of wool to add bows to the horses mane.
 
                     Her pony is called Petal, can you guess why?
                  
                            Very focused on printing her name.
 
                       Wishing you a happy Lunar New Year.

Horsing Around

This morning we went to the Therapeutic Riding stables. 
We split into several groups to allow the children to have
time and space to visit with the horses.

One group played outside with our new pool noodle
ponies.  Thanks to Mrs. King’s Music Class blog for
the how-to.
 
I made a cube die with words on each side.  Each word was
an action a horse might do; gallop, trot, walk, neigh quietly,
neigh loud, flick your tail.
 
We started by picking one of the words on the die, threw the
die and then did that action.
     
When we got to the die we read the new word, tossed it again
and moved to the die the new way.

  
But the highlight of the trip was meeting the horses in the stables.
 
The caring and welcoming volunteers know the horses so well.  They
introduced us to each one, telling us their age, how they became a
therapeutic horse and any peculiarities the horse may have.
 
This one, Licorice, smiles especially when he gets a candy mint. 
Indigo Blue was the tallest horse.
Sadie loves to be scratched.
This one (I think was Max) loved
to give kisses.  He has a very soft nose.

All of the horses we met were gentle and patient with the children
reaching up and petting.

Families left with appreciation for these wonderful animals and
how they help their clients that have physical challenges.

We’ll take our ponies back to school to use another day.

Horse Play

      
Tomorrow we are going to visit horses at the Therapeutic Riding
Stables.   For the past several weeks of school we’ve been preparing
for our visit.
 
One week it was our sign in question.  The majority of children
do like horses.
 
We dug out all our horses from the animal baskets and set them up
in different play scenarios around the room.
 
I’ve been collecting hobby horses from thrift stores and set them
out last week.  The older children loved to ride around them room.
        
The younger children loved to get up close and nuzzle.
       
And then I noticed that the older children were feeding their
horses the wood pellets in the sensory table.
    
It got us talking about what horses like to eat.  Today for snack
we had horse food; apples, carrots and hay (shredded wheat).
         
          There was a bit of neighing going on.