Thursday, October 2, 2014

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.
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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.
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To begin our investigation I set up this invitation to play with farm animals
                                          in a barn.
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I wanted to see where their interests really lie.  Is it in the building or the
                                       animals or both.
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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.
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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. 
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      The books were available for research and inspiration.
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The question prompts were for the grown ups to ask, which I did as
                                    I sat with a few.
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     Next week we’ll build our barn and focus more on animals.
          We also have our field trip to the farm on Tuesday.