10/29/19

 

10/22/19

Today's farm news included meeting the new rescue bunny, Thumper, setting up the timer and lights on the coops, and a plea for unused jack-o-lanterns after Halloween.  The pigs love them!  The kids completed their animal chores and worked on their goat decoupage projects.  These turned out great!

After snack, we talked about different ways that animals communicate.  I am constantly reading them to make sure they are all happy and healthy.  Whether it's through noises, tail wags, drooped ears, or ruffled feathers, they let us know how they are doing!  Goats communicate with each other through sounds, head butting, and tail wagging.  Chickens have different sounds to announce when they've laid an egg, call hens over to food, or "talking" to chicks.  I explained that humans also use verbal and nonverbal communication.  We talked about ways that we can communicate effectively with friends and family. 

Then, the kids worked in pairs on an activity.  They took turns describing a diagram to their partner, who had to attempt to draw it.  Then, they switched places.  At the end, we talked about difficulties during this activity and how they represent difficulties that we have when talking to others in real life.  I think it worked well to illustrate the point!

We also read the book, "Interrupting Chicken".  This was a great end to our lesson on communication! 

10/8/19

10/1/19

Today's lesson was about stress.  We talked about different animals on the farm and their vastly different ways of dealing with problems.  The guineas scream and run around and fight.  The donkey brays and kicks, and occasionally she will take her anger out on the goats by chasing and biting.  The goats didn't do anything to her... she just get mad and takes it out on others!  The class talked about unhealthy ways that people deal with stress, as well.  Then, we talked about some healthy ways to deal with anxiety.  I was so impressed with the examples that the kids came up with!  Breathing slowly, finding a calm spot to think, talking it out... they knew what to do!  I wish Delilah the donkey would try those things!

The students read their writing assignments, which turned out great!  Last week, we trimmed the goat's hooves.  At home, the kids wrote about the experience from the goat's point of view.  I hope to make a big deal out of their accomplishments with writing, and to give enough positive support to keep their imaginations flowing!

I read the book "Angora Kidd" to the class.  This book is about an angora goat who does NOT want to be sheared!  He runs away from home, has quite an adventure, and decided that his family was right after all... he needed to be sheared!  In the end, shearing wasn't so bad, after all.  This story went perfectly with our lesson on stress AND our goat hoof trimming lesson!

In art, the kids started their decoupage project.  This will take at least another week to complete.  I was very impressed with their patience with this!