Poultry Workshop: Day 1

Even though today is the first day of our Poultry Workshop, the long-awaited goat kids were born!  The class needed some snuggle time with the new kids!

The classes set the eggs into the incubator.  It will take 21 days for the chicken eggs to hatch!

The kids compared the darkness of yolks of the true free-range chicken eggs vs. store bought.  They also learned how to locate the gestational disk in fertilized eggs.

Bee Workshop: Day 4

 Our Farm Fusion classes wrapped up a wonderful Bee Workshop!  The classes learned about the different jobs that bees have in the hive, the anatomy of a bee, the structure and function of bee boxes, the math behind the honeycomb, and so much more!

The class had learned about the function of beeswax in the hive, but today, they worked with beeswax to make lip balm!  They learned the ingredients used in Freebird Farm's own lip balm recipe, and they were able to see why beeswax is used as a hardening agent.  I don't think the students expected it to be so firm!  As each child filled his or her lip balm tube, we talked added in a little science discussion.  The class learned that matter can be in three different forms: solid, liquid, and gas.  We compared the melting point of beeswax to other commonly used oils, and the students were fascinated to see how quickly it all hardened as it cooled!

The classes both finished the story, The Bee Man of Orn.  There were so many wonderful lessons in this book!  We used this story to talk about how you cannot truly know someone just based on the way that they look.  You definitely cannot judge a book by its cover!   We also talked about how sometimes those who have the least are actually the happiest and most fulfilled.  Although long, this book provided us with so much excellent discussion not just about bees, but about life!

 

We celebrated Valentine's Day a little early, as we will not be back in class until Feb. 22nd.  We'll see you then for our next workshop on all sorts of poultry!

We had expected our does to kid during this workshop, but it seems the baby goats are taking their sweet time!  Hopefully, they will be here and ready to PLAY by our next workshop!