Each year, we kick off January with visits to all of the Head Start preschool classrooms in Frederick County. Typically, we bring an hour’s worth of farm fun to play with indoors. Because of our ongoing pandemic, we have not been allowed to visit with the kids indoors. So, we have made the best of our situation by doing our visits outside on the playground or in neighboring fields. January’s temperatures have shortened our visits to around 20 minutes, though.
For our first round of visits, we had a chicken theme! We began our time together with our farm story “The All-Around Egg.” This story, written by our previous barn manager, Joy Smith, is a rhyming exploration of all we can make with our chickens’ eggs. You can read it here.
After the story was over, we pulled two chickens out of a little cat carrier. These honored guests were Stella and Ingrid, our two Speckled Sussex hens. Sitting in two circles around each chicken, Mr. Jeff and I told about the kids all about our beautiful hens and their many virtues (softness, wing-flappability, beauty, smarts, etc). The hens obliged all the pets and love of the children.
Finally, just as everyone’s hands were turning red with the cold, we sent the students back inside with egg cartons to decorate. After all, our beautiful hens deserve cheery egg cartons this time of year when the short, cold days get them down!