As we prepare for our busy fall of Head Start field trips to the farm, we farm folk paid a visit to each of the Head Start classrooms. First, we wanted to introduce ourselves and our farm. Besides just showing our faces and smiling under our masks, we accomplished this by reading our farm story called Meet the Farm (read it here or watch it here).
After this brief introduction, we told the kids that we would LOVE to invite them to the farm, but first, we needed to make sure they learned a few important skills: introducing themselves to our animals and following directions.
To address the first of these, we taught the kids that animals sniff hello instead of saying hello. We showed them how to offer your fist for an animal to smell – the ‘animal handshake.’ We then got to work practicing this skill as we navigated an obstacle course filled with a pretend horse, goat, cow, chicken, and dog. At each animal, we all stopped and gave our animal handshake. Having mastered this, the kids all took a wild ride around the grass atop the pool noodle horses.
Finally, we worked on following directions by playing a game of ‘Snuder Says’ – which is exactly like ‘Simon Says,’ except that it features our horse Snuder in the place of Simon. The kids had a blast touching toes, pretending to be horses, mooing like cows, and falling on the ground.
After all of this learning and fun, we told the kids that they are now officially invited on field trips to the farm! We can’t wait to see them soon!