Inspired by the Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Education Trunk, we have created a new kind of farm mail: Farm Trunks! Farm Trunks are old metal toolboxes filled with different nature-themed classroom fun. For example, our first farm trunk, which was released for a trial run this week, is themed ‘Pond Life.’ We are also in the process of creating quite a few more in the following themes: birds, horses, chickens, nature’s music, workshop tools, sticks & stones, and bugs.
Each trunk is filled with its own set of fun, but they follow the same general guidelines when it comes to their contents. First and foremost, each trunk has an introductory letter. In the letter, the theme is introduced and a specific set of challenges (and rewards!) is put forth to encourage more engagement and communication back to the farm.
For the teacher’s convenience, we have included a content list and some coloring pages for photocopying.
The trunks also have one or more age-appropriate books on that theme for the teacher to read aloud and the students to flip through.
Finally, the trunks feature some real-life artifacts and hands-on activities for the students to get involved with the theme.
We are so excited to create these trunks and circulate them between the Head Start classrooms. Expect further updates here on the blog when we get the trunks back from field testing and can unveil the final product! If you have ideas for more trunks for us to create, reach out to [email protected]. We always appreciate some outside insight!