A Corny Lesson

When you live on a farm and your dad is a farmer, it is very important (in my opinion) to understand what your dad does and how it affects you.  Dad is also much more interested in helping out and talking about your school day when it involves him :).  Every fall, I try to work the harvest into our lessons, and this year was no exception.

We read this book, The Life and Times of Corn, by Charles Micucci.  It is awesome!!!

I am highlighting my 2 favorite pages-the part of corn and harvesting corn (below), but it gives SOOOO much information about different types of corn, what corn is used for, the history of corn, it is really a great book!

Then, we took a ride on the combine :).

And, watched dad put the corn into the bins.

One day, we broke out the big paper and crayons.  I asked them to draw 2 things-the parts of a corn stalk, and what they saw when they went for a ride in dad's combine.

Mustang's parts of corn.

Mini Cooper did her own thing and made a corn maze with people-it was so cute!

Charger riding in the combine with Daddy.

Mustang's again-she was missing the brace roots before.

Charger's he made his when the corn was done growing, because his favorite color is yellow.

It has been a fun little study and I am quite sure the kids learned something.  I was very impressed by their drawings!  Have you done any seasonal work?

We are linking up to:

Toddler Corner Farm Theme

I have been trying to put out more activities for the little girls to do.  They get bored easily and loose focus when they have a bunch of options.  So, I have cleared off the shelves and placed out just a few things.  I try to change them every couple days.  I didn't go out and buy anything, I didn't print anything.  I just pulled from what we already had.  

Here were some of the items I put out during our farm week:

Magnetic animal puzzles (a yard sale find from a couple years ago).

Putting chickens in nests.  I used to have this with the Easter stuff, and realized it could do double duty.

This is an awesome set I got from a friend and have used it many, many times throughout the years.

The page it comes with has places to sort by color and size.  The top of it has a place to sort by animal.  The backside has a race.

Some items were just to help build skills, like the Ikea stacker.

I try to put out a couple of books.  This is a fun one!

Tray of little animals to roll play and say their sounds.

Basic shape puzzle with a blind fold for Mini Cooper (and the big kids who wanted to play, too).

As you can see, though, this can be a really simple thing to set up.  Just go through the items you have and sort them into a few piles and then rotate the items every couple days.  It will keep the activities fresh without having to write out long lesson plans :).

Thanks for stopping by!

God Bless,
Lisa

Our {Not So} Little List of Picture Books for Farm Units

Now, to be fair, I am not really a 'theme' kinda girl.  But, the kids seem to like it.  So, over the last couple of months, I have tried to choose farm theme/spring theme books to read and farm themed learning toys and activities for our play corner.  I'm about to clear off the shelf to swap out for more books on insects, frogs, and summer, but thought I'd share what books were in our stack.  We didn't read all of the books this last month, but we read most of them.  And, they are all pretty darn good!

These books are {mostly} for the 3-5 year old range, with just a couple being for K-3, and the last two being for ages 1-3.

Baby Farm Animals by Garth Williams
Beatrix Potter Series
Henny-Penny by Jane Watternberg
The Bunny Book by Richard Scarry
The Little Rabbit by Judy Dunn
The Little Lamb by Judy Dunn
The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
Don't Count your Chicks by Ingri & Edgar Parin d'Aulaire
Bunny's Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown
Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin
Mr Brown Can Moo! Can You? by Dr. Seuss
Tremendous Tractors by Tony Mitton and Ant Parker
Puppy's 1-2-3 Book by Jim E Kulas
The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka
The Cow Who Wouldn't Come Down by Paul Brett Johnson
The Milk Makers by Gail Gibbons
Just Me by Marie Hall Ets
Bluefoot by Dale Fife
The Little Kitten by Judy Dunn
Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins
Barn Dance! by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault
Just Plain Fancy by Patricia Polacco
The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash by Trinka Hakes Noble
Someday by Gace Paull
Parents in the Pigpen, Pigs in the Tub by Amy Ehrlich
The Little Duck by Judy Dunn
The Farm Book by Jan Pfloog
Petunia by Roger Duvoisin
The Cow Buzzed by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha
Perfect Piggies by Sandra Boynton
Barn Yard Dance by Sandra Boynton

Our favorites are probably the Baby Farm Animals book, all the 'Little' series by Judy Dunn, Bluefoot (hard to find), Petunia, Barn Yard Dance, The Cow Buzzed and Jemima Puddle-Duck from Beatrix Potter.  But, all of these are very cute books and hope you find a few you enjoy!

Do you have any titles I should add to this list?  I'd love to hear about them :).

Thanks for stopping by!
God Bless,
Lisa

D is for Dairy Farm

On our trip to South Dakota to visit Grandma for her 90th birthday celebration, we had the opportunity to visit my husband's cousin's house.  He married an amazing girl who is a dairy farmer!  Yes, I said SHE is a dairy farmer.  He has joined her in running the dairy at their home, but the dairy was her idea and she is the one in charge!

It's always lovely when you can count a trip to your relative's house as a field trip :).  We had a really fun time getting to see all the goings on at a small home dairy.

I think the kids had more fun playing with the dog and cat.   

These little ones were soooo cute!!!  I would have taken one home if they didn't get any bigger...which of course they do!

The pet sheep!  They had names, I think they were Boris and Delores.  They were so funny!

Milking!

It was a really neat experience to see all the cows lined up for milking.  DH's cousin and his wife are the only two working there and they work very hard!  I don't think it would be something I would want to do, but they truly enjoy doing it and it was fun to watch!

Be sure to check out what other bloggers wrote about for the letter D at Ben and Me.  

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!!

Ordinal Numbers-Montessori Style

A recent lesson was on ordinal numbers through 10th place. Googling the idea, I found a great game that was first presented on Montessori in Mars and then again on Adventures of Bear. I thought the game looked perfect for our needs, so I printed it out.

To start, I downloaded this awesome barn from McGuire Zone. Hint-when printing choose the print view option and make sure that the large part of the barn isnt in the picture so you dont have to print that part so many times! I printed on card stock and then glued the barn doors to another piece of card stock. I used an exacto knife to open the doors-its really hard otherwise! I colored clouds and grass, but that's not required :).



I pulled out the animals from our MacMillan Farm Animals Math Manipulatives. We received them as an amazing hand-me down and they are no longer available, but they are almost exactly like the Learning Resources Friendly Farm Counters.



I typed out ordinal numbers 1st-10th and glued one above each door.





I typed out instruction cards that said where to put each animal-for example put the yellow horse in the 10th door. Each child would read a card (or listen to me read it) and then follow the instructions.




Even Mini Cooper wanted to read her cards-it was very funny!




The children all really enjoyed this work, and did a great job of helping one another.

Here is how I put it out on the shelf after our group lesson:



I left this out on the shelves for awhile and Mini Cooper, especially, has taken it off the shelf a lot. She doesnt understand the ordinal numbers, but it is a great chance to learn 'in and out' concepts as well. And, I have to admit its one of my favorites, too! The little animals are too darn cute lol.

Have a great Tuesday! God Bless!

The Garden!

We finally planted our garden!!

Last Tuesday evening, the entire family headed outside to the plot that Daddy had tilled up for us. We brought our little packs of seeds, the hoe and a trowel. Mustang insisted we also bring along a shovel-which we did not use.

My parents had a garden when I was a kid and so did my IL's {MIL still does}, but this was the first garden for my hubby and I. Yep, after 10 years of marriage we are finally gardeners. I felt a bit strange being a farm wife without a garden, because that's what farmer's wives do-dontcha know? They grow stuff and can stuff and bake stuff. Or at least that's what I read once. Oh and they sew, too. I have a garden-step one.

We planted sunflowers {Mustang brought these home from grandma's}, lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, snow peas and watermelon. After taking a quick poll, I realized that I am the only person here that likes veggies, so I am the one who picked what we planted. We do plan to add tomatoes and peppers, but you need plants for those and I havent picked them up yet.

It just so happens that we were learning about Davy Crockett and pioneers. I explained to Mustang and Charger that pioneers planted their own food. Mustang was quick to point out that Daddy had corn planted in the fields. I think the kids think we are pioneers :).

The cucumbers, lettuce, peas, and sunflowers are all already sprouting just 7 days later. It was so exciting to go out and see little green leaves sticking out of the ground!! I will try to get some updated pictures soon. God Bless!

First Harvest