Week 2 Update - Ms. Micha’s Farmadillos
Hi y'all,
It was another wonderful day on The Farm!
Today we played a morning game of Fox Tails. Students tucked bandanas into their waistbands & we skillfully grabbed them from one another. We worked up some good energy to start our day. We then went into our individual classes. We observed the chickens & noted how their pen was moved since last week. This is so their resources are replenished. We discussed their behavior, hens verses roosters. We observed their feather patterning as well as why they have a hen house, the automatic gate & the predictors here on the farm.
Once arriving to our classroom, we took a moment to enjoy the animal & plant guides I brought. We had a seat on our hay bale & recalled our Class Agreements from last week. The did amazing at recollecting some good ones, & even adding more! We stood up, stretched & hollered, had a body awareness exercise, then went round with the Talking Stick for Morning Check In.
As we enjoyed snack, I drew a compass in the dirt with a stick. I placed laminated cards around & we placed them in the appropriate place. We then talked about how tea is made, grabbed our baskets, & made our way through the farm rows in search of herbs like tulsi (holy basil), lemon balm & mint.
As we walked by the compost area we learned how it all works, the different stages & reasons why we do this in more detail this week. We called out 'North, South, East West' as we changed directions on our walk. We harvested some okra for munching then met with Farmer Cullen. He showed us the hibiscus & we nibbled on the sepal, which is outer parts of the flower (often green & leaf-like). Students shared how they tasted sweetly bitter like wood sorrel (clovers) as well as greenbriar & agarita.
After collecting the rest of our herbs, we toured the farm a bit more, learning about the compost toilet, weather station & brought back a dried luffa squash. At the classroom we added our fresh herbs to a big glass jar, filling to the top with filtered water. We placed it on a hot rock in the sun to make our Sun Tea.
The kids enjoyed some free time to explore & imagine as I showed others how to make cordage (rope) from the stringy fibers of of the luffa squash. During lunch we had fun reading the Very Hungry Caterpillar, by David Carle. We discussed how we don’t use chemicals here as our organic regenerative farming does not use pesticides. We encourage insects that like to eat the plant-eating insects. Some of our helpful insect friends are lady bugs, praying mantises & lacewings. We also like to attract pollinator insects like native bees, honeybees & butterflies. These help our plants make more vegetables. What would happen to our helpful bugs & earthworms if we sprayed toxic insecticides on the farm?
We then moved into our Farm Activity, Sheet Shake. We took a white sheet & nestled it beneath the tulsi, then gently shook it. We watched hidden insects fall onto the sheet. We gathered them up using our magnifier bug containers. At the classroom, we looked up helpful bugs & non helpful bugs on our worksheets. We observed our new friends before letting them go in a bug race, setting them free in the center of a rope circle.
It was time to check our Sun Tea. We each took time to stir it during the day, then using the luffa squash as a strainer, pouring it into cups! We had a moment of cheers before sipping the efforts of our hard work. It was delicious.
Pack up time was upon us, so we gathered our belongings & headed to the large field for Closing Circle next to our friends, the chickens. We shared our ‘peach & pit’ of the day. Peach being something so lovely & pit being something we could learn from.
Thank you families! All the Best to you.
~Miss Micha