Earth Day and Field Day

Part of our day we spent finishing up our Earth Day craftivity. I got the idea here. It was from The Lesson Plan Diva.

I love how they turned out, especially the cursive handwriting. These will be perfect for parents to look at during the Ag. Fair (which is 6 days away--aack!)

The sheep and donkey needed feeding this morning (nothing new), but the 4th graders are still testing, so we didn't have our usual helpers to get the chore done. About 9:00 we took both classes outside, I let them run for about 5 minutes while Miss Murphy fed Lily, Wooly, Lucy, and Eyore. Then we jogged to our prairie restoration garden and each student was instructed on how to pull a certain weed. Once each had pulled 7 of the monster weeds they were allowed to visit the other animals. Martha, Eyore and the pigs were the big winners for visitors this morning.

Shortly before this impromptu feeding/weeding session, Miss Murphy got a call that our farm family guy (Mr. Neil Williams) was planting a corn field just down the road from us. So, as good teachers do, we came up with a new plan. The plan included getting other teachers to cover recess duty and preparing our students for a trip down the road.

We started at the corn field. Mr. Williams talked about his planter and how the planter works. Pretty interesting. We had a great discussion about no-till planting, what the corn will be used for and some about erosion. Super glad we covered erosion a couple of weeks ago.

It was plenty warm (maybe 80 degrees F.) and no shade. We are not used to heat yet, so the students started wilting.

Next stop, his wheat field. This is the field we saw him plant in the fall, and fertilize this spring. Amazing. He even let the students go into the field. Some students sat down and were hard to find.

Each student was allowed to pick a head of wheat. Mr. Williams said that he counted earlier this spring and some heads had 35 kernels of wheat. He hopes they get to 40 before harvest.

When we got back to class many students counted the kernels. Great lesson.

Good thing I thought to bring my phone along (to keep track of the time) since I forgot my camera. Thanks for a fun day.

And my Teacher Tipster DVD came today. I watched it as soon as I got home. Pretty cool. Thanks Jill!