Fry's Farm Visits Metz

Annually, the 1st grade at Metz hosts a visit from Fry's Farm to coincide with our science unit on animal groups. Each class gets uninterrupted time with several different furry, sweet mammals and fluffy comical ducks, chickens and geese. The kids absolutely adore this special event and it adds to real life understanding of animal groups we are learning about in our science unit. I will be sharing some of the work my students are working on in the unit later on, but I wanted to share some photos from this exciting visit and some of the connections we made.

We just  fell in love with this black and white spotted piglet. The kids really enjoyed seeing the baby versions of some of the animals they have been learning about. I use this connection to teach the kids about baby animal names such as piglets, calf, ducklings and then take it further and learn animal group names such as a school of fish, a flock of geese etc.

One of the most important facts about mammals is that they are born alive and fed their mother's milk. It was a fantastic real life connection to have the kids be able to feel the baby goats or "kids" (my students think it is hilarious that they are called kids!), calf and foal.

The goats also liked dry feed, A LOT! And my student loved the attention she was getting! I tie in the feedings to discussing animals that are

carnivorous, omnivorous and herbivores.

Such joy and delight! I love watching the kid's faces! The writing that this event inspires is always so interesting and fun to read.

Such pure bunny bliss- they were in heaven! The kids and I always have an in depth discussion about what they observed about the animals; size, looks, movement, their feet etc. and we apply this information to what we have already learned. This is a great tie in to observing using your five senses and using adjectives to describe.

He spent many minutes carefully walking around the ducks and geese so he could pet them because he had "never felt anything like that before!"

For most of my students, this was the first time they ever saw a horse up close. I am always sure to take at least two pictures for each student with their favorite animal so they have a keepsake of the farm animals' visit. The decorate a frame design that I glue their picture in the middle of and then a laminate so they can hang them up. 

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child.  There are seven million.  ~Walt Streightiff