On March 9, Julia P. Bryant Elementary School's two pre-kindergarten classes held their annual Farm Day. Not your typical field trip, farmers brought a bit of their farms to the students’ playground.
With 10 stations for children and parents to visit, the event helped teach these four and five year olds about their community and agriculture.
“Many children have never been to a farm and do not know about the importance of farms, their animals, or crops,” said Brandi Bittner, who along with fellow teacher Nechelle Boozer and paraprofessionals Tousha Kendrick and Suzy Coyle, helped plan the day’s festivities.
Mrs. Bittner got the idea for Farm Day from her sister, a former kindergarten teacher.
"My sister, DeeDee Bennett, who is now a director at the Board of Education, taught kindergarten for many years, and she put the idea of Farm Day out there for me, as this was something she did when she taught kindergarten several years ago," Bittner said. "And I ran with it."
Two parents from the school system, Olivia Wiggins and Cole Meeks, volunteered their time for the event. Wiggins set up a butter-making and "cow milking" station, and Meeks, of Rolling Hills Ranch Longhorns, brought some of his cows and herding dogs named Biscuit and Gravy. Little J’s Farm brought a pig and newborn baby goats. Other animals in attendance thanks to Stephanie Williams included a llama, a rabbit, a silkie rooster, a miniature horse, and a quarterhorse. Students were also able to explore soap made from goat’s milk and a John Deere Tractor.
JPBES's Art Teacher, Elizabeth Anne Harrison, created an amazing barn scene to use for photos.
"It really is a mass team and community effort that is a really great experience for our students," said Mrs. Bittner. "I'm super excited about our event this year as we have also included our pre-school intervention (PIP) students as well."
Besides animal stations, the children could take part in barn game stations like a sack race, egg relay, farm animal croquet, find the needle in the haystack, dunk a duck, and more.
While the children were having fun, they probably didn’t realize that their teachers had incorporated many of Georgia’s Early Learning and Development Standards into the activities such as motor skills, curiosity to play and learn, listening and responding to conversations, new vocabulary, using their senses to observe, and awareness about their community.
