Week 2 Update - Mr. Braden’s Barn Owls

Hi, My name is Puma and I had the great fortune of spending the day with your children, covering for Mr Braden.

This was the second week for the Barn Owls at the farm. This week we planted potatoes and irrigated them. Some of the children said it was “satisfying” to feel the cool potatoes in their hands and place them in the ground. Others enjoyed covering them with soil. We learned where the water stores at the farm and why irrigation is a great way to water the plants. We also had the opportunity to pull amaranth, a native superfood, from the potato rows and learned about how precious this Aztec food was.

We then broke off into small groups of 3 and 4 for our bug activity. We are learning the difference between helpful and unhelpful species of bugs. Some children opted for shaking a tree onto a sheet to see what bugs fall and others opted for actively catching bugs. We chose both options to see which is more effective- yay science! The group who did the sheet shake were unable to catch any bugs. The other two that actively looked for bugs were able to collect a spider, an ant lion, and a grasshopper. Pretty fun activity.

After lunch, some played games in the field while others did art on the blanket. It was a great opportunity to connect more deeply and learn a little more about one another. I ended the day by doing a storytelling exercise where each of the children gave me a line for a story we made up together. I went around the circle and each child gave me a line for the story and we read the whole thing together in the end.

Here it goes-
“On a dark and stormy night, Peppa and George found out that there was a huge lava pit with dragons in it. And then a banana guy and a cloud guy and a king were trapped. Harold and Susan turned off Peppa pig and all the dragons in the volcano turned into lumps of poo. Then George turned into a dinosaur. Then the lumps of poop did the boogey dance. Then Peppa turned into chocolate cake. This is how the Earth became a poopoo party. The End.”
It was a great day.

Thank you all <3