It can be hard to imagine what our little farmers do for jobs on the farm at school. The obvious involves the love and care of our resident goats, chickens, ducks, and rabbits which is just a small part of their busy day!
When students first arrive on the farm they select their job for the day. These jobs include farm based responsibilities such as goat and rabbit waterer, hay bag filler, egg collector, and garden helper, but also school based which include taking attendance, bag checker, weather, calendar, and song picker.
Farm based responsibilities take place throughout our school day, and may need to be completed more than once depending on the job. Frozen water means frequent checking and refilling as do hot weather days when animals may be especially
thirsty. Rabbits frequently spill their water and food so keeping up with their reckless behavior requires diligence.
We complete our school based jobs after shaking a parachute. Our meeting time song:
This is the way we shake the parachute, shake the parachute, shake the parachute.
This is the way we shake the parachute, when it is goodbye meeting time.
This is the way we shake it high, shake it high, shake it high.
This is the way we shake it high, when it is goodbye meeting time.
This is the way we shake it low, shake it low, shake it low.
This is the way we shake it low, when it is goodbye meeting time.
This is the way we shake it fast, shake it fast, shake it fast.
This is the way we shake it fast, when it is goodbye meeting time.
This is the way we shake it slow, shake it slow, shake it slow.
This is the way we shake it slowly, when it is goodbye meeting time.
Children locate their names, and place them on a metal jar for the attendance taker to document. The bag checker records how many bags are hanging on hooks. The calendar helper locates the number(s) needed to change the date plus informs classmates of the month, year, and information about the day of the week for the day, yesterday, and tomorrow: Friends are always eager to help when needed. The weather and temperature are forecast and displayed, and a word is labeled using our dictionary. Frequently selected songs are Bubble Gum, Willaby Wallaby, and Down By The Station.
We end each meeting with our goodbye song:
See you later alligator
Bye bye butterfly
Give a hug ladybug
Be sweet parakeet
Blow a kiss jellyfish
See you soon raccoon
Take care polar bear
Out the door dinosaur
So long King Kong
And bye said the fly!
A great book to share with young children about work on a farm is Farmer Duck by Martin Waddell!