Today we had a visit from the pet farm. The children all took part from our very youngest children to our oldest pre-schoolers. Their level of involvement of course depended on their ages.
Fern brought us a selection of animals – Simon the sheep who had his own little lead, guinea pigs (patch caused great excitement when he made a bid for freedom), chicken, ducks, a cockerel, some rabbits and 2 pygmy goats.
Some children were initially afraid of the animals, but with gentle coxing, they came around and we could see their confidence growing. The children were so gentle and even the smallest children understood the need to be gentle and use gentle touches.
Aside from the absolute delight on the children’s faces as they took turns to stroke and hold the animals, Fern was able to discuss animal welfare issues, she talked about the importance of caring for our animals and how best to look after them.
Talking about animals with children provides great opportunities to talk about life in general. One small child talked about how his cat had died. This brought up a discussion about life and death, the children showed great empathy and were able to talk about other times in their lives they felt sad.
The emerging curriculum discusses the need for children to have meaningful, hands on experiences.
We could have talked about a farm, shown them pictures of farm animals and discussed how to look after animals but this would not have had the same learning impact or have as much enjoyment for the children as bringing the farm to them.
