Kindergarten Field Trip to the Art Farm
Last month, Aaron School kindergarteners in the Pine and Spruce Rooms took a trip to The Art Farm in the City, which is located on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. This trip is a compliment to part of the kindergarten science curriculum, which focuses on comparing and contrasting different types of animals. Every year the kindergarten classes go to the Art Farm to learn about and interact with animals first hand. They not only learn facts about animals, but also how to treat them with both care and respect.
The Art Farm specializes in early childhood programs and classes. They focus on the arts, social play groups, and animals. On the first floor is where they have classrooms and a gift shop with many educational toys and puzzles, as well as animal figures. Downstairs is where they do their animal programs, and there are a variety of animals housed there such as chinchillas, lizards, rabbits, chickens, birds, guinea pigs and turtles.
When the group arrived, they were greeted by the Art Farm staff and guided downstairs into the large room where the animals live. For first part of the program, everyone sat in a circle on a carpet. The instructor explained that she would be bringing over a few different animals, one at a time. She taught students about where the animals live and about their special features. Students also had some of their own questions about what they eat or how fast they can move. Everyone was given an opportunity to pet or hold the animals, and were taught how to handle them gently. It was a surprise to learn the chinchillas don’t bathe in water, but by rolling in sand! The chinchilla was very soft compared with the scaly lizard that was introduced afterwards. Another fact learned was that a tortoise is like a turtle, only it lives on land and cannot swim.
For the second part of the program, students walked around the room and observed chickens, hamsters, lizards and birds. Large wooden pens housed guinea pigs and several gigantic fluffy rabbits! Students took turns walking into the pen to feed the rabbits some greens. The instructor also took out a bird and had it perch on her arm. At the end of the program, students said goodbye to all the animals and thanked the instructor for teaching them. The Art Farm was a very exciting experience for Spruce and Pine!
