Help me give my students these items which will help us learn about animal habitats and growing our own fodder system to feed our animals as we expand our school farm.
My students come from a wide range of diverse backgrounds, financially, emotionally, and racially. I have 3 English language learners in the class as well. My class is an integrated classroom so we also have children with special needs and capabilities as well as children with gifted capabilities in the classroom. We are a rural school that has recently shown a huge increase in children who have migrated here from other parts of the country.
Our STEM program has allowed us to expose children to rural farm life on campus that they may have not ever had the opportunity to be exposed to otherwise.
It's not often a child will go home from school and say today I fed the chickens or we increased our compost in the pollinator garden today. Those are the things we strive to teach in Kindergarten and 1st grade. Just the love and tenderness the children show the animals are often needed for these children who don't have opportunities to learn this at home. We are exposing them to growing their own food, caring for livestock, hard work, and perseverance. We now want to computerize our farm STEM program to expand.
My Project
We are expanding our school farm. With more tablets, it will allow us to be able to use software for tracking feed, inventory or supplies, and goods sold. The younger students will use the chick life cycle exploration set to learn about the life cycle of a chicken from inside the classroom. The Animal Habitats system will help the children have a small model in the classroom to expand their ideas to better the outdoor habitat and expand their knowledge of the animal's needs. The Green Thumb classroom will help my students with the Fodder system to grow and feed the animals on a farm.
The students will learn more about life cycles, planting food to feed the animals, how to create a budget on a farm as well as inventory systems.
We have chickens now and are creating a fodder system to help keep feed costs down.
We are planning to expand by adding a pond habitat and ducks as well as goats and miniature donkeys. We are so excited about this journey. If all goes as planned and the funding is approved we will spread this life science over the entire school with every grade level involved.
There are so many children who do not have the opportunity to be this close to animals. Not only is this science but also social-emotional. When you see the "Hard to reach child" lovingly hold an animal and become calm you realize how important this program is.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Freeman and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
