Sunday, March 16, 2014

Not at all cheesy

I went to the boys' school two days last week to talk about dairy farming.  I took the Farm Bureau book barn, which is full of agricultural books the kids can check out.    

During their library time, I read books to each class about how milk gets from the cow to them, like Extra Cheese, Please: Mozzarella's Journey from Cow to Pizza.   

You can tell they go to a country school.  When I asked each class how many of them had been to a dairy farm or milked a cow, it was a strong 75%.  While there were no other kids who live on dairy farms, many of them had parents who worked on one or had cattle or worked for some aspect of farming, like driving a milk truck or working at the grain elevator.   

The kids eagerly did the United Dairy Industry of Michigan activity book, ate string cheese, wore their Got Chocolate Milk slap bracelets, unfurled their posters, and were generally super interested and engaged!  I really like my kids' school and really enjoyed my time there.  The kids told me they liked it, too.  

Favorite things kids said to me:

"My mom gets to feed the baby calves."  (Gets to.  Like her job is the best ever.) 

"We get cheese?!  You rock!"  (Yes.  Food is super cool.)

"Ty and Cole's mom?  Can we take these books home?"  (This is the only name kids in their class call me.)

"We already know all about cow stomachs!  Our teacher read us that book last week!"  (Yay!)

A second grader after I said a kid on a tour thought chocolate milk came from brown cows - "Yeah.  I used to think that when I was a kid." 







2 comments:

The Dairy Mom said...

Thanks for sharing. I can relate because I have two boys, 5th and 2nd grade. It's fun talking to kids about dairy! I love the book barn! Great pictures.

Carla said...

Thanks, Brenda! I love the book barn too. Kids are immediately drawn to it. : ) Have a great spring!