Future farmers?: Kids get hands-on at First Grade Farm Day
First-graders surround the puppy enclosure during First Grade Farm Day at the Grant County Fairgrounds Wednesday.
Cheryl Schweizer/Columbia Basin Herald
Kids eat french fries on First Grade Farm Day.
First-graders add “honey” to “honeycombs” during First Grade Farm Day Wednesday at the Grant County Fairgrounds.
MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake School District first-graders ran their own barrel racing course, stuffed paper honey into a paper honeycomb, drew pictures of ice cream cones, and ate popcorn and french fries.
And got to look at puppies.
A class of first-graders was looking at all the animals in the petting zoo, when one of the kids spotted the pups. The entire class ran right by the goats, the rabbits, and even the pony, to look at the puppies.
There’s always a lot going on at the annual First Grade Farm Day.
All first-graders in the MLSD come to the Grant County Fairgrounds to play games, get some treats, pet animals and learn about agriculture in the process. First Grade Farm Day is presented by the Moses Lake High School FFA and MLHS students in some agriculture classes.
First-graders moved from station to station around the Harwood Pavilion, learning about honey bees, farm machinery, rodeo, and milk and dairy products, among other subjects. Agriculture biology teacher and FFA co-advisor Victoria Weber said First Grade Farm Day covered 21 different topics.
“Apples, to pigs, to potatoes. Farm safety. All that stuff,” Weber said.
The goal is to teach kids about the food they eat, and the people, animals and plants that produce it.
It takes some work. The high schoolers come up with a subject, write a presentation targeted at the first grade and add some activities. The team that came up with the milk and dairy station focused on ice cream.
“We all decided we like ice cream; we all eat it,” said Jim Soive. “Why not teach the kids about it?”
They opted to give the first-graders chocolate candy bars rather than ice cream.
“Because we couldn’t get 700 kids a cup of ice cream,” Souvie said.
Popcorn and how it’s made was the subject at the corn station, with a little cup of popcorn for each kid. And the potato station featured french fries, donated and cooked by volunteers from Simplot.
First-graders learned some interesting facts about rabbits, including some about rabbit bathroom habits that made the kids say “eew,” and got to see how far they could jump, just like a rabbit. They also got a look at really big tractors and other kinds of farm machinery.
