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Mill Creek MetroParks Farm visits CUMP
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.A student in the 5-year-old class at Canfield United Methodist Preschool showed off the snowman she made out of the play dough, which she and her classmates made with the help of Brenda Markley, Mill Creek MetroParks Farm agriculture education program manager, on Jan. 12.
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Brenda Markley, Mill Creek MetroParks Farm agriculture education program manager, visited Canfield United Methodist Preschool’s 5-year-old class to share her favorite farm story, “The Little Red Hen” on Jan. 12.
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Neighbors | Abby Slanker.Brenda Markley, Mill Creek MetroParks Farm agriculture education program manager, helped the 5-year-old students at Canfield United Methodist Preschool mix up some play dough during her visit on Jan. 12.
By ABBY SLANKER
Brenda Markley, Mill Creek MetroParks Farm agriculture education program manager, visited Canfield United Methodist Preschool to shared a farm story with the students Jan. 12. Markley read the students her childhood favorite, “The Little Red Hen.”
“Today I have brought the farm to you,” Markely told the students in the 5-year-old class. “I am going to read you and share with you a farm story.”
Markley brought a story board with her so the students could follow along and she could illustrate the story so the children could visualize it. As the story progressed, Markely added cutouts of the characters made out of felt, which depicted what the characters were doing in the story.
“We have three characters in this story, aside from Little Red Hen. We have the duck, dog and cat. As we go along, you can pretend to be the characters each time one is mentioned. For the duck, you can waddle in your seats, for the dog you can put you hands up like paws and bounce and for the cat you can curl up with your hands on the side of your faces and pretend to nap,” Markley said.
In the story, Little Red Hen asks her three friends, the duck, the dog and the cat, to help her plant wheat seeds. When they all say no, she does it herself. When the wheat is grown, Little Red Hen asks her friends to help her cut it. When they said no again, she cuts the wheat herself.
When the wheat is cut, Little Red Hen asks her friends to help her take it to the mill and have it ground into flour. When her friends, once again, say no, she takes the wheat to the mill herself. After she brings the sack of flour back to her house, she asks her friends to help her bake bread. Again, they say no, so she bakes the bread herself.
When the bread is ready, she asks them who would help her eat the bread. This time, the duck, dog and cat all say they will help. And Little Red Hen, says no and eats the bread herself.
Markley told the children the lesson they learned from the story was to help their friends.
“The dog, duck and cat should have helped their friend, Little Red Hen, if they wanted to eat the bread. What I want you learn from this story is to think about helping. It’s a good idea,” Markley said.
Markley brought with her items from the farm to show the children, like wheat seeds and grown wheat.
Markley applied what happens in the story to what happens on the farm. She explained that at the farm, it is the farmer’s job to plant the wheat seeds and take care of it while it grows. The farmer then receives help from a combine to harvest the wheat. Markley explained this process with the help of a toy combine she brought with her.
After harvesting, she said, the farmer’s job is done as he sells the wheat to the mill. The mill grinds the wheat into flour and people can then bake bread, muffins, cookies, pancakes or tortillas with the flour.
“This story is how to get bread from the stuff at the farm. This is what the farm is all about - growing and raising your food. ‘The Little Red Hen’ showed us all about that,” Markley told the students.
As a special treat for the students, Markley announced she brought all the ingredients for them to make dough, but since there was no oven to bake it in, they would make play dough.
The only stipulation was the students had to work together, unlike the characters in the story. Each group member was assigned a job.
One student added the bag of flour to the bowl. The next student added the water to the flour. The next student added the salt to the mixture and the next student added the oil. The last ingredient was a package of Kool-Aid to provide color and scent.
Each student then took turns to stir the mixture.
“You all need to work together and help to make the play dough, unlike the dog, duck and cat,” Markley told the children. “Each of you has a job and all these jobs need to be combined to make the end product.”
When the mixing and stirring was done, Markley handed each child their own ball of play dough. The children got creative and made things out of the play dough, like a snake, a doughnut, pancakes and snowmen.