Nature Study - County Fair

The County Fair is a summer tradition for us.  We don't do the rides and games though since our kids are still so young.  When we go to the fair it is much more nature study then anything else since we spend our entire time visiting all the animals.  This year we made it an event with our nature group and were able to share it with friends. We Care Wednesdays allow you to get free admission with a donation.  On the day we went it was children's books which I have plenty of! Kids 5 and under get in free as well so it worked out well for our group. 

We all meet up at Centennial Farm which is there year round. If you follow the link right now you can see a live webcam of one of the pigs at the fair. The farm is a great place for the kids to see all kinds of farm animals they wouldn't get a chance to see with living in a city.  We got to see chickens, goats, pigs, cows, and sheep.  And of course, since it's the fair, we got to see baby animals of all of those as well.  The kids got to review the vocabulary of the animals: ewe, bull, chick, piglet, calf, and more.  Little Miss' favorite was the two little calves they had while Green Bubbles was particularly interested in the piglets. 

 

After the farm the kids all went to check out the bees where they got a chance to find the Queen bee in a hive, and earned a sticker by doing so!  Most of the kids, including Green Bubbles and Little Miss, also got a chance to make beeswax candles too.

Now here's where it gets real.  It's getting hot here, and I was baby wearing Megatron so I probably didn't have the best patience level this day.  Green Bubbles and Little Miss were pretty naughty that morning as well and we almost didn't go to the fair at all.  They both weren't listening and were just running amock in the house.  We went because it was with our group and I'm glad we did because I don't know when we would have made it another day.  But it also means everyone was a little on edge.

This came out when Green Bubbles announced he was hungry and had to eat.  We had lunch less than an hour beforehand for exactly this reason so I was frustrated.  But we stopped and got a fair favoriate, funnel cake. (Sorry for the shadow in the picture).

Keeping it real... pushing Little Miss in the stroller, babywearing Megatron, and carrying a funnel cake and drink all at the same time does not work well.  The drink flew and the entire thing spilled.  But this is why you have friends with you!  I was about to lose it but our nature study buddies helped out.  We managed to find a good table for everyone to sit.  We ate our cake, but Green Bubbles complained the entire time about everything.  The heat was turning up at this point which I think contributed to the problem.

So we went indoors next and checked out the kids explorium.  Here the kids got to make a bracelet out of pipe cleaners and little beads, explore the principles of  buoyancy placing beads and other objects on pipe cleaners to see how slow they could get it to sink, played a fishing game, and pretended they were archeologists.

It was lot and hot still though, and Megatron just woke up so we took a pitstop at the baby station right next door where I was able to change diapers, refill out water bottles with cold water, and nurse Teddy.  We all felt better after that and ready to take on the rest of the fair!

Of course, we ended up walking right by a splash pad before we managed to do anything else.  It was still hot so I let the kids play.  That was probably my mistake.  They both got wet, Green Bubbles was soaked. They had so much fun but were just to wet and cold to keep going through the rest of the fair so we ended up leaving shortly after.  I'd glad we did it though.  Even though we didn't make it over to the livestock area or the pig races, I would much rather leave on a high note then with crying and complaints!

 

I'm linking this post up with Homeschool Mother's Journal.