It’s Spring (yes officially now and not just in our minds) and for me that doesn’t just mean flowers and warmer days but also baby animals. We’re lucky enough that even though we live in a town the country side isn’t far away and it’s filled with farms including many that we can go and visit.
Near my parents is our favourite one – it’s small enough that J and T don’t get overwhelmed but also has a variety of different animals that J enjoys seeing. As a bonus it also has an indoor play ground with a fun climbing slide built into and around some trees (for us the cakes and lunches are delicious as well).
We haven’t visited the farm since the summer as it closes down for the winter and becomes a working farm – but I was amazed that J remembered it and knew exactly where he wanted to go and what animals that he wanted to visit first. It was T’s first time alert and interested in what was going on – I was amazed by her language development during the day – first new word in a long while was “LOOK” at everything that she could see – we’d be going along and suddenly have “LOOK” and her pointing furiously at something.
T meeting a week old lamb for the first time
The farm is a great opportunity for children to connect with what we see in books, rhymes and in our small world play (can you guess what we’ve been playing a lot of after the visit!) and introducing babies to them fosters a respect of animals and also is a great way for them to connect what we do at home with real life – unless you are lucky enough to live on a farm a lot of the animals are difficult to meet everyday. T meet a week old lamb at one of the feeding sessions it was the first time she had seen another animal apart from our family dog close up she was in awe of it and kept touching it looking at me and then returning to touch it – she was so gentle as well.
T showing how gentle she can be
The farm also brought up lots of questions from J as we went around, there was questions about why some lambs were with the mummy sheep and others were on their own having a bottle of milk, why 1 pig had lots of babies and the other had only 2 babies it was interesting as he didn’t bring up the questions while he was at the farm instead it’s been since we’ve got home and playing with his farm animals and farm.
J watching the lambs having their bottles
The great part of the farm that we visit not only do they have animal encounters like we did with T and the Lambs but also some petting pens – the animals can escape away from the children behind ropes which even J understands that he can’t go under but it’s great he can interact with goats, chickens, roosters, huge rabbits (like toddler sized).
J and Captain Sparrow
There are 2 very large roosters Captain Sparrow is one of them and he’s J’s favourites he follows him around and as soon as we arrived it was who he wanted to see (after the ducks on the way in). Of course no trip to the farm would be complete without a tractor ride
Tractor ride on the farm
T’s extended vocabulary now includes GOAT, ORSE and BABIT – I guess she’s going to follow in my foot steps and be fascinated by animals as well.
Our book link this week is a real favourite Old MacDonald had a farm and a lift the flap. J loves the words and likes to sing along and tell me what sounds the animals make. T loves flipping the flaps in the book to reveal what is under them – she’s very into interactive books at the moment, although any brightly coloured books with big pictures gets her attention as well.
To see where we linking up this week check out the side bar and why not pop along and have a look at the great sites that we love to link up and play with.
maryanne @ mama smiles says
Farms are kid heaven! I love the baby pigs – how adorable!!!
Cerys @ Rainy Day Mum says
The pigs were around 2 weeks old and really cute. We’re going to go back as they had so many animals that were expecting hoping that there will be even more baby animals next time
Susan Case says
What a wonderful post and photos. We live on a “farm” too. It is beautiful and quiet. Love living away from the city. Great post!
Cerys @ Rainy Day Mum says
Oh wow you are so lucky. In Costa Rica we had many farm animals but it wasn’t a real farm I guess more of a small holding
crystal@growingajeweledrose says
Looks like you had a great day! Love the baby pigs!
Joyce @Childhood Beckons says
Oh, we love farms! That looked like a wonderful day full of learning through play and fun experiences 🙂 Perfect for the spring!
Coombemill says
What a lovely day out. J and T looked thrilled with it all. The farm has the same Gloucester Old Spot pigs as us though our lambs are different. It’s great the way interaction with the animals on the farm brings out so many questions, it is the same for us here. thank you for sharing your day on Country Kids.
cakesphotoslife (Angie) says
looks a great place x
Ness says
Oh wow! So much fun! My little one would LOVE this. I really need to do some research and see whether there are any farms nearby that we can visit. Thanks for linking up to the Weekly Kids Co-op!
Jen Fischer says
In our neighborhood (which is rural), we have neighbors with chickens and often eggs from another set of neighbors with chickens. We feed the chickens and learning about the chickens and their eggs got my toddler to eat eggs! (He would never eat them, but after we got a batch from the neighbor and fed the chickens, he wanted to try them. Now he loves them).
Also, in the Greater Los Angeles Area/Ventura County, there is a great place called Underwood Family Farms for anyone out there in that area. Little ones can feed animals, pick fruits and vegetables, climb on tractors and so much more. It’s so reasonably priced and we love it!
abbie says
My girls love any chance they get to visit farms and see the animals up close. Such great outdoor learning! Thanks for sharing with the outdoor play party.
sunnymama says
Sweet pictures from you day at the farm! Thank you for sharing them with our spring carnival. 🙂