Activities : Teacher Info

First and Second Grade

Food Chain: Producer & Consumer

Children find the farm basket activity so much fun they don't even know they are learning. They enjoy repeating the crop production activity over and over again. This hands-on experience with food and fiber is fun as well as educational. Children discover the interrelationships between plants, animals, and people. They learn how plants and animals depend on each other for the food they need to live. The concept of food production, distribution and consumption comes to life as the young farmers sell their crops and food at the Farmers Market and make a purchase at the Grocery.

Corn Seed Surprises
What are seeds? Seeds are surprise containers of young plants. The science lab is in a corn field and the students will follow the process as a kernel of corn becomes cornmeal. This experience is all about corn and it is hands-on.

Optional Hands-on Activity: Making plastic from corn

Special Fall Activity: Fall harvest
Social Studies & Science Our programs have been designed to help teachers meet objectives in Tennessee social studies and science curriculums.

TN Objectives:

1.1.1 1.1.1 1.1.2 1.2.3 1.3.1 1.5.1 1.5.2
2.2.1 2.1.2 2.2.2 2.2.3 2.3.1 2.4.1 2.4.2 2.4.3 2.5.1 2.5.2

  • Recognize plant & animal parts and learn their functions
  • Understand interrelationships among plants & animals
  • Learn animals & people use senses to interact with plants & animals.
  • Experience interrelationship between plants & animals
  • Learn the basic needs plants & animals need to live (food, water, sunlight, and air)
  • Learn living things reproduce & offspring resemble the mature
  • See differences among plants & animals of the same kind
  • Features help living things survive
  • Experience interrelationship: plants & animals
  • Experience economics of a producer consumer market
  • Learn how to wash hands properly
  • Recognize consequences of improper handwashing

Social Studies:

TN Objectives:

1.1.01 1.2.01 1.2.02 1.2.03
2.1.01 2.2.01 2.2.02

  • Observe agriculture of past and present.
  • Experience selling crops to receive income and purchase goods.
  • Discover farmers today produce specific commodities and do not produce every commodity a family needs to sustain life
  • Experience hands-on interaction of wholesaler (farmers market) with the farmer producer
  • Recognize todays families are dependent on a retail based economy not the barter system of the past
  • Recognize agricultural products of Tennessee

1. Students will visit a Cornfield

Optional Hands on Activity: Making plastic from corn

  • Learning Station
    • Cornfield
    • Basic requirements for life
    • Grind corn
  • Hands-On Activity
    • Compare
    • Products made from corn
    • Different types of corn
  • Concept Taught
    • Compare
    • Science lab
    • Shell corn

2. Students will see, touch, hear, and smell plants & animals.

  • Learning Station
    • Animal Barnyard
    • Goat Ramp
    • Corn Palace
    • Hay Climb
  • Hands-On Activity
    • Interact with animals
    • Feed Goats
    • Examine seeds
    • Interact with forage
  • Concept Taught
    • Animal feature & function
    • People feed animals
    • Plant part
    • Animals eat plants

3. Students will experience interrelationship: plants & animals:

4. Students will experience economics of a producer consumer market:

  • Farmers produce food for people & animals.
  • Animals produce food and fiber for people.
  • Farmers feed and care for animals.
  • Farmers sell food for money.
  • Families buy food to eat
  • Learning Station
    • Grain Storage
    • Dairy
    • Chicken House
    • Apple Orchard
    • Planting & harvest
  • Hands-On Activity
    • Bag grain
    • Feed & milk the 'cow"
    • Feed hens corn
    • Pick 'apple'
    • Plant seeds
  • Food collected
    • Kernels of corn for animals
    • Milk carton
    • Egg
    • Apple
    • Dig 'potato' & pick 'tomato'

5. Students will learn how to wash hands properly & consequences of improper handwashing

  • Learning Stations
    • Germ City
    • Handwashing Fountain
  • Hands-On Activity
    • View imaginary germs
    • Wash hands carefully
  • Concept Taught
    • Hands have many germs
    • Proper handwashing result

6. Students will view award winning video:

Subject: baby chicks, goats, pigs, & horse
Lunch in hayloft will include video directed and produced by by a farmer who is a science teacher. Video footage and dialogue is a result of her farm field trips in her discovery barn.

  • Learning Station
    • 1920's Mule Barn
    • Award winning video
    • Hay Loft
  • Hands-On Activity
    • Re-enforce objectives
    • During lunch time
  • Concept Taught
    • Science & Social studies
Field Trip Pictures