December 2, 2005

Field Trip to a Dairy

On Friday, while Tiffany's family was still visiting, Tyler's pre-school had a field trip to a dairy. Tiffany stayed home with her family, and Scott went with Tyler. The father of two of Tyler's classmates is a bus driver, so he arranged for the whole group to ride on a bus, with him as the driver. Tyler was thrilled to be able to ride on a bus and enjoyed singing Hanukkah songs with the other kids. The dairy is located in Bethlehem of Galilee (not THE Bethlehem).

Tyler on the bus

When everyone arrived at the dairy, the kids ran around, played and watched the dogs and horses until it was time to start. Tsvika was our guide and started by showing the class a mommy cow with her baby. The kids watched as the baby cow nursed. Next, Tsvika showed pictures of how a baby cow is born.

Next, each child was given a shovel and told to shovel hay to where the cows could eat it. As you can imagine, it was crazy: twenty-five children with shovels, a pile of hay and fifty or sixty cows.

Working on the Farm

The cows have learned patience and also to be wary of children with shovels. Tyler loved every minute of it, running around with a shovel and shoveling hay.

Feeding the cows (video)

After feeding the cows, everyone went to the milking station where each child had a turn milking a cow. Then they took the milk that they had milked and Tyler was the one chosen to give it to the dogs to drink. Afterwards, Tsvika filled 2 liter bottles with milk and each child fed it to a baby cow. Tyler got to do it twice.

Feeding the babies

The next thing the children got to do was make cream cheese. The children each got to stir the cream until it became cream cheese. Then they made chocolate milk and drank it while they ate the cream cheese on bread.

Then Tsvika gave each child a head of wheat. They pulled the kernels out of the head of wheat and then ground the wheat into flour.

Grinding the wheat

After making flour, some other dairy employees helped the children roll out dough to make pita. Each child got to roll out the dough and then watch the pita bake.

Making pita

Tyler chose to have chocolate on his pita. Scott got a pita too, but had labane cheese, olive oil and za'atar on his.

Eating the pita

After the pita, the class ate the food that everyone had brought for lunch. Tyler and the other kids then painted plaster of Paris cows.

Painting the cow

Here is how Tyler looks as a baby cow.

Tyler becomes a cow

Tyler loves his cow shirt. Scott bought it for him as a souvenir of the day. Scott and Tyler really enjoyed the day and had fun spending time together. It was amazingly inexpensive too, about $20 for the whole day and the T-shirt.

The Cow shirt

Tyler-isms:

"Put tape on my band-aid." - because the band-aid wouldn't lay flat.
"When I'm sick I have to watch lots of shows and take one nap." - He wasn't successful with the nap, but he did watch a lot of shows.
"She was chocolate and I was the wrapper." - explaining why he was smashing Brooke.

Brooke-isms:

"Treet" - A treat, usually chocolate
"Pocky" - Pajamas

Posted by sjbowden at December 2, 2005 10:57 AM