Day at the Ranch

Day at the Ranch

On September 8th, the second grade classes from all of the schools in Greenwood County, traveled to Jeff and Cheryl Sowder's for a day at the ranch.  They had 10 learning stations in the morning that touched upon farming, farm animals, and the crops that are grown in Kansas.  Many local organizations and volunteers helped make our day special.  It was a wonderful field trip and everyone learned many things about farming and ranching.

Dr. Droge compares and contrasts the differences between the skulls of cattle and horses.

When is a cow more than a cow?  We all know that we eat the meat from cattle, but we get many other things called by-products.  We learned that chewing gum, candles, jello, marshmallows, and Mrs. Butler's lipstick comes for a cow.  Really... Mrs. Butler is wearing a cow on her lips!!!

One cow hide provides other things like boots, leather coats, and leather furniture.  As we stretched out this beautiful cow hide we also learned that 20 footballs come from one hide, 12 basketballs, 18 soccer balls, and 12 baseball gloves come from a cow. WOW!!

 Many of us had never been inside a tractor.  Cyrus and Westyn are listening to the facts about tractors.

 Roping isn't easy!  Lydia is trying her best to rope that steer.

 Madelyn took a lesson from Hannah Zimmers before she threw her rope.

 The highlight of the day was watching 'Jitterbug' being milked.  The Southwest Dairy Farmers brought their trailer to the Sowder ranch and we were excited to get the opportunity to watch a cow being milked.
We also enjoyed hiking through the pasture looking at the different native grasses and wildflowers that grow in our county.   Our last activity of the day was a favorite for everyone!  Mr. Sowder drove the hay wagon down the country roads giving us a thrilling ride.
Our day on the ranch was a great day to learn all about farming and ranching.  We realized that we can't go a single day without thanking a farmer or a rancher for the many things we eat and use.  A special thank you goes out to the Sowder's for letting the Greenwood County Second Graders visit their ranch.

Stinky Shoe Tens and Ones Math

Stinky Shoe was a silly activity we loved on the first day of school.  We are reviewing place value using tens sticks and ones.  First, the partners 'loaded' one shoe with as many connecting cubes as possible.  Next, we connected the cubes to show how many tens and ones were in our shoe.  Hagen's shoe was the winner holding the most connecting cubes.

Wonderful Websites

http://pbskids.org/electriccompany/

http://www.abcya.com/second_grade_computers.htm

http://www.seussville.com/