Our very first #BulldogReady Guaranteed Experience for our second graders took place last week, as all Batesville Primary School second graders had the opportunity to visit Greenacres Michaela Farm to bring learning to life.
Guaranteed Experience are not field trips—they are in-depth, career-focused immersive experiences at each grade level that connect what students are learning in their classrooms to life in the real world, thanks to community partners. Special classroom guests before and after all Guaranteed Experiences provide students with a chance to explore even more.
2nd Grade Curriculum Goal:
Plants and animals have life cycles that are adapted to survive in distinct environments, all stages of which can be found around the farm. From birth to adulthood and everything in between, the plants and animals of Indiana have interesting and unique life cycles and often rely on one another to survive.
Real-World Experience at Greenacres Michaela Farm:
At Greenacres, students explored the natural areas in search of plants and animals in different life stages and the interactions they share with one another.
The experience began with a lifecycle matching game. After this introduction, students then rotated through stations in small groups.
•INVERTEBRATE DECOMPOSERS (Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches and Darkling Beetles), where they focused on their life cycles and complete and incomplete metamorphosis.
•HONEYBEES, where students had opportunities to wear beekeeping gear, explore a hive, investigate honeycomb with a magnifying glass, create bee vision pictures, and explore real honeybee eggs, larvae, pupa, and larger models of each of these.
•CHICKENS, where they could observe the mobile chicken coops to learn about the life cycle of chickens— they explored the coop, learned about rotational grazing and pastured poultry, put together an egg puzzle as a group to learn about the development of the chick inside of the egg, and investigated eggs, chicks, and adult hens through touch, sight, and sound.
•PLANTS, where they created their own drawing and shared it their small group, investigated real plants in various stages of life and seeds as well as models.
At the conclusion of the visit, everyone enjoyed the life cycle song.
Thank you to Julie Helmers and her team at Greenacres for an amazing first for our seconds. We are grateful for this community partnership.
