A Day at the apple Orchard...

What a great day!
Today, we met up with our Early Learners group for our first official get together of the year, and what a way to start off. We met at the Orchard parking lot at 9:30(ish) and got together for an introduction to the day. We started by making a graph of every one's favorite way to eat apples. The choices were; as an apple, apple juice, apple sauce, or apple pie. Well, apple pie won hands down, but the girls were true to their tastes, by answering Aislinn - apple juice, Tara - applesauce. This followed with teaching the poem the girls had already learned (posted in earlier post) to the rest of the group, and reading through some information on flower blossoms, the bees part on the making of apples, and apple seeds.

After, as the orchard opened, the kids were set to head in for exploration and play. We started in the petting area, where they had a diverse selection of the common farm animals including goats, calves, pigs, horses, bunnies, dogs, sheep, hens, turkeys, donkeys, ducks, and fallow deer. (I think I got them all!)
Next came a wagon ride through the orchard, apple picking off the Macintosh trees, and a couple taste tests. We then, with apples in hand, made our way to the play area where the kids tried out their bravery on giant slides, their sense of direction in the hay maze, and their archaeological prowess in the sand area.
Lunch followed soon after, and was sped up slightly by the number of bees interested in the kids fare. I thought the kids handled the bee intrusion very well, and no one got overly upset- just ate fast.
We began the afternoon by taking advantage of the shade on the orchard's nature trail and tried out the tepee and rope swing we encountered along the way.
Soon after, many of the kids in the group were showing signs of fatigue, and most headed on their way. I was very tempted to do the same as Tara was starting to drag as well, but decided if we just motored on, we were likely to find our second wind (something I myself was desperately in need of.)
We hoped on to one more wagon ride around the orchard and the fresh breeze on our faces seemed to do the trick. After a nice discussion with the tractor driver, the girls headed back to the animals and spent over an hour feeding the deer and the goats poplar leaves that were scattered on the ground. The goats especially loved them - something I wish we had known before when the rest of the group had still been around- definitely cheaper than the grain dispenser!






I laid on the nearest bench and enjoyed a short doze while the girls were happily engaged.

At 4:00, we ran over for one final slide, made our way to the exit and said good bye to a great day. (Both girls slept the entire way home!) :)