Who knew so much went on out on the farm?

With Kindergarten last week, we talked about farms as they are about to have a field trip. Some kids knew a tremendous amount about them and some knew next to nothing. It surprised me though how even the kids that could name sheepdogs as a farm animal did not know what a barn is called. They all just call it a farm, even the big red building is a farm. We looked at some non-fiction books about farms and talked about what is on a farm, why it is on a farm, text features of the books, and so forth, then I had the students close their eyes, picture their own farms and draw the elements they would have. Now, these pictures were wonderful because I love kid art, but what I discovered was that it was not what they drew, it was what they contained. By this, I mean that they would tell me stories about the pictures that went so far beyond what they drew - there were whole other stories going on in the barns for example. They would draw a few things, but tell me all about inside the barn chickens were laying eggs, cows were being milked, horses were living, etc. They got much more that I would have known just from looking at the pictures and reminded me to talk to the kids too as they work. See some of the great art below.