Year-Round School Programs
Primary and Junior

Peter Cottontail

JK and SK/K

$6 per student
Duration: 90 minutes

Meet a rabbit face to face and discover its world through folk “tails” and stories. Students can feel a rabbit’s soft fur and learn why it has such big ears, a wiggly nose, and thumping feet. They also make a bunny craft, play a camouflage game, and eat a rabbit-themed snack.
(A-19)

Meet the Farm Animals

Consult our Educational Activity Kit

JK to Grade 2/K and Cycle 1

$6 per student
Duration: 90 minutes

Did you know that a sow carries her piglets for three months, three weeks, and three days? That a dairy cow can drink up to one bathtub full of water every day? Students use their senses to discover the characteristics and needs of dairy and beef cattle, sheep, pigs, horses, goats, rabbits, and chickens. What do they eat? Where do they live? Are all farm animals mammals? Why do pigs have hair and chickens have feathers? Students uncover the reasons why we raise these animals, and explore the environment in which they live as they see, touch, hear, and smell our livestock. (A-8)

Go back to Program Descriptions

Butter Making

JK to Grade 3/K and Cycle 1

$6 per student
Duration: 90 minutes

See the life cycle of a dairy cow firsthand as your students visit the calves, heifers, and cows in our Dairy Barn. Together, we trace the journey of milk from pasture to table. Students learn that mammals produce both milk and cream, then they get to transform cream into fresh butter as a tasty snack. Students also get to handle the tools of yesterday’s dairy farmer—pails, stool, milker, churn, and butter paddles. (A-10)

What’s to Eat?

Consult our Educational Activity Kit
Visit the Food for Health website

Grades 1 and 2/Cycle 1

$6 per student
Duration: 90 minutes

Head to the Museum to learn how food gets from the farm to the dinner table. In the Dairy Barn, students learn where milk comes from and how to care for calves and cows. Then, after discovering how wheat is grown and harvested, they transform it themselves into flour. Finally, students have fun while learning about food groups, a healthy diet, and how to keep food safe. (A-34)

Go back to Program Descriptions

Bread Science

Grades 1 and 3/Cycle 1 and Cycle 2

$7 per student
Duration: 2 hours

How do we cultivate wheat? What are a scythe, a flail and a winnowing basket, and what is each used for? Through storytelling, students discover how wheat is grown, how it is harvested, and the steps for baking bread. They grind wheat into flour, knead dough to stretch the gluten chains, then watch the ways dough changes as it bakes. And of course, there is fresh bread to taste! (A-7)

Food Chains

Grade 4/Cycle 2

$6 per student
Duration: 90 minutes

On the man-made habitat that is the Museum’s demonstration farm, explore the interrelationship between domestic and wild communities. In the barns, students study photosynthesis, the different links in a food chain, and rebuild the food chains that they discover at the Museum. They come to realize that their lives depend on farm products and by-products, and identify some animals’ diets by studying their teeth.
(A-9)

Go back to Program Descriptions

“Chews” Wisely

Consult our Educational Activity Kit
Visit the Food for Health website

Grade 5/Cycle 3

$6 per student
Duration: 90 minutes

Guar gum, annatto, fructose, carrageenan…foreign language? No, you’ve had them for lunch! Students are given the tools necessary for making educational choices when it comes to food. They learn to decipher food labels and to recognize what nutrients their bodies need and in what foods they can be found. Their new knowledge is tested throughout the program, and they discover what impact physical activity may have on their bodies. Upon leaving the Museum, each student will have his or her own program for a healthier life. (A-35)

Properties of and Changes in Matter: Bread

Consult our Educational Activity Kit

Grade 5/Cycle 3

$7 per student
Duration: 2 hours

Starch gelatinization? Protein coagulation? There is a lot of science in a loaf of bread! Students investigate the physical and chemical changes of the ingredients used in making bread. They grind the wheat and examine its elements with a magnifying glass, and create a new substance by activating yeast. As they knead dough, students will feel the proteins transforming into gluten chains. Students discover how all of these different materials work together to create a useful and delicious food. This program is designed to stimulate kinesthetic, visual, and auditory learners. (A-16)

Go back to Program Descriptions