8 Educational Benefits of Visiting a Farm with Your Children
Farms are magical places for children. With their large vehicles, freshly grown fruits and vegetables and animals of all sizes, there’s a host of things to see and do there. Every season of the year, there will be something to keep the entire family entertained, and the opportunity to pick a different fruit or vegetable. Most farms have a petting zoo, which children find absolutely fascinating. After all, there’s no experience quite as novel as feeding the cows, sheep and ducks.
Many farms are now expanding the activities that they have to offer, and often, there’s enough variety to keep the whole family occupied for a day-long visit. From pony rides to sandboxes and hay pyramids, there’s plenty of things that children wouldn’t get to do on a day-to-day basis. This article will look at eight educational benefits of visiting a farm with your children.
- Promotes the development of a language
By being exposed to different kind of animals or crops in the farm, children are able to improve their vocabulary. This is because they will be curious to know the names and maybe even touch the animals. This will make it even easier for them to comprehend the names of different breeds of animals and plants while reading at school.
- Important academic information
These kinds of visit will offer a unique kind of academic information. Children are able to learn and exciting information through listening as well as through observing and feeling.
- Encourages a healthy living
For young minds, farms act as educational playgrounds. By visiting the farm, the children will be very active and this will lead to a healthy lifestyle. Through walking around the corn mazes and climbing the hay pyramids, an endless fun is guaranteed. It’s also a valuable experience for children to see how fresh fruit and vegetables are grown.
- Improves their problem-solving skills
Apart from getting plenty of physical exercise, activities such as corn mazes also engage children’s brains. Some of the corn mazes have trivia questions at different stops which also add excitement and learning to the play. All of these factors will go a long way in boosting their cognitive development.
- Initiation to scientific concepts
Almost everything found in a farm can be explained scientifically. Children will be exposed and introduced to botany (the study of plants) and zoology (the study of animals).Other concepts include how fruits and vegetables are grown, which kind of animals thrive on a farm, what they eat and also how the animals interact.
- Heightened use of the senses
This happens when children feel an animal’s texture such as its fur and its hay. They will also be able to feel how smooth or rough some of the fruits and vegetables are. By doing this they can enjoy themselves and also improve their senses as their minds are also put to task. They can also smell things like the grass, the fruit, the animals and the vegetables.
- Perfect time for a story
Almost all the children love listening to stories. A farm with its many living things offers a pleasant opportunity and an adventurous place to tell one. The children will definitely love it as they can relate to what the storyteller will be saying because the plant or animal will be within their vicinity.
- Nature will be appreciated even more
Most children do not really know where food comes from, a visit to the farm will expose them and make them understand the origin of what they eat. They will learn how crops are grown and where meat comes from. The explanation may differ depending on the age of the children, this is because they will need to explain the scientific concepts to the older ones.
