State Fairs

I live in the city so, a trip to the State Fair, for my family and I can turn out to be very, very educational. I never thought of it that way until last school year. In our curriculum it was suggested that we visit a sheep farm. I could not for the life of me, think of where I could find a nearby sheep farm. I prayed about it and forgot about it. Then one day, as I was driving down one of the busy streets in our city, I looked up and saw a billboard that said, "Come visit with us at the State Fair", next to a picture of sheep. I hadn't been to a local fair in awhile, so in my mind, when someone said ,"the fair", I thought about rides and food- just not sheep.
I mentioned going to my husband and parents and since none of us had been, we thought it would be a good outing and interesting. To make the idea even better, the fair offered a Home School Day, along with a free ticket and educational info.
We went and had a wonderful time. I wrote down questions for my children to ask the "shepherds" that would apply to our sheep lesson. I thought there would be one or two sheep there- boy was I WRONG!!!
There were 100's of sheep and so many different farms from across the state!!! I felt like I had struck gold.
Well, we went back this year and once again learned a lot of info. My younger boys favorite part is something the fair calls, "Little Hands on the Farm". It's a pretend farm set up for kids so they can pretend to be farmers and in the end they "sell" their produce to the pretend store, get the money and spend it on some healthy food item of their choice. It's pretty neat. At the beginning, the children are given a small basket for the various items they will gather while farming. They also get hats that is thiers to keep. Here are some pics: