Maida's First Field Trip - The Apple Orchard

A couple weeks ago, Maida got to go with her preschool on her very first field trip! My mom came down and took care of Klaasen and Skogen so that I could go with Maida and her class.

We arrived at the orchard early in the morning and Maida was not happy about me trying to take her picture when she was so cold and tired.

The orchard had so much to do and see, but we started with a quick lesson about apples.

The instructor had some of the kids participate in a little skit to show everyone cross pollination. She explained that this particular orchard actually has a bee keeper to make sure there are enough bees for the cross pollination of all of the apple trees because it's very important for the apples. That bee keeper must be doing a pretty good job of keeping bees because, boy, there were a TON of bees all over the place!

The kids also learned about all the ways apples are watered.

Then we went on a hayride! Maida was so excited about this and she couldn't wait for the tractor to fire up and take off!

It was a big surprise when the hayride lasted almost 30 minutes because it was a lot longer than anyone expected. They took us through the orchard and then on a bumpy, narrow, little trail in the woods where they had decorated with characters from fairy tales. The kids loved looking for these life-sized people and animals!

There were a lot of parents that were able to come on the field trip with the class, however I think that I was the only one who fell off the hay bale in the middle of the hayride [thank you Maida for forgiving me for the embarrassment I caused you - so much for making a good impression on all of your friends and their parents!]. The farmer driving the tractor that was pulling our trailer got stuck in the mud. I decided to lean over and take a picture right when he gunned it and I went f-l-y-i-n-g off the hay bale and across the trailer. It was SO embarrassing.

We didn't actually get to pick any apples, but we got to look at all of the apple trees!

We also got to have some apple snacks!

Apple donuts, apple cider, and a fresh-picked apple!

After we were done snacking, we went shopping in the store, but everything was way too expensive! I had no idea that apples were more expensive at an orchard than they were in the store!

We really enjoyed the fall mums.

And all the pumpkins to climb on.

But climbing on the choo-choo train was a lot more fun!

The goat really liked to climb, too, and used this ramp to climb all the way up on top of the barn (it's a bummer that I didn't get a picture of that).

There was a little pony.

There was a calf.

There were chickens.

Maida was really concerned when she didn't see any nests for the chickens to lay eggs on, so Ms. Tiffany showed Maida where the chickens laid their eggs in the little chicken coop.

There was a huge hay stack to climb on! Maida was too scared to make it to the top.

We found our way through the corn maze!

And we found our way to one last thing to climb on.

Maida enjoyed being taller than me and was up there chanting, "I'm taller than you are! I'm taller than you are!"

It's a good thing that Maida wore her rubber boots because the grass was still wet from the dew and Maida hates it when her shoes get wet! I was glad that I spent the $6.00 on these puppies the day before we went.

It was such a great first field trip. Maida didn't want to leave!