Noble Minds Institute Joins Us for a Virtual Tour
Last week we had our first virtual farm tour! Nobel Minds contacted us asking us to help round out their last days of classes with a farm tour of Black Oak Hollow. We were so honored to participate in their program and we had a wonderful experience meeting a few of their amazing students. Noble Minds Institute for Whole Child Learning is an independent charter school in New Orleans. Ms. Taylor Cheek is the Special Education Coordinator for this program. The children she works with have varying levels of special needs. Noble Minds focuses on academics and personal development. Nobel Minds emphasizes holistic learning and has outside groups who come into the school to teach the students cooking, sewing, drumming and other skills and activities.
We had three amazing, hard working young ladies join the virtual tour. We were so excited to meet Dylan, Jadye, and Envy. These young ladies were awesome and had so much to add to the virtual tour. They had excellent questions, made observations and comparisons as well as practiced spelling the names of some farm animals.
A few of their favorite animals were Ms. Turk, Tommy, and Evie. The baby ducklings, chicks and the baby doll sheep provided much entertainment for the kids!
Oh how they loved handsome Tommy! He followed us around the whole farm during the tours!
Ms. Turk was another favorite. She was a rescue that joined our farm about 7 months!
Atilla - Babydoll sheep
Itty Bitty - she us a mix of potbelly and Kune Kune pig. She is always so friendly!
Artemis and Aphrodite - Babydoll Sheep
Newly hatched quail - they are being transferred to the brooder!
We also had a wonderful surprise right before the virtual tour began. Ms. Evie had 4 beautiful piglets. It was an exciting opportunity for these young minds to see and observe new born piglets with their mama!
Ms. Evie is a potbelly Juliana pig. Her babies are literally hours old here!
Ms. Evie and her babies - 1 male and 3 females. All already have wonderful forever homes - leaving around 6/22
Furthermore, We took a look at all the different eggs we had on the farm and which birds laid which ones. They learned that different birds lay different size and different color eggs. They also got to observe treat time for the birds, ducks, turkeys and even a few pigs joined in. While they enjoyed their treats, the kids made observations and comparisons of the different birds and animals that hurried in for treats.
This Ayam Cemani rooster really caught the class’s eye!
Baby turkeys
Our lovely frizzle cochin and his wild look made him a favorite.
Two of our Muscovies
The kids loved the ducklings!
We showed the children this basket of eggs so they could compare the sizes, colors, and textures and see which birds laid which eggs.
Once we finished the virtual tour, Ms. Cheek and the girls made some observations and comparisons as well as practicing spelling sheep, chicken, pig and turkey. Observations made by the girls were that the baby animals have brothers and sisters and we have 2 different colors of peafowl on the farm: one is Indian
Blue and the second is the Cameo which is a rarity. They also observed that the peacock eggs were much larger than the quail eggs.
At one point during the virtual tour they got to compare and see the different color and sizes of the eggs. And when asked what was a difference between their lives in New Orleans and life on the farm at Black Oak Hollow, they commented that the animals do not live in houses but live outside.
We were so honored to meet these amazing children and hope they will join us again when school starts back up in the fall! We have added pictures of what Envy, Jayde, and Dylan observed during the tour as well as pictures of these wonderful children and their teacher, Ms. Cheek!
Envy was so excited to make comparisons of the farm and made observations about all the different animals and the different eggs we have on the farm!
Dylan enjoyed practicing her spelling skills and learning to spell the names of all the animals she saw on the farm!
Jayde practiced spelling the farm animals as we observed all the different animals that lived on the farm. She spelled pig and practice spelling chicken, turkey and sheep as well. She also told us beginning sounds of the different animals on the farm.
Ms. Cheek, Special Education Coordinator and her assistant Parish!