Week 5
This week was spent enjoying the gorgeous weather and checking off everything on our to-do lists to get ready for the fairs.
On Saturday, Tatum helped implement Power of Produce (Pop) Club at the Uptown Marion Market. Power of Produce is a fun opportunity to engage 5-12 year old children in the farmer’s market. Each child received 3 “PoP Bucks” that they could spend on fruit or vegetables at the market. Each child also had the opportunity to plant a pot of bush beans to take home and try radishes with homemade ranch. There was a great turnout with over 30 children between the ages of 5 and 12.
Right: Setting up the POP Club booth at the Uptown Marion Market.
We traveled back to the Happy Time Child Development Center to teach the kids about carrots on Monday. We started by reading Creepy Carrots! by Aaron Reynolds, and then we made some carrots of our own, not creepy, of course, out of pipe cleaners. The kids then had a fun time taste-testing carrots and using their five senses to describe the carrot. We ended with a motion activity, and the kids had a blast pretending they were carrots that were ready to be picked.
Tuesday, we set out early to the Jane Boyd Community House to do some programming with Kindergarten-3rd graders. We had fun talking about what a seed needs to grow and then had the opportunity to help the kids plant their garden. We planted various vegetables such as tomatoes, beets, kale, and peppers while talking about what some of our favorite vegetables were to eat. We also talked about the importance of physical activity in addition to eating fruits and vegetables, and each kid had a turn rolling the activity dice. The group then completed the amount and exercise that were on the dice. One of our favorite parts of programming is the taste test and getting to see all of the kids’ different reactions. Today we tried sugar snap peas that we purchased at the Uptown Marion Market. We explained to kids how this particular vegetable is a seed you can eat and showed them how to break off the part connected to the vine, and then gave them the chance to use their five senses to describe it while trying it. The kids then voted on the peas with their thumbs, using the familiar loved it, liked it, tried it voting system. The peas were a hit with many of the kids, and they told us they were going to ask their parents to get some at home, which was awesome to hear.
Wednesday was a busy day as we were in both Linn and Benton counties. We started the morning in Linn county at the College Community School District’s grab-and-go meal program. We had a great time meeting with those taking advantage of this wonderful resource and also took the time to hand out 280 activity sheets and homemade ranch kits for vegetable dipping. We always have a blast getting outside and into the community, especially when the weather is as nice as it has been this week. We had a relaxing lunch break and then set off to Benton county to help with fair prep. The afternoon was spent helping to make different posters and putting our craft skills to the test to make award plaques for livestock class winners.
Thursday morning we headed out on the road to meet the Rollin’ Rec Mobile at Time Check Park in Cedar Rapids. We were able to hand out some of the Watch Me Grow kits we made at the start of the internship and also had a temporary tattoo station set up for the kids. When it wasn’t busy, we took part in some of the fun activities the Rollin’ Rec Mobile had to offer, and we even took the chance to show off our hula-hooping skills. We decided to get out of the office for lunch and headed down the road to Chick-fil-A to enjoy their always delicious chicken nuggets and fries. We finished out the afternoon completing some tasks around the office and getting the rest of the spinach kits ready to be handed out at upcoming events.
On Friday, the Linn County office was filled with great hustle and bustle as everyone is working on getting all of the last-minute details and tasks finalized and finished for the fair. Much of the morning was spent getting everything packed and loaded into vehicles to be taken to the fairgrounds later in the afternoon. We are super excited to help with the fair this year and have the chance to present the food insecurity project we have been updating as well.
Catch us next week at both the Benton and Linn County Fairs taking place June 22-27 and June 23-27, respectively.
– Tatum and Maelyn