The Little Farm Hands project is teaming up with the Sherburne History Center, Sherburne Soil and Water District and the Farm Friends Barn Project at the 2014 Sherburne County Fair, July 17-20.  They will be operating a booth on the west side of the Commercial Building that will feature a life-sized faux milking machine for fairgoers willing to try their hand at old-fashioned milk collection, along with the 4-H/FFB corn maze for those who just want to get lost.

 

 The Farm Friends Barn (Donations always welcome) will have activity stations to provide a fun educational experience that will give families with young children an opportunity to make positive farm memories at the fair.

 

 Playing at the stations lets children learn about farming, agriculture and food.  Each station provides different facts and hands-on activities, but the underlying message is:  “Farmers are important because they are responsible for producing the food we eat and the products we depend on.”

 

Hands-on activities teach that food comes from the farm.  Harvesting produce in baskets

 

Is one of the simplest ways for kids to learn.  There will also be apple trees ready for picking, a potato patch for digging in the sand for real potatoes and a hen house where stuffed chickens cackle and cluck while kids gather plastic eggs.

 

The three different hands-on activities in this station teach the every-day importance of corn in our lives.  They will include a corn “Plinko” game for dropping pucks labeled as corn products into matching spaces, a corn bag toss for getting matching bags into product boxes to reinforce the “Corn is Everywhere” message, and a “corn box” (like a sandbox, but with corn) that will let kids see, feel and play with the grain as they operate toy tractors in it.