Rural Iowa : Skype Follow-up!

On May 20, 2011, Mrs. Yollis' class Skyped with Mrs. Pearson's class in Iowa. Their rural town was very different from a California suburb.

We did a follow-up Skype call with Mrs. Pearson. She sent us these wonderful pictures so the class could better understand what some parts of Iowa look like.

Iowa is a Great Plains state and as you can see, is very flat.

This corn was planted in early May. Mr. Pearson hopes it will be "thigh high by the Fourth of July."

These are grain elevators.

The grain bins can hold anywhere from 30,000 bushels to 700,000 bushels.  The white elevator in the picture currently holds about 500,000 bushels.

This is some farm equipment. In our social studies book this would be called capital investment. 

Here are some notes we took while learning:

1.Today we are skyping with Mrs. Pearson from Iowa.

2.They make corn and wheat and they sell it, so animals can eat it.

3.They don’t have air conditioning in their schoo,l and we do.

4.Their market is very small and expensive.

5.Walmart and Target are 16 miles away.

 6.They only have hogs on their farm.

7.Farmers sell their stuff that they produce on their farms.

8.There are NO sleds allowed at their school because it is too dangerous!

9.If it is below 0 degrees they stay inside for recess and lunch.

10.For fun, you might go camping and ride their horses.

 11.The favorite school foods are pizza and chill casitas. Some kids have brunch for lunch.

12.They don’t take spring break, but we do.

13.They sled in the winter, swim, golf, play, baseball in the summers. Sometimes they go to musical theater.

14.Their dad is the coach, so he gives his son a little advantage.

15.They have between 300-350 hogs in their farm.

16.The hogs weigh about 12-85 pounds.

17.They are about three weeks when they get them.

18.They have more males than females they think.

19.Their state bird is the gold finch.

20.Their dog is spoiled, and it is their favorite animal.  :-)

21.Their favorite movies are the Harry Potters and Toy Story.

22.Their farm is VERY FLAT!
Everyone says bye!

This week, we got a surprise box from Mrs. Pearson!

 Inside was a fabulous orange shirt that says IOWA on it, a bag of corn from the Pearson's farm, a beautiful magazine about Iowa,  some real Iowa dirt!

Everyone took a a few kernels home as a souvenir! 


Look at the difference! Here is the dark rich Iowa soil compared to our local soil, which has a lot of clay in it!

Who can tell us what a bushel is?

Do you have any farm questions for the Pearsons?