Getting each other’s goats

Andrew Edwards

The three Rs have been the cornerstones of elementary school classes

for decades.

At Golden View Elementary School, however, children can escape

from their desks and learn about another set of Rs -- rabbits,

roosters and a slice of rural life in Orange County.

Monday morning, students in Deborah Salcido’s fourth-grade class

headed out of their classroom and stepped onto the muddy ground of

Golden View’s Student Environmental Learning Facility, a place where

rabbits and roosters -- not to mention several ducks, geese and

chickens -- roam freely.

The Student Environmental Learning Facility, known simply as “the

farm” to the kids who feed the animals and rake the leaves, is a

place where young students learn about plants and animals. Teachers,

meanwhile, can make a variety of classes more interesting by adding

some fun to the lesson plan.

Children in math classes come out to measure growing plants and

can be taught phonics by naming the animals, Principal Karan Spane

said.

Students learning what an “r” sounds like can go to the farm where

“they learn that Reggie Rooster is there,” Spane said.

But for the average fourth-grader, educational strategies are not

quite as interesting as the farm’s new star attractions, a pair of

three-month-old pygmy goats named Lilo and Stitch.

For many in the class, giving the skittish goats their meal of

grain and alfalfa was one of the day’s highlights, but it wasn’t as

easy as it might sound. As the children approached the animals, Marti

Lambright, the instructional assistant at the farm, told children how

to approach the goats without frightening them.

“Kneel down, crouch down again,” she advised the children, who

crouched in a line to offer Lilo and Stitch their food.

Lambright’s advice worked, and the gray and white goats, seemingly

hyperactive just moments earlier, were eating out of the class’

hands.

“I pet it,” yelled fourth-grader Samara Gilman.

Feeding the goats was only the beginning of the class’ activities.

Children assigned to feed the farm’s many rabbits were quickly

surrounded by hungry chickens pecking the ground for rabbit pellets.

Another job on the farm is to take care of growing vegetables.

Salcido’s students are raising a bed of carrots, radishes and

cilantro. Once grown, the students plan to add the vegetables to

their dinners.

“[We] take them home and we eat them after we wash them,” said

fourth-grader Justin Charboneau.

Classmate Brandon Wolfe explained why they had to wash the

vegetables.

“So we don’t eat dirt,” he said.

As much as Golden View students enjoy the farm, there are plans to

make it even better. The school is in the process of adding a pond,

and Spane is on the lookout to add even more animals.

“I think we want to get some pigs,” she said.

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers education and crime. He can be reached at

(714) 965-7177, (949) 494-4321 or mike.swanson@latimes.com.