animal kindness

We have two amazing school mascots at The Strawberry Patch!  Cato is a ten and a half year old lab mix, who has been raised in the preschool since he was 8 weeks old. Zoe is a nine year old Bernese Mountain Dog, who has also been raised at the preschool since she was 9 weeks old.  Both Cato and Zoe are older, and spend most of their day sleeping on their beds, but still love attention from kids and families.  We also raise chickens!  Chickens are silly, lovable, animals.  The kids can give them treats, or scraps from our meals, observe egg collection, and spend outside time watching them live happy lives through our backyard fence. 

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Learning to be kind to animals is a huge part of our program.  Even if kids begin the school year with some fear of large dogs, all of the children quickly realize how friendly they are, and have the opportunity to learn how to interact kindly with animals.  We do not raise chicks every year, but when we do the chicks live inside the school for seven weeks.  This time gives us an amazing hands-on experience studying the life cycle of chickens in real time.