Whether you are planning to have lots of kids at your meeting or just a few, make sure that you plan something fun! Giving them all the information for the year on the first night is tempting but it’s not fun or exciting for the kids. They would much rather work on a craft project or play a game.
Since it’s the first meeting of the year, you’ll want to start out with introductions and a little fact finding. It’s a good time to ask about everyone’s horse experience. You’ll hear everything from “I rode a horse at a birthday party once” to “I’ve been taking lessons every week for 2 years.” It’s good to have some idea right away so that you have a better idea of how to plan your meetings. You can also ask the kids what they would like to learn because they might have ideas that you hadn’t thought of.
Since you don’t know how much time that each family has to spend with horses, hand out an information sheet that the parents can fill out while you’re working with the kids. They can let you know how much time they are willing to commit to the horseless horse project. Some parents will be willing to go to all lengths to make sure their child gets a great learning experience but some don’t want to be bothered and will only want to put in a few hours a month. Anything extra may be too much for them.
For the educational portion of the first meeting, we like to talk about basic horse parts and explain why it’s important to know the proper names. If the horse they’re using or a friend’s horse is sick or hurt, they’ll be able to more easily tell a vet what’s wrong and understand what the vet is telling them.
You can find lots of free resources online to help with this one. You can find simple drawings that show basic parts to more detailed ones that are a little more in-depth and show the lesser known body parts.
Ending the Meeting with a Horse Related Craft Project
A great way to end the meeting is by doing a horse related craft project. This horse collage project is easy, even for the youngest kids. For the kids who are a little older, they can get really creative and try to choose pictures with specific colors. The younger kids just need to cut and glue.