George Wolf Elementary School first-grade students have adopted a calf named Sara.

Teacher Melissa Stone was surfing the web when she came across an advertisement from Discovery Dairy on how to adopt a calf. What caught Stone’s attention was the adoption process would involve the participation of a school’s classroom.

Stone teaches with Jennifer Horn, another first-grade teacher, and knew Horn’s love for animals and shared her find. Horn began the adoption process with her first-grade class.

Sara the calf is a heifer, a female, and was born Sept. 27, 2020, and came up for adoption. She was born in Berks County at Zahncroft Dairy. Sara weighed 93 pounds at birth.

Horn began to incorporate Sara into her classroom lessons.

“Sara is a Holstein breed calf. Holsteins are dairy cattle,” Horn said.

Stone and Horn taught first-grade students about the importance of farmers and farming. In addition, students learned how cheese, butter, yogurt and whipped cream are made from cow’s milk. Agriculture and nutrition formed part of the lesson plans and student activities.

With a laugh, Horn said, “I also teach the students that pink or chocolate milk do not come from pink or chocolate cows.”

First-graders did writing assignments about Sara. Since adopting Sara to the classroom, the students enthusiastically treat Sara as a classroom pet.

Part of Horn’s planned classroom curriculum was a field trip to the Berks County farm with the class to visit Sara. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic put a halt on that trip. Videos and extra materials were sent from the dairy farm to keep students connected to Sara.