Growing up you always knew what a John Deere tractor was. They were green and yellow, and were the sight I associated with farmers. As we work our way through United States geography, I’m sometimes surprised by where people are from. Since John Deere is so clearly associated with tractors and farming, I assumed he HAD to be from somewhere in the breadbasket of the United States. No, John Deere is from Vermont but he did move to farming country eventually, so he became part of our Vermont geography lessons (and a small US history lesson).
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Supplies needed for the John Deere lesson
Tractor book, The Way I Heard It podcast, Episode 92 Sharp as a Tack (scroll down a bit to find it), Vermont printable (going to hide on the subscriber page soon), coloring supplies (we like pipsqueak markers)
The big deal about John Deere
I’m sure you’re thinking, it’s a tractor, what’s the big deal?
It actually didn’t start as a tractor, it started as a plow. Every day he saw the farmers complain about the mud and how hard it was to plow. You’d get a few feet and then the mud would be caked on, so you had to stop and clean your plow before you could continue. You could force the plow, but then you ended up with a broken plow.
John Deere figured out a better plow.
Our John Deere lesson
Well after reading all about tractors and talking about John Deere and his plans to make farmers lives better, we all went to the table and designed our own wonder-invention.
It was amusing to see what all they came up with.
This is Superman’s (in the picture above), his invention helps you get corn. That’s the farmer riding inside of the corn growing machine.
A quick and simple lesson to go with our Vermont unit study, and now I’m off to enjoy some corn, that was not picked or grown with Superman’s machine.
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First published December 11, 2011, so long ago…
I think it's pretty cool that you decided to study John Deere for VT 🙂 Did you know that we live SO close to VT? We can almost say we're Vermonters! I have family who live there.
At my husband's family's farm, John Deere is the equipment of choice…those big green tractors can't be beat!!
Superman's picture is hilarious! You have fabulously creative kids!!!
We actually have about 5 John Deere books…seriously…some are board books, others are stories featuring Johnny Tractor.
How neat. And, I still have the RI stuff…..ugh!
What an imagination. My question is where at in the corn making machine did the man sit?
Count me in as one who learned something new today. I've always associated John Deere with the Midwest. I had no idea he was raised in Vermont. In high school I shadowed a female mechanical engineer that worked for John Deere. I learned all about their backhoes.
Gosh they were so small back then <3
I know, as I’ve been going back and updating some of these old posts, it’s amazing how little they are!