Greeted by Santa as they stepped off the school bus, North Bend Elementary kindergartners spent a morning at Crown Tree Farm last week, measuring and learning about the many different types of trees.

Incorporating math and science, kindergartners from Mary-Lee Johnson and Andrea Stein’s morning kindergarten classes drew outlines of their own foot to measure trees smaller, bigger and the same size as them.

“We have been learning about measurement and why we need to know how to measure things,” Stein said.

Using their personal measuring tools to check the height of a tree, the pupils then put their own feet — heel-to-toe — to see how many feet around a tree was.

Accompanying moms and dads recorded how many feet each tree was for each child.

After measuring trees, the children hunted for treasures such as tree cookies, special pieces of branches, pieces of wood and interesting rocks.

“We’ll bring those back to the classroom, and in the afternoon, we’ll use little magnifying glasses to study the treasure,” Stein added.

Tree farmer Marty Kester also educated kindergartners about tree varieties, what climate certain trees grow in, how they’re grown, how they make oxygen and how they’re good for everybody.

North Bend Elementary has been taking the field trip to Crown Tree Farm for the past four years.

Crown Tree Farm was first opened by Maisie Davis, who planted the first trees in 1978. She opened the farm to sales in 1984 and has been running it with her daughter Mary and son-in-law Marty Kester ever since.