April Showers – Lambs, Potatoes, Felling trees in our wood…
This program looks at April’s seasonal changes and happenings in the countryside, and down on the farm, a bit like the saying April Showers we see a cascade of new life and sowing for future new life.
Lambing – Follow lambing on Oliver’s Farm where we see lots of new born lambs and the work involved in looking after all these new lives, which involves both experienced shepherds and fresh, enthusiastic young shepherds.
Planting Potatoes – We see the first school visits of the year to Stockbridge Technology Centre and see the children and their teachers busy planting potatoes and wild flowers.
Return to wood for tree felling– Andrew Harrison explains why he is felling trees in Primrose Wood, we return a month later to see the effect.
Download teachers notes for this section –
Teachers Notes 29 April 2013
NATIONAL CURRICULUM SUBJECTS LINKS.
Citizenship KS 1 + 2
E.g. Shows how farmers look after animals as they give birth, and how the young must and new mothers must be looked after very carefully using both experience and new enthusiasm
Relevant QCA Schemes of Work
Unit 3 Animals and Us
Design and Technology KS 1 + 2
Looks how farmers use modern technology to grow crops and provide fresh 5-a-day produce
Relevant QCA Schemes of Work
Unit 1c Eat More Fruit and Vegetables
Science KS 1 + 2
The videos have lots of science links to the units listed below for example:
Shows the start of plants life cycles and what parts of a plant we use and harvest. Looks at how we can help bees so important to many of the plant food crops we rely on
Some of machinery could be used to discuss pushes and pulls.
Relevant QCA Schemes of Work
Unit 1B. Growing plants.
Unit 1E Pushes and Pulls.
Unit 2A Health and Grow.
Unit 2B Plants and Animals.
Unit 3B. Helping plants grow well.
Unit 4B Habitats.
Unit 5B. Life cycles.
Unit 6A Interdependence and adaptation.
These are just the links we thought of – please let us know if you make any more!
ECO SCHOOL TOPIC LINKS
With apologies if we are ‘teaching grandma to suck eggs’ here are some of our thoughts on how our videos link to the Eco School Topics.
Showing pupils just which of their food products are grown in this country will give them important background knowledge when discussing transport, energy and global perspective of food production and the healthy living choices they make when they go to the shops.
Energy
- Growing food and the associated energy costs of buying home grown food or imported food
Water
- Use of water to grow plants
Biodiversity
- How growing a bee larder can help school, garden and local biodiversity
School grounds
- How the simple act of planting some wild flowers can help with the design and creation of new features in your school grounds
Healthy living
- How growing your own produce can promote healthy living by promoting a healthy diet and also promoting exercise in the act of growing that produce. The improvement of school ground can also aid mental well being.
Transport
- Reduce transport costs of food by growing your own local produce.
Litter
- When carrying out gardening tasks introduce children to tidy habits – pick up all packaging and dispose of ‘thoughtfully’ – see waste
- When outside be it school, garden or countryside “Take only photos Leave only footprints!”
Waste
- Explain that gardening and farming is and always has been synonymous with recycling. Re-use seed trays, compost is made from last years ‘recycled’ plants. Think twice abut where to put litter – bin or recycle?
Global citizenship
- Explain how even the little things we do – where how food comes from, how much we recycle, our biodiversity, can affect the whole world be it good or bad!