Exploring harvest time (our word of the week – harvest)

We try and introduce the children to new vocabulary. Having a wide-ranging vocabulary is beneficial throughout life and is particularly relevant as children move through the education system.

Over the last two weeks we have been exploring the word ‘harvest’ and what this means. The children explored a small world farm scene which had been set up in one of our large tuff trays. This included typical farm animals, alongside lots of natural resources, including conkers, lavender, grass, sticks, sawdust. The children discussed what happens on a farm and in particular what happens during harvest.

Having explored the small world resources, we decided to do some real life harvesting. The children set off on a walk to the local field where there are some apple trees. They wore their high-vis jackets and carried their baskets to collect what they found. On the way they learnt about keeping safe on the roads and how they must always stop, look and listen and hold an adult’s hand when near the road.

Once they arrived at the field they found that only one apple tree had any apples left, the other’s having been pruned ready for next year. This introduced another new word ‘prune’. Luckily, the one tree that was left had an abundance of apples, which the children eagerly picked and loaded into their baskets.

Once safely back at the Pre-school, the children learnt that they needed to wash the apples to get rid of any insects or pesticides which may be on the apples. They then used the children’s safety knives to chop them up and then they got to taste them.

In the afternoon, they went on to use the chopped apples to make a delicious apple crumble, learning about what ingredients were needed, how to weigh and measure the correct amount and waiting in anticipation (not always easy for little ones) while the crumble cooked in the oven, remembering that only grown-ups use the oven because it’s hot!

People who help us

In Wren Room we have a display of ‘people who help us’. This includes all sorts of people and occupations. The children looked at the pictures and then thought about all the people who help them in their lives. These included our ‘mummies’, ‘daddies’, ‘shop people’, ‘builders who fix things’ and, of course, ‘our teachers’.

We have lots of lovely materials for the children to create their own outfits, alongside some ‘occupation’ outfits, one of which is a firefighter. One of the children was very keen to dress in this outfit as his dad is a firefighter. This led to the next activity in which the children used spray bottles to ‘put out fires’. This involved spraying a chalked image of a fire on a tuff tray. This activity helps to strengthen their arm and hand muscles, as well as being good fun. They extended the activity by chalking their own fires and putting them out again. Using the tuff trays to drawer gave them an opportunity to make marks on a big scale. This involves them using all of the muscles in their shoulder, arm and fingers, thereby helping them develop their fine motor skills.

Finally, the children talked about how they would deal with a real life emergency. They decided that they should ‘call on your phone’ and ‘on 999’. Clever children.

Samantha Aitchison/Donna Gifford
Joint Childcare Managers