For April we focused on farming and the Farmer’s Market. In S.E.S.E., we discovered how our food travels from ‘Farm to Fridge’, looking closely at what happens to milk once it has been milked from a cow, and the role of the farmer. We enjoyed learning about baby animals and identifying them just by listening to the sounds they make. We designed our own farms and the animals we would keep on our farms.
In Art, the Juniors were inspired by the American artist Grant Wood to create pictures of a farm house and their rolling hills. The children used oil pastels to draw the outlines and create different patterns in each section of the picture and then used watercolour paints to add colour to the backgrounds. We also had fun using chalk pastels to draw very colourful roosters which we loved displaying in our classroom. In Literacy, we listened to the story ‘The Pig in the Pond’ and thought of our own ideas for cooling down the pig including a cold shower, a giant fan and rolling in the mud.
To continue their learning, the Juniors completed lots of play activities. To start the theme, we used different Playdough mats to make lots of different animals and plants we could find on the farm. They even made a farmer and their packed lunch! In Construction, the children used Lego and Mag-snaps to build sheds and shelters for all of the animals on the farm. For Small World, the children had to place the animals, fences and farming equipment into the Farm and Farm House, and chose to make a vegetable patch, pig field and a large paddock for all of the horses. For this month, the Role Play Area was set up as a Farmer’s Market with lots of different stalls selling fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs, jam, honey and flowers. The children enjoyed weighing their fresh produce to work out how much they had to pay at the till. We also took on the roll of farmer, bringing on our products at the start of the day and setting them up on the stalls. To finish our theme, we worked as a team to complete different jigsaw puzzles of the farm and vegetables.
