What To Grow
Objective:
Getting children familiar with what they are eating, how many different
fruit and vegetables they normally consume and the variety that exists
in their diets.
Activity:
Keeping a diary of food from the previous day and build it for a week
as homework. Count the number of different food types to get an
idea of the spread in volume of what they are eating.
Objective:
When children are clear of the relevance of fruit and vegetables, it
is important that they can learn about different types through sight,
smell, taste and texture.
Activity:
Buy a selection of fresh fruit and vegetables and get children excited
by them through pictures, poems or songs. When interest is high,
ask children with eyes shut, to handle them and say how they feel, smell
and guess what they are. Get them to take a close look and then
taste them, eating slowly and describing the taste. Homework could
involve getting them to draw and describe their favourites.
Objective:
What shall we grow to eat?
Activity:
Based on the above exercise, children should suggest what vegetables
they would like to grow. The class should discuss each choice
based on “Do we like it? Is it very good for us? Can
we grow it? How can we eat it – is it delicious and easy to prepare?".
If each answer is positive, it goes into a shortlist from where a final
choice is made.
Objectives:
With final selections made on which vegetables to grow, it's time to
make the children "crop experts" that gives them motivation and creates
"class memory".
Activity:
Using the vegetable fact sheets
on our website, ask questions about the positive and negative growing
conditions for each type selected for growing, how it should be looked
after and how to harvest it, etc.
