Project 105: Harvest Festival

As it had been the Harvest Festival service at the cathedral at the beginning of the week (Sunday 22nd September), it seemed a good opportunity for a harvest project: being thankful for the food we have, thinking about where it comes from, and how plants grow.

We considered where some of the foods we have in the cupboard came from, and marked them off on a map. Unsurprisingly, following the recent project work on the environment (Project 99: The Earth), there was a lot of discussion of food miles. The children were far happier than the adults with the suggestion that we should stop buying coffee!

Mapping some of our food miles

We also looked more closely at the growing of plants and the topic of DNA, following some videos and worksheets on extracting DNA from some strawberries. We had first tried extracting DNA from an onion, back in Solomon's first year (Project 35: Biology), but the strawberry experiment was much more successful.

Extracting strawberry DNA

We worked through the Junior Illustrated Science Dictionary and the KS1 Science Revision Guide on the parts of plants and pollination, revisiting some of the work that had been covered in Project 80: Plants and Flowers. Finally we dug up some of the carrots and parsnips that had been planted in the plants and flowers project.

Harvesting our own vegetables

Next week's project: Boy -Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl.