Today Year 2 from Sedgeberrow C of E First School came out to the farm and their topic was Islands. I started the morning asking the children to tell me about Islands, they described blue seas, yellow sand and coconut trees. I then asked them to name a food they eat. We then discussed whether the food they had named could be produced on our island. We discovered that many of the foods we eat can be sourced from the UK.

I then showed them a world map and pointed out the island of Iceland. We could see that it was surrounded by sea and close to the largest island Greenland and the North Pole. In groups, the children looked at an annotated map of Iceland. They learnt that in olden times the people living on Iceland had to largely rely on the food the island provided, which included beef and dairy cows, sheep, fish, whales, sharks, reindeer and even puffins. These foods are still consumed today as it is very expensive to transport food to Iceland. 

We then talked about the seasons and we went on an Autumnal nature hunt. The children, each with a bag, collected an amazing array of flowers, seeds, feathers, berries and leaves. At the end of the farm walk we went into the cow shed and the children were asked to use the collected items to create a picture of something to do with Iceland. The children showed great imagination as they made pictures of waterfalls, artic foxes, volcanoes, seals and a hot water outdoor swimming pool.

Over lunch the children tried Skyr yoghurt, an Icelandic staple. 

During the time in the play wood, a few of the children enjoyed finding cones which had fallen off the tree and those cones which had been nibbled by squirrels and other small mammals. 

 

A waterfall