Thursday 29^th September 2016

The Allotment Project

 

As the autumn starts to peep around the corner, it is time for us to start digging and begin work on creating our allotment plot! Of course if you look back in our blog you will see that we started to dig the plot over in July….but just look at what happened over the summer!! Goes to show what a warm September can do for plant growth…and weeds!!

 

 

 

 

All of class 4 worked so hard to dig over the plot.

We found lots of mini-beasts along the way and it was wonderful how there were so many comments on the root systems of the plants we were unearthing. We had to work out which strategy would be best for digging up which weeds! We didn’t like the tap roots or the runners particularly. A lovely, hands on way to learn a science thread and put it into context.

 

By the end of the day we had managed to clear a good proportion of the plot. I think we have about the same again to unearth and then we can start designing our allotment to keep it as maintenance free as possible.

Friday 2^nd September 2016

Horticulture! Now there is a technical word to look up! Time really flies in the horticultural world and here we are once again back at school and eager to start on the second part of our garden project! As you can see there have been developments over the summer holidays. Almost immediately we have had a harvest of tomatoes and courgettes (or marrows!) We have now sold our produce to Adnams who have turned this yummy crop into meals and preserves. Hopefully we might be able to convince them to come and help us make some preserves with our crops from the allotment!

 

Our next job is to tackle the two beds at the side of the school! Lots of problem solving for us to tackle here! In DT/Science we will me investigating how to solve two problems. Have a close up look at the pictures and the soil in particular...can you guess what the problems are?

 

Thursday 22^nd September 2016

Vegetables R Us

Siobhan (from the Adnams project) came in to work with us today! What a useful day it was! We have made so much progress building our business.

Today Siobhan helped us all to think about our strengths and the roles we might like to play in our ‘Vegetables R Us’ project. Towards the end of the session we divided into groups and started to work on aspects such as marketing, communication, quality assurance and planning.

We have pupils working specifically on a business logo. We have other pupils who are starting to develop the skills they will need to market our produce and communicate with our market. We also have pupils who will look at ‘market research’ to ensure we target Adnams with the produce they are going to need to maximise our profits. We even have a group of accountants!

The Allotment Project

Today has been a good day for our allotment project too. We have been so lucky to gain the help of several companies and charities who have kindly sponsored us with goods and grants in response to letters that we wrote ourselves in literacy sessions. Sponsorship so far:

# Fiskars – In reply to a letter from Jessica we received a large box filled with brightly coloured spades, rakes, shovels and brushes. These are a superb set of tools that will make gardening so much easier and efficient for the pupils,

 

 

# Mr Fothergills – Who kindly replied and sent to us a large pack of seed and brochure and garden planning sheet. This will prove really useful to get us up and running into the autumn and next spring,

 

# Felix Cobbold Trust – In response to a letter from Charlie in year 5 they have offered us a grant of £700 that will go towards renovating the poly tunnel very kindly donated by Alison and hopefully the purchase of a tool shed and further material for raised beds,

 

# Wyevale Garden Centres – Alexis is our contact with Wyevale after a letter she sent to their manager drew an offer of support. So far Wyevale have been wonderful and provided us with a water butt filled with useful tools and pots. They have also VERY kindly donated a whole pallet of compost which we will be able to use to bring at least two more beds into production in the spring,

 

# The Wenhaston Allotment Association and Wenhaston Garden Association loved our letters and pledged any support they can offer. Their support will be invaluable as we look for advice and help in nurturing our vegetables!

Wednesday 5^th July

 

The Great Wenhaston Harvest!

Well what an exciting few weeks it has been with the garden project! Several of the children had replies to their letters asking for support. Jessica had an amazing response from Fiskars who sent the pupils a whole array of rakes, brushes and spades in the liveliest of colours!

In class we continued to make the most of cross curricular links. Just before the harvest the children in class three counted their crop. With a little research online they found the prices of chard, lettuce and courgettes and were able to multiply (even using decimals!) to try and work out their profit.

Mr Fothergills seeds also sent us a seed pack and a seed catalogue for next year. The children in class 3 were able to practise their ‘data interpretation’ skills to work out exactly what we could grow on during the winter and how much it would cost to buy the seeds they needed. They also learned how to work out the area of our beds and how division could help us to find out how many crops we could grow…and hence which would be the best to plant!

Now the big day has arrived! Our lettuces, chard and courgettes look AMAZING! Everyone has worked so hard to look after them; keeping them watered when dry, side shooting, picking out the snails and slugs and even making scarecrows to deter the pigeons from nibbling!

Although the weather wasn’t great, we set to work carefully pulling up and cutting our produce, making sure not to damage them!

 



Here we are with Siobhan; discussing about a plan of action!




Wow! The tomatoes are beginning to form! In science we have learned all about pollination, now we can really see it as it happens!!

Phoebe and Frankie have just cut these beautiful Italian lettuces! We had to pack them quickly as in no time at all a plant without roots will start to wilt.

Siobhan is helping us to collect the harvest! Yet more science here as we have to INSULATE our box to keep the vegetables cool and crisp until they reach their destination!

We discovered that the stalk of the chard plant is edible in stir fries. Not only did we sell the leaves to Adnams, we sold the stalks too!

Ty...very proudly holding on to one of our amazing lettuces. Class 3 have done SO well to grow them so large and lush!

 

How many more lettuces do we have! WOW!!!



Here we are carefully trimming the roots. Adnams would like well presented vegetables!

 

All our lettuces fitted into one, giant, well insulated freezer box!



 

We carefully counted and c catalogued our produce. They were then carefully packed off in freezer boxes (we can do some science on insulation there!) and packed into Siobhan’s car. Their onwards journey will take them to an Adnams pub in Southwold where they will be prepared as fresh ingredients to feed the paying public. Our reward will be a payment into our ‘Garden project’ fund and a first sale for ‘Vegetables R us’! Well done to all the pupils who have put in SO much effort to produce our first crop….now we start all over again….watch this space!



Finally into the car and off to 'The Crown' in Southwold!

Wednesday 25th May 2016

What a busy gardening day we have had today! We started the morning with a competition to design a company logo and slogan for our ‘food for thought business’, Vegetables R us! The winning designs from Marly and Barnaby are very colourful and thoughtful! Jessica also came up with a superb slogan for our company using her knowledge of rhyme….

 

 

 

 

 

But the learning didn’t stop there! Before we could plant our lettuces today we needed to count them! As they were in trays 3x9, we had to use our knowledge of multiplication and arrays to work out how many lettuces we SHOULD have! Unfortunately several had been eaten so we then had to subtract a few.

Our next job was to estimate the spacing between our lettuces. The class decided to do this by drawing a circle to represent a fully grow lettuce. We then had to measure the circles diameter. Some of the year 4 pupils suggested we should then draw a square around our circle; we could then work out our spacing. Some of the class also worked out the perimeter of the square around each lettuce.

Still there was more maths! By measuring the beds, some of the year 4’s were able to work out how many lettuces we could grow by working out the area of the beds and dividing it by the area of each ‘lettuce square’.

I think you will agree, the whole class worked hard in their maths session today, yet everybody gave it 100% and were clearly enjoying the challenge of 'practical maths' using all the skills we have been learning in lessons.

                                            

Finally we set about planting our lettuces! Finally we stood back to admire our efforts. What a wonderful way to put: area, perimeter, multiplication, division and diameter all into a clear and meaningful context! By the end of the session there were even murmurs of; ‘that lesson was awesome’….the power of Veg!

We did find a few problems in the garden today! Firstly our courgettes looked very poorly compared with the second batch we set as seeds. We decided to replace the old courgettes with the new. This did give us a chance to did up the plants and try and work out what went wrong! We think that maybe they didn't get enough water. What do you think?

 

We had hoped to plant beetroot in one of the side beds today. When we started to dig, we noticed that the soil was VERY hard to turn over. That's when one of the children spotted the roots! They had 'taken over' the bed from a nearby tree. Can you see the dark blob on the photo on the left? This is a blob of fresh compost. The rest of the soil in the bed is so sandy and sticky, we don't think there will be any nutrients for our plants left in it! I think we are going to need some volunteers to dig it out and add fresh compost.





Finally we have a completed set of raised beds!!!

 

Tuesday 24th May 2016

Our contract for the allotment arrived today! We now have a big, open space to grow lots of good, wholesome food for our school. As you can see, we are going to have to put on our long trousers and take a scythe with us to chop down the jungle that has grown. Hopefully there are no elephants hiding in the long grass! However ..........

....there ARE lots of wildflowers growing there. As a part of our science we have been investigating the structure of plants so when we do have to dig over our plot, there will be a wonderful opportunity to study the growth of plants beneath the soil! We are also investigating pollination so maybe we can just sit quietly and watch which insects visit our wild flowers before removing them! Weeds are plants too, just growing in the wrong place!

 

The allotments at Wenhaston are SO well cared for. Look at all the lovely rows of plants in the plots beyond ours. No pressure class 3 but I think we need to get cracking before we unintentionally create a 'Wenhaston Rainforest'!

 

Wednesday 4^th May 2016

Finally the big day had arrived! Another milestone in our garden project as some of our seedlings had grown large enough to plant out into our new, raised beds. Here are our tomatoes! We wanted to plant a mixture of different colours. Our first job was to identify which tomatoes were which. The outdoor ‘bush’ tomatoes have large, solid pointy leaves, a bit like those on a potato. The ‘sungold’ tomatoes have ‘feathery’ leaves. Have a look at our picture, could you classify them and work out which are which?! Look closely!!

In science we had been investigating different root structures. Today we had to use our knowledge of roots to decide whether to pull up our weeds with our hands or whether we would need to dig down to remove the ‘tap roots’ to stop them from growing back. Aren't weeds clever?! What do you think we did with the weeds in the pictures? Of course weeds are plants too, just growing in the wrong place for us at the wrong time!

 

Once all of the stones were removed we set about adding compost. This would be the food that our plants feed on to grow strong and healthy along with plenty of sunshine and water. This was a great chance for us to talk about ‘microbes’ in science and how they help to break down ‘organic’ mater. Imagine a world with no microbes? We also had the chance to practise our measures in maths. Can you see how much soil there was in each bag? We had to do some estimating to work out how much soil we would need for all of the raised beds!

 

 The maths didn’t stop there. Next we needed to count our seedlings (in 4’s, so a great chance to practise the 4 times table!) We then had to measure and mark out our bed to ensure that each plant had enough space to grow. In science we learned why this is important. Why do you think plants need lots of space to grow? We could fit more plants in if we squished them all together! Good idea or bad?

 

Once we had set all of our seedlings we had to water them in well. We saw what happened to weeds in science if you don’t water them properly! Like us…too much or too little is not a good idea for the long term health of a plant!
 

 

Hopefully this week we will be able to finish planting our crops…we still have chard and courgettes to set in the rear beds. Next stop...the allotment! Watch this space!!

Tuesday 12th April 2016

 

They say that great minds think alike, but what a coincidence when the school were looking to develop their own garden as a portal for learning, that along came Adnams of Southwold with a proposal!

 

Developing a garden is a great way to maximise learning in a purposeful context. Adnams added an extra spin to open up yet more doors to learning! Why not develop a garden and use it to start a small business, selling your produce back to Adnams to provide fresh, local food in their outlets? We were all ears as the learning potential began to unfurl before us!

 

So it began.....

 

 

With the help of Siobhan (Adnams representative) and the Year 6 pupils we took a bare patch of land, dug it over and created....

 



raised beds!

 

This proved to be a great opportunity to practise measuring skills. We also looked at area and capacity/volume to try and work out how much compost we were going to need! When fixing the beds together, the Year 6 pupils also had to measure their angles to ensure that each of the corners were squared...plus lots of practical opportunities for applying calculations when sorting and organising screws and attachments. We had a limited supply of wood, so there was a wonderful opportunity for mathematical problem solving as we worked out how to maximise the space with the lengths of wood that we had at our disposal.

 

With our raised beds completed we looked towards stage two of our garden project. On Thursday, Mr Rollings is meeting with representatives from the Wenhaston allotment association in the hope of securing us a small plot on which to grow some of our bigger crops. Watch this space for more details!!

 

Wednesday 20th April 2016

 

 

With our raised beds completed, so began the process of planting a crop! The science topic for Year 3/4 is plants and growth, so a perfect opportunity to sow our seeds and make the most of a meaningful context for learning!

 

After a session of reading the seeds pack to work out depths, spacing and (unfortunately!) sell by dates...we were prepared and ready. After considering what would be a profitable crop (a great opportunity to problem solve with money), we settled on beetroot, lettuce, tomatoes, courgettes and spinach.

 

 

 

Now we hope and pray that the snow that is currently falling at the end of April will finally abate and the warmth and sun will appear to will help our seedlings to germinate.