Activity ideas for your event
Helping to make your event fun and engaging for all who join you on the day.
Plant your pants for #LOFS22
Soil Health
Planting your pants is a fun and engaging way to get all families understanding soil health and just how important this might be. You can display at your event on a washing line, with a new pair, a partially decomposed pair and the pair that have been in the ground the full time to get conversations flowing! You could even compare soil health across the farm by planting a few pairs in different places!
All you need is a pair of 100% cotton pants (or other garment of choice, preferably white), a shovel, and 60 days of waiting time for the microorganisms in your soil to work their magic.
Why does this work?
Healthy soil is a hungry soil! Over the 60 days your pants are planted, the millions of tiny lifeforms in your soil will get to work eating the cellulose sugar which cotton is made of and start decomposing the cotton items you have buried. Sterile, lifeless soil will have little effect, whereas organically thriving soil will leave nothing but the nylon elastic in your pants!
Create Salt Dough Shapes!
Children love to make salt dough models! It is relatively easy and cheap to make a mix and visitors can take them home on a flat piece of card to bake in a low oven.
What you’ll need:
Flour, salt, water (ratio 2:1:1) cups as a measure, a table to work on. Stiff card (from cereal packet would make sense as related to grain).
What to do:
• Combine the flour, salt and water in a bowl until it forms a simple dough. Add food colouring to the water for a colourful dough.
• Knead on a lightly floured surface.
• Roll dough between two sheets of floured parchment paper or cling-film. For younger children keep it quite thick.
• Make your models/items — either freeform or with farming-related cutters.
• Place items on to a baking tray lined with parchment paper BEFORE you decorate them with grains-wheat seeds, oats, barley, oilseeds, sunflowers, linseed.
• Make a hanging hole using a drinking straw or pencil end. You could supply some ribbon for hanging the shape later.
• Hand out a slip with the instructions below for people to take home if you don’t intend to bake them on farm.
Adult help required: Bake on a lined baking tray for approximately 3‑hours at 75°C. They can be turned half way through baking. Leave to cool in the oven.’
Butter Making!
This is a fun activity to get everyone involved, and get the public really thinking about the products that come from milk!
What you’ll need:
Small milk bottles or clean jars with lids, cream.
What to do:
Pour cream into bottles/jars. Tighten lid. Shake vigorously!
Cress Heads
This is a fun way to get taklking about where eggs come from, and to take hoem and watch the growth of cress.
Prepare a set of six beforehand for demonstration purposes. You cake them into characters like Good egg (angel), bad egg (devil), (Johnny) Rotten egg (punk), or use ideas like ‘egg cited’, ‘egg-hausted’, ‘egg-cellent’ (swot), ’Egg-spert’ (scientist) to characterise the egg!
What you’ll need:
Empty egg shells, felt pens, stick-on wobbly eyes (optional), cotton wool, cress seeds, an empty egg box, to keep the cressheads steady and for the children to take them home.
What to do:
• Wash out the egg shells and sit them in the egg box to keep them steady (on a cotton wool cushion to raise them up a bit if you need to).
• Draw on some amusing faces, using the wobbly eyes if you’ve got some or just felts and pens if not.
• Put some cotton wool inside the shells and dampen them with some water.
• Sprinkle cress seeds all over the cotton wool and dampen.
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