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.
Matching Seeds to Plants
What you’ll need
A variety of fruit and veg grown on your farm and available in shops, alongside the seeds of these fruits and veg.
What to do:
See if visitors can match the seed to the fruit or veg, this is always a popular activity for visitors with children especially so where grandparents have allotments or do a bit of gardening, who feel they should get them all right!
Pop in a bit of wheat and barley and most struggle a bit!
Children can be given clues with a few statements about how you might eat that fruit/veg, its shape, its taste, or for younger children a clue of the first letter of the veg/fruit!
Create a 3D pig — or any other animal!
What you’ll need:
Download the animal template outline here: https://www.countrysideclassro…
Print on white paper card (either one or two for people to draw around, or a number for people to decorate directly on). Add crayons, felt tips or pencil crayons (pinks, browns, black colours are good) to a table or work station.
What to do:
Supply pig (or any other animal) template, and whilst still flat, get children to colour n the animal template.
Use a stapler, sticky tape or glue to join the tabs to complete the pig, visitors can then take this home!
Tag the calf
Children can make their own calf head and ‘tag’ it using a paper fastener!
What you’ll need:
Paper plate or card. A template of a calf head, flag tags, yellow or white card. Paper fasteners and felt tip pens/crayons.
What to do:
Cut out a card calf head shape. Get children to draw on eyes, nose and colour in the calf.
Use a flag tag as template, get visitors to draw around this and cut out the shape (make 2 paper tags).
Talk about the letters and numbers on the tag and what the represent / why they are there.
Children can create their own tag and attach it to their calf head with a paper fastener — they can then take this away with them!
Felt Making
A great way to get talking about wool — it’s many, versatile uses and why shearing is important.
What you’ll need:
Scoured wool, some dyed scoured wool for making a pattern/initial, bubble wrap, reed mat, felting solution (soapy water with soap flakes with a little olive oil).
You could use some of your own wool if washed, or wool tops, scoured and combed from a supplier like knitshop.co.uk.
Alternatively, you can buy felt kits from many craft suppliers if you prefer.
What to do:
Have someone stationed at this activity to supervise and to show visitors what to do:
• Tease the fibres of a wool sample so they are running parallel.
• Lay down the fibres on the bubble wrap in one direction for the first layer.
• Lay a second layer of fibres at a right angle to the first layer. A 10cm square should be sufficient to make the sample. Make layers nice and even.
• Repeat this to form a third layer.
• In a coloured wool, for example, from a craft site, lay down the initial of the maker or a simple criss-cross, swirl or other design of choice in an alternative colour.
• Sprinkle your felting solution over the fibres.
• Place the second piece of bubble wrap laid bubble side down on the felt. Rub gently to distribute the water and to agitate the fibres.
• Roll the forming felt in the bubble wrap and reed mat to create shrinkage.
• Remove the bubble wrap and roll just in the reed mat this time.
• Roll the felt in all directions. Then leave flat to dry.
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