Harvesting

We learned about the concept of harvesting through some "before-and-after" craftwork for our "Farm" homelearning theme. It was really fun and thrilled the Bees to no end. Furthermore, the action-based learning allow them to deepen their understanding of cultivating and harvesting, resulting in the end products we use in everyday lives. 

1) Sheep

The Bees worked on a sheep craft with cotton wool, black construction paper (for the sheep's body!) and some crepe paper for grass. I cut out separate sections of the body, legs, ears, head and mouth, and the girls assembled everything together, in addition to drawing the eyeballs. They had the greatest fun sticking on the cotton wool to make the sheep so fluffy and pristine white!

 

Big Bee's sheep

Little Bee's sheep - can you spot the difference?! 

We displayed their completed artwork around the house for more than a month before I encouraged them to start shearing the sheep fleece to make wool. They had a most mirthful time snipping away, pretending they are real farmers shearing fleece! 

As they snipped their scissors around the "fleece", we talked about New Zealand, the entire process of shearing -> creation of wool -> end product of woolen cardigans, gloves, scarves, etc. They seemed fairly intrigued.

The aftermath!

After the shearing, we bunched up the cotton wool together and created a wool bale, which almost felt rather woolen and real! 

2) Fruit orchard

The Bees created simple fruit trees from recycled toilet rolls, construction paper (for the shapes of the trees) and crepe paper which they rolled up to resemble fruits. They created apple, orange and lemon trees, and again, we displayed the trees for a couple of months before harvesting the fruits. The long wait resembled the true cultivation of plants in a farm, where patience is a true virtue. 

On harvesting night, the Bees were eagerly plucking out the myriad apples and oranges from the trees. Big Bee persevered till the end, whereas Little Bee lost focus towards the latter part, exclaiming it was a tiring task. I told her that plucking apples from trees is not exactly a rosy task after all. 

"Fruits" of their labour

Barren trees!

After these crafts, the Bees are now bugging me to go for a farm holiday with fruit orchards and sheep! Whilst it is sad that the girls can only role-play harvesting at home, it is a good way to demonstrate to them the effort it takes to work on a farm. What I find most meaningful about both crafts is that the Bees get to understand where their foods or other products (like woolen mittens) originate from.