Year 5 headed off to Towcester for a trip of two halves. The first half was spent at Tesco and the second half was at The Bell Plantation Garden Centre.
At Tesco they took part in two great activities; split into two groups they made pizzas and had to plan three meals for an Olympic athlete.
The first group chose from a wide range of ingredients to make up their own personalised pizzas. They talked about the toppings and where the vegetables came from. They discussed how fruit and veg grew in different ways – trees, vines, and underground.
The other group were asked to feed an Olympic athlete. They were in smaller groups to find three ingredients for their athlete’s breakfast, lunch or dinner. They looked at the carbohydrates, protein and fats in their ingredients and discussed which would be better for our Olympic athlete.
The groups, back together, ventured into the large supermarket freezer. They got to experience high levels of low temperatures and also understood where the food for the supermarket was stored and why we freeze ingredients.
We were then in for two different tasty treats. First was a fantastic fruit kebab. This was laden with an abundance of different fruit which most of the children were happy to try. Then followed four brightly coloured fruit and veg that the children may not have tried before: avocado, beetroot, lemons and sharon fruit.
Thank you very much Tesco for a fantastic morning, not only looking through the store but understanding more of what sort of food would fuel our athletes.
After a short walk the children sat on the grass for a picnic including their pizzas which were very tasty. At Bell Plantation we were given the task to match five fruit and veg to five plants. The plants had labels which gave hits as to which fruit or veg they may belong to. The children learnt interesting information about the strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, pepper and bean.
At the end of our visit the children replanted their own runner beans, many of them gave them names. We were very lucky to be treated with a drink and a homemade biscuit from the plantation cafe. So, it was back on the bus after a very informative fun day out. Thank you to Bell Plantation for encouraging the children to ‘plant their own’. We followed this up with a trip to the school allotment to check on the house potatoes and onions.
Sarah Williams