Countryside Awareness Day
On Wednesday 14th June, Oak Class visited Herriard Park Farm Estate for countryside awareness day and completed many fun-filled activities throughout our time there.
Firstly the head gardener, whose name was Clive, gave us a guided tour of the stunning gardens. He also let us pick some of his rocket and lettuce he had grown: it was very nice and the rocket was spicy! After this, Clive gave us a runner bean seed, a pot and some compost for us to plant our very own plant. He gave us an explanation on how to look after our bean plants: water them regularly, keep them in sunlight and also when they have grown big enough we can move them into a bigger pot.
After we had said goodbye to gardener Clive, a lady took us on a short walk to a large chicken coop. She allowed us to go into the pen and try, if we could, to pick up the chickens. Eryn, Frankie, Luis and Katie were all able to pick one up! Even though it was quite a struggle! The lady took us to the middle of the coop, there was a small house. She opened up the egg compartment and we each got to hold a freshly laid chicken egg!
Next, we were taken to see a woman named Elizabeth, who was spinning wool. She demonstrated how to spin the wool that she had got from one of the farmers sheep; she even let us have a go! Then she talked to us about how there is some wool that is easier to spin than other wool and then let us feel the different types of wool. After that we were given coloured wool to twist to make friendship bracelets .They were called friendship bracelets because it took two people to make one.
After that, we walked briefly to a small hut, where a very smartly dressed man stood. The man greeted us and introduced himself as the head game keeper. He spoke us about traps for a while and different breeds of gun dogs, terriers and Labradors. Then he showed us two different traps and put us into two different teams and we had to disguise them with only logs and grass around us. Each team put lots of grass on top of the trap , which the game keeper told us wasn’t a great idea because the grass would blow away.
Next we were showed a gorgeous black Labrador, who was an almost retired chasing dog. Her owner told us about what a Labrador needs to have to be a good gun dog.Then we had to throw a fake bird and the Labrador fetched it and returned it to his owner.
After lunch we were taken on a long walk to a tractor and trailer where we split into two groups, one on the tractor trailer and on being driven by Land Rover. We were taken on a five minute journey around fields and then stopped at a solar panel farm and discussed other sources of natural electricity.
Our next activity was grains. We were split into two groups; one went to see an old man who spoke to us about all the grains that farmers grow and their produce. He also let us sit in his large green tractor! The other group met a combine harvester driver named Ben; he had 4 tubs of different grain which we had to identify. Then we went over to a box full of shopping produce which we had to sort into different baskets of different grains within the food. Then both groups swapped.
Then we were driven back and taken to sheep shearing shed, where 5 sheep were in a small pen. We gathered around another enclosure where a man stood, had a set of shears in his hand. The man grabbed a sheep, and pulled it into his shearing pen. He flipped the fluffy sheep over and began to shave the scruffy sheep. After a while, he stopped and we laid it out feeling the gentle coat. Everyone thought how hot it must have been on a hot summer day! Then we carefully rolled up the coat ready to be delivered to Elizabeth for spinning!
Overall, oak class had a fantastic day on their visit to Herriard Farm Park Estate as we learnt a lot about countryside awareness and would all love to visit Herriard again.
By Eryn and Frankie
