Food availability

Learning

The aim of this session is for children to:

• explain that different fruit and vegetables are ready to eat at different times of the year (in different seasons);
• assemble their own seasonal salad by selecting and combining ingredients.

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You will need:

• Sensational seasonal salad recipe – choose ingredients from the season in which this session is run
• Season cards
• Get ready to cook cards
• Setting up a cooking session guide

Before session preparation

Prepare the ingredients and equipment in advance. What you will need is listed on the Sensational seasonal salad recipe.

Refer to the Setting up a cooking session guide to help you organise your session.

Listen and respond

Use the questions below to see if the children know the name of the current season and what the other seasons are called:

• What time of year is it now?
• What time of year is it when leaves turn orange and start to fall off the trees? (Autumn.)
• What time of year is it when all the leaves have fallen off the trees, and it’s colder? (Winter.)
• What time of year is it when it is warmer and some people start to wear t-shirts? (Summer.)
• What time of year is it when it can be quite cool, but new flowers like snowdrops are starting to appear? (Spring.)

Explain

Explain that there are four different times in a year and these different times are called the seasons – Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.  Show the Season cards one at a time and read the name of the season.  Talk about the months that are included in this season and who amongst the children has a birthday in those months. 

Ask the children what foods they can see and explain that this is the seasons when these fruits and vegetables have finished growing and are ready to eat (in the UK). Go through each season again in turn, and ask the children which is their favourite Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter food on the card. 

Have a go

Organise the children into groups of four. Each group can take turns to work with an adult to make a seasonal salad. Make sure the children are ready to cook by using the Get ready to cook cards to talk through steps they need to take. Refer to the Setting up a cooking session guide for more information about why each step is important.

Explain to the children that they will be making a Sensational seasonal salad. Explain that you have fruit and vegetables from the current season and that they will be choosing from them to make their salad. Talk through the foods and show the children how to assemble their salad. Let the children make their own salads, selecting the ingredients they wish to add.  Encourage the children to describe how the salads taste.

Consolidate

Arrange a visit to a farm or allotment or a walk where children will be able to see fruit or vegetables growing, e.g. blackberries on bushes, apples on trees, carrot or potato plants.

Listen to songs or read stories about the seasons.

Learning

The aim of this session is for children to:

• name and discuss places where food comes from, e.g. shops, supermarket, garden, allotment.

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You will need:

• Different shops sheets - laminated (optional)
• Food from shops cards – cut out, laminated (optional)

Listen and respond

Question the children to get them to talk about places where their food comes from.

• What have you eaten today?
• Where did that food come from? (shops, supermarket, allotment, garden)
• Who bought or grew the food?
• Have you ever been shopping /collected food from the garden or an allotment?
• What did you see?
• Shop /supermarket- shopping baskets, freezers, chilled areas, fruit and vegetables, meat, bread.
• Garden/allotment – soil, spade, shed, fruit, vegetables, people digging/watering).

Have a go

Talk to the children about the types of foods you might buy in a shop or supermarket/grow in the garden or allotment. Explain that sometimes we can go to shops which sell just one type of food, e.g. bread and cakes - bakery, meat – butchers, fruit and vegetables - green grocers, fish – fish mongers. Explain that in shops and in supermarkets all these different foods can often be bought together.

Activity 1

Four players. Give each child one of the Different shops sheets.  Talk about what the different shops are called, e.g. butchers, and ask them to name some of the foods they can see. Ask them if they have been in any of these types of shops, or if they have seen places like these in parts of a supermarket or shop. Spread out the Food from shops cards. Take each card and ask the children to name the food and decide if it comes from the shop on their sheet. If the food does belong on a child’s sheet, they can put it on one of the square spaces.  Continue until the children have each covered all of the squares on their sheet.

Activity 2

In a small group. Work with the children to create 3D models of foods which can be bought in shops or supermarkets or grown in allotments or garden. The children could make their models from dough, which could then be painted and used in an imaginary shopping /gardening game.  You could give different groups a theme, e.g. foods from a bakery, a butchers, a green grocers, fish mongers.  As the children make their models, talk to them about their individual experiences of shopping or harvesting food. 

Consolidate

Set up a supermarket or individual shops in the imaginary play area. If you have toy foods you could use these, or, if they are suitable, models of foods the children made. Demonstrate an imaginary shopping trip/gardening activity with the children. Ask some of the children to take the role of a parent or carer, a child and a cashier. Role play a visit to the shop/allotment with the children to get them started. Let the children create their own games based around this idea.