The Enormous Turnip
This is one of our ALL TIME favourite Beanstalk Arts stories, all about team-work and valuing everyone’s contributions. Oh, and a very catchy song about turnip pulling! I’ve not gone particularly turnip-specific (!) in the ideas, but here’s a few things we’ll use as starting points for our day…
Play prompts:
- Gather a big pile of teddies and soft toys and line them up in size order from the biggest and the strongest, to the smallest and tiniest! Can you share a picture?
- It’s also a good excuse for getting any farm toys out!
Reading:
- Another version of the story: https://www.storiestogrowby.org/story/the-giant-turnip-folktale/
- Do you have any other farm based books for a bit of a farming book corner?
Active:
- Cosmic Kids yoga (for little ones!) – on the farm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKmRB2Z3g2s
- Why not have a tug of war? High risk I know, but we might try something in the garden…
Arts and crafts:
- If you have any old vegetables to spare which could be used for arty fun? you could do some vegetable printing with cut up veggies and paint? Something like this https://buggyandbuddy.com/garden-themed-process-art-for-preschoolers-with-vegetable-stamping/
- We’re probably going to aim to plant a few seeds in old egg cartons too – we don’t have any turnip seeds, but will give some others a try …
- For a simpler bit of crafting, here are some colouring sheets you can download and print: https://www.sparklebox.co.uk/previews/9276-9300/sb9294-enormous-turnip-coloring-pages.html
Music:
- The amazing ‘Digging the garden’ by Clare Tustin: https://clairetustin.bandcamp.com/track/diggin-the-garden (actually, the whole album is one of our favourites, definitely worth a listen and a dance!)
- Ella Fitzgerald sings ‘Old MacDonald’ – now my all time favourite version of this song! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Fmwgf0NRA (and hey…why not explore more Ella music after this?)
- A couple of the Beanstalk Arts song videos are farm related with my Dig in the Garden song at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az9gh-M11ik&list=PLvKBQnm7sTCE5sSJ9q6cbOjFdOP_wp7ia&index=3&t=0s
- and my Old MacD song (not as cool as Ella’s!) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4Ak8c6cNmc&list=PLvKBQnm7sTCE5sSJ9q6cbOjFdOP_wp7ia&index=5
Watching:
- Virtual Spring farm tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-9bHBxHmAA – it’s quite long at nearly 20 minutes… if you’ve got any better farm videos please do share them.
Educational:
· It’s a wee bit low-res, but, boy, do my kids love a word search! http://www.makinglearningfun.com/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.makinglearningfun.com/Activities/Garden/TheGiganticTurnip/GiganticTurnip-WordSerach.gif
