Ready Steady Grow

Literacy - Understanding the World - Expressive Arts and Design

Spirituality and Thinking

Rationale: The children are challenged to help improve the Reception garden in time for a Garden Party. They will use inspiration from their trip to Polesden Lacey as well as other gardens they have seen to come up with imaginative ideas on how to transform our outdoor space. Together we will nurture a love of nature and the outdoors. They will begin to understand how seeds grow, spend time looking after their plants, create decorations... and finally put on the best garden party ever!

Hook: After reading the book 'Anywhere Farm', the children are asked to help prepare for the annual garden party.

The book 'Anywhere Farm' appeared in our classroom and, after reading it, we were inspired to create our own anywhere farm. We cleared our planters and planted some seeds and potatoes.

In the unusual weather we are having, some of our seeds struggled so we planted some more. Our potatoes are doing well though.

We learnt about the steps of growing plants and ordered picture instructions.

Before writing our own instructions.

We looked at different fruits and vegetables to find their seeds.

Polesden Lacey

We visited Polesden Lacey to get inspiration for our garden.

We saw lots of different gardens, some were kitchen gardens and other were flower gardens. We also saw statues and benches.

Some people were using the lawn to play croquet.

We had a rest in the deckchairs and looked at the view. We wondered how we could include seating in our garden.

After seeing the front of the house, we had a play in the different play areas.

We looked at the formal Long Walk before running down it.

It was a busy day of exploring!

Garden Ideas

After visiting Polesden Lacey, we made mindmaps of what we would like to include in our garden.

Decorations

We looked at different garden decorations and used inspiration from Polesden Lacey. We made spiral decorations that blow in the wind.

We designed garden sculptures.

Then we made them out of our chosen material.

We wrote invitations to our friends and family inviting them to our garden party.