Educational Visits
We work closely with Country Trust Hampshire (http://www.countrytrust.org.uk/about/country-trust-hampshire) whose vision is that every child understands farming, the countryside, and how our food is produced through high quality learning experiences. We wholeheartedly support their mission to bring food, farming and the countryside alive for all children, sharing knowledge, igniting curiosity and broadening horizons.
For more information or to arrange a farm visit please contact info@theholtestate.co.uk
The Countryside Classroom
The countryside offers an invaluable teaching resource.
How many of the children in your class have visited a farm or had first hand experience of food production? Do they know what they ate for breakfast and where it came from? Do they know why the landscape around them is the way it is? Who looks after it, how and why? These are questions which we hope a visit to our farm will help the children to answer and understand.
The Farming Year
- How does the landscape change throughout the seasons?
- How do the seasons affect the farm – the crops and the livestock.
The Cropping Year
- The Food Chain is the production and delivery of our food from farm to fork.
- We can talk about the sequence of producing a crop, from preparing the ground, sowing the seed, to growing and harvesting.
- How does the weather affect the crop? What happens if there is too much or too little rain, too much or too little sun?
- What farm machinery is needed for a seed to grow and to end up on your plate?
- We rotate the crops here between wheat, barley, oats and borage. We can look at what happens to these crops once they are harvested.
The Livestock Farming Year
- Do you know when calves and lambs are born?
- What do they eat?
- What do they do in winter?
- How do the livestock shape our countryside?
These are just a few of the questions we can answer on a farm visit.
