Our story this term is The Enormous Turnip. The story follows a farmer trying to pull a huge turnip out of the ground; he calls for help from several characters until finally, POP, the turnip comes out!
The themes that we have explored this week are working together, forces (pulling and pushing), weight, the need for communication when working together (“come and help!” “Pull there”) and also lots about capacity and size while trying to dig a hole large enough to bury the turnip!
We had a selection of sized turnips, for comparison, but the children were immediately fascinated by the biggest one, how heavy it was and how difficult it was to carry! They were very keen to bury it and worked together to carry it up to the big sand pit on the MUGA.
They made predictions, checked their work (“still not deep enough” “we need to dig more!”) they worked together as a team and listened to each other. One child said straight away “we need a rope to pull it out!” Which we found and then the children worked together to pull the turnip out of the ground, calling to each other for help.
We have explored different vegetables too, listened to the story and learnt some songs about the enormous turnip. Exploring a book in depth like this, helps children to consolidate the learning – the language, new vocabulary and themes within the story.
