As part of The World Around Us topic, IRELAND , children are learning that the potato plant continues to be a very important food source.
It is important for children to appreciate the source of their food and to recognise that many people continue to be involved in the process from farm to fork.
Children looked at some photographs, that showed changes in farming life throughout the past 100 years.
One set of photos showed how potatoes were grown and harvested.
All this was done by digging into the soil, weeding and digging up the soil to gather the new potatoes. Very hard work and needed a lot of people to carry out this task.
Today machines are used to dig up the soil to plant and harvest the potatoes. This is a much quicker way to gather the 1000’s of new potatoes.
In class children were hands on with potatoes.
- washing: removing soil and dust
- peeling pre boiled potatoes: noticing how thin the potato skin can be
and feeling the colour and texture of boiled potato flesh.
- mashing: using all their strength to crush the potato flesh into a mushy paste
Finally the children were creating a menu based on the many forms that potatoes can be prepared.
The words potato bread were heard as 'potato - bread' for the first time by many.
