Wee Lad's show and tell

[baldowrie]

Save it until after the weekend, pease

[PurpleDragon]

But, I think some of the mums found it more eye opening than their kids did!

Well, I gotta tell you - I'm dead impressed by the wee fella. I wish I could drum up such enthusiasm with my lot.

I also have to admit that I am amazed at what comes out of the ground. Some of it I'm not sure if we can eat or not, until I try it, because I am so used to supermarket produce (this is my first year btw).

[PurpleDragon]

she once told her nursery teacher she didn't want some sweets that had been brought in as they were nestle

Good for her! Well done mini-2steps! How do you grow a bean in a jam jar?

[PurpleDragon]

Either that or get a pony and cart!!

Oh, my, yes! Get one! I think that would be an excellent way of getting about, good exercise for the horse, manure for the garden, and it would add to your already well known reputation of eccentricity :)

Last winter, a lot of the farm kids got dropped off at school in tractors. That certainly made for some traffic jams in the school run

[PurpleDragon]

[quote="StoneheadI'd try dancing naked around the standing stones but I have a feeling that while my neighbours didn't mind when it was naked young women dancing, they might have a problem with crusty, hairy old fart like myself... [/quote]

Perhaps if you danced sans hat ... ?

[2steps]

she once told her nursery teacher she didn't want some sweets that had been brought in as they were nestle

Good for her! Well done mini-2steps! How do you grow a bean in a jam jar?

she'll quite happily announce in shops that she's not buying things because there nestle too and nestle are mean to babies! wasn't me that did the jam jar beans, sorry. I think I have seen them grown that way using wet tissue paper so the roots can be seen as well

[Chickpea]

You put a bit of paper rolled into a tube into the jam jar, then wedge the bean 'twixt jar and paper. If you use absorbent paper like school hand-drying paper towels you can pour a little water in the bottom and it will wick up and keep the bean hydrated. Then you get to see the shoot coming out of the top and the roots coming out of the bottom and you do a drawing of it every few days in your nature book when you are 6 years old.

After a bit the bean will die because it really needs its roots in the dark soil. Unless you plant it out in the allotment in which case it will continue to get extremely tall and provide lots and lots of runner beans, much to a primary school teacher's surprise.

[PurpleDragon]

Thanks for that. We tried the cress thing but the cats did a chase and they ended up all over the place. Shall certainly do the bean thing though. :)

[Magpie]

Just make sure you plant beans in the garden at the same time, or there will be no sense of continuity for the child - most children end up thinking all beans will die, after seeing this experiment.

[den_the_cat]

Just make sure you plant beans in the garden at the same time, or there will be no sense of continuity for the child - most children end up thinking all beans will die, after seeing this experiment.

surely not? are most kids really that dappy?

[Magpie]

Perhaps not the children of people on this forum, if they have grown up with seeing beans planted, grown and harvested. But that's because they have seen the bean in the ground already, lots of people do this experiment as an isolated thing, and it is the only experience the child has of growing beans.

Half of today's children probably wouldn't even recognise a bean unless it comes in a can and is smothered in sauce... and I'm sure lots of adults don't realise a bean is a seed.

[Pilsbury]

surely not? are most kids really that dappy?

Unfortunatly yes, I worked on a kids holiday center for a year and we had a tiny working farm, just to show the kids really with a small herd of sheep, a few pigs and some cattle and when the city kids came, and sorry it was normally the city kids, they had no idea what a cow was or that that is where milk came from, they thought lamb and sheep were two different animals, for some reason they all thought pigs were no bigger than the pot bellied types and were horrified to come face to face with a full grown porker.
Incredably sad state of affairs but as a city kid myself although with some enlightened parents i can understand how it happens.

[PurpleDragon]

I've gotta say, though, thatcoming face to face with a real pig can be a bit of a shock. Particularly if you are a small person anyway.You see cows and sheep and horses alll the time, but very rarely see free range pigs - it is only since movin up here that I saw *any* in Scotland.

[Milims]

On a similar theme -

My 14 year old has been steadily been introduced to digging the garden over and my way of gardening (He lives with my ex in sheffield and she has no interest in gardening or such, though whilst i lived there we had allotments .Note the plura,l and always had food and flowers growing everywhere.)
It's good as it tends to be "Quality time" between the 2 of us, though sometimes Helens oldest joins in too which isn't a bad thing at all.

Funny how easy it is for kids to forget, even have farmers in the family and one of my memories is Stuart, my cousins partner and a farmer , inviting owen to feel how strong a calf can suck (they were doing suckler cows at the time and had a couple that were rejected by their mothers.).

Imagine his surprise, this was aged 4 by the way, to have his entire arm sucked into it's mouth lol

PS. yes we did hose him down afterwards, but we left that day with him beeming like a light house!

Chris (and Helen by default) (Im not by default - Im by de side!!!)