Wave 10 - holiday learning

Here's a range of activities, each divided into less/more time and complexity: Everyday learning, Keep active, Finding out and exploring, Worksheet activities, Interactive games and quizzes, Cooking, Being creative, Activities to do over a few days and Something to do together.

Less time / Less complex

1. Safety and art: When cooking, it is essential that we use equipment safely, particularly those with sharp blades or use electricity.  Choose one piece of sharp and/or electrical equipment and create an eye-catching safety poster. Identify the potential hazards and ways to reduce the risk of harm.

2. Food, science and literacy: According to Wrap more people have been organising the food in their fridge and cupboards recently. Why not sort the food in your kitchen? Read the labels and check that food is in date. If not, place in your food waste bin, but check with your parent or carer first!  Check that cooked and un-cooked food is stored separately in the fridge, with raw meat and fish placed at the bottom in a covered container.

3. Literacy, cooking and art: Choose a recipe that you would like to make. List the food/cooking skills that would be used, the equipment needed and any food hygiene and safety points. Make the recipe, taking photographs at each stage. Create a step-by-step recipe card using the photos. Include the skills, equipment and food hygiene. Sketches of each stage could be used instead of photographs.

More time / More complex

4. Food and sensory science: Scratch and sniff.  Collect a number of dried herbs and spices that have a strong smell and glue them to pieces of card. Allow the cards to dry and test your family and friends to see if they can identify the different herbs and spices. Make sure they close their eyes first though! 

5. Science and cooking: Eggs are a source of protein, vitamin D, vitamin A, vitamin B2, vitamin B12, folate and iodine. List at least ten different recipes and meals that use eggs. Make a meal using eggs. Why not try spicy potato Scotch eggs, easy veg frittata or tomato and basil tart?  

6. Cooking, literacy and art: Make time to eat together – plan a meal date. Get everyone in your home to help plan, prepare, cook and serve. Why not choose a traditional or local dish, or a family favourite? Send invitations and create a colourful menu.

Less time / Less complex

1. Physical activity and literacy: Print the Get active action cards or write the activities on a piece of paper. List your six favourite activities and add them to the set of cards and cut them out. Choose two activity ideas at random each day. At the end of the week decide which are your favourite three! You can use the My activity chart to record.

2. Physical activity and art: Why is being active important and how can we get active? Create an infographic showing why we should get active and draw examples of three of your favourite activities.

3. Physical activity and IT: How much energy do we expend doing different activities? Use this interactive resource to test your knowledge of how much energy it takes to do different activities.

More time / More complex

4. Physical activity and literacy: How active have you been this week? Complete the Activity diary and see if you can get to 60 minutes of activity a day!

5. Physical activity and literacy: Complete the Active lifestyles food route journal to learn more about being active and to plan your activity for the week. You don’t have to print it out, you can use it as inspiration to do your own journal at home!

6. Physical activity and numeracy: If you have a ball at home, try the Keepy Uppy challenge! See how many you can do in one minute and then challenge your friends and family to see who can do the most. Keep a chart of everyone’s scores and when the competition is over, share the results with the players.

Less time / Less complex

1. Food and sensory science: Infusion confusion! Water infused with herbs, fruit or vegetables is a great way to enjoy drinking more.  Create a range of infusions and test your friends and family to see if they can tell the flavour! Collect five or six empty plastic drink bottles or large plastic glasses. Fill each one with water and add a different flavour to each. You could try sliced strawberries, cucumber, mint, celery, basil, or raspberries. Leave overnight in the fridge to infuse.   Pour a small amount of the infused water into a clean cup or glass and test their taste buds!

2. Food, where food is from and literacy: Have you heard of cotton candy grapes, pineberries or kiwi berries? Find out about these and other unusual varieties of fruit. Choose one and write a fact file. Include where it is traditionally grown, seasons, cooking and eating tips, and a recipe.

3. Where food comes from and literacy: Choose a food commodity and research how it is produced, you should state if it is grown, reared or caught. Complete the Food is grown, reared or caught fact file.

More time / More complex

4. Food, literacy and numeracy: Lots of dishes can be made with fish.  View the Fish dishes presentation and carry out a survey of your family and friends’ favourite fish dishes. Draw a table to record the information or use the Survey template as a guide.

5. Food, where food comes from and literacy: Tasty choices. Herbs and spices are used to enhance the flavour of food. They also help to reduce or eliminate adding salt to recipes. Research herbs and spices and complete this worksheet.

6. Science and literacy: The science of starches. Starches are used in cooking to thicken and set dishes. Complete the worksheet to demonstrate and apply your food science knowledge. Use the fact sheet to support. 

Less time / Less complex

1. Food and numeracy: How much does your sandwich cost? Use the Costing your own super sandwich worksheet to practice costing ingredients. Why not look at the ingredients of your favourite recipe and cost the ingredients using an online supermarket?

2. Science, literacy and health and wellbeing: How much do you know about nutrients? Work through the nutrients worksheet and the Where do nutrients come from? worksheet to test your knowledge.

3. Cooking and art: Choose two recipes that you have made, or would like to make, and draw three food skills needed to make each recipe on the Cooking skills worksheet. As an extension, use the Kitchen equipment and cooking skills worksheet to learn more about what equipment and skills we use when cooking different recipes.

More time / More complex

4. Food, hygiene and safety, and literacy: Learn how to cook safely with the Food safety journal. You can test your knowledge on food labels, cleaning and tidying, and being safe around high-risk food.

5. Where food comes from and literacy: View the Down on the farm presentation and learn about the origins of different animals on the farm. Work through the Down on the farm worksheet to test your knowledge.

6. Food, history, literacy and art: How much do you know about how bread is made? Read through the Bread production presentation and the History of bread presentation. Draw, and illustrate, a timeline to show how bread production has changed over time and describe how bread is produced today.

Less time / Less complex

1. Health and wellbeing and IT: Where do vitamins and minerals come from? Play the Vitamins and minerals matching games to match each nutrient to one of the foods they are found in.

2. Health and wellbeing and literacy: How much do you know about the Eatwell Guide? Learn more with The Eatwell Guide hotspot activity and make notes on each of the videos that you can watch. Test your knowledge with The Eatwell Challenge!

3. Literacy, IT and cooking: What makes a recipe? Play the Recipe drag and drop games to show the key words used in each recipe. When you’ve matched the words, why not get cooking and make the recipes?

More time / More complex

4. Food, cooking and IT: Test your knowledge on ingredients and equipment with our Hotspot challenges. You can learn more about the ingredients used in bread making and about different equipment is used in the kitchen. Write down all you know about the two pictures before you start and compare what you have written to the information given.

5. Science and IT: Which food is from plants and which is from animals? Play the Plant or animal drag and drop to test your knowledge on where food comes from! How many did you get correct?

6. Where food comes from and literacy: Watch the Farm to fork videos and test your knowledge by answering the questions as they come up on screen! Get a pen and paper and note down your answers, or answer on the screen, and take notes on what you have learnt. Why not create your own 'farm to fork' storyboard for a food of your choice?

1. What would you cook for a brilliant breakfast? Devise a menu for a week. Then prepare one of your menu options. Why not consider overnight oats, easy veg frittatas or tasty toast?

2. What’s a lovely lunch for you? Why not get creative and make some fab pizzas, tortillas or soup? There’s lots of inspiration here!

3. Hmmm, a super snack! A snack doesn’t mean you can’t be healthy! How about making veggie sticks and a dip, fruit kebabs or fruit bread?

4. Cook a delicious dinner to share at home! What’s the family favourite in your home? Find out what’s liked the most and cook something to share. For many it might be a curry, pasta dish or a traditional pie! Click here to search.

5. What would you pack for a perfect picnic? It might include some super sandwiches, slices of quiche and salad – but that’s just the start! Get creative and produce your own unique picnic menu! Click here to search.

6. Plan the perfect party! Decide on the occasion and plan the food! It might be a get-together (socially distanced, of course), birthday or just an excuse to ‘party’! Use the recipe search to help. Remember, you need to consider different dietary needs!

Less time / Less complex

1. Poetry: Write a Haiku about a healthy lunchbox. You can use this worksheet to support.

2. Art: Draw 4 self-portraits using seasonal fruit and vegetables – winter, spring, summer and autumn. Want inspiration? Click here.

3. Crafts: It’s been a long time in lockdown, so create a food card for a friend. Consider their favourite food and get creative – you’ll need paper and pens, and perhaps much more. Macaroni cards anyone?

More time / More complex

4. Drama: Write a play based on one of the Learn with stories. Consider stage direction, as well as props! Which story will you choose? What character would you play?

5. Music: Compose a song about your favourite meal – the genre is your choice (such as pop, rap, classical, techno, country, folk, reggae, disco …). Why not create some music to go with it? https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Song-Maker/  (free from Google)

6. Design: Design a new dough dish! Bread dough can be made into a number of wonderful dishes, such as pizza and fruit plait. What would you create? Use these resources to start your design challenge. Hopefully you can bake it too!

Food route – a journey through food!

A pack of resources and activities to help children and young people learn about diet and health, shopping/consumer awareness, cooking, food safety and active lifestyles. There is a guide for each age range.

• Resources for 5-7 years: Five charts, one for each learning area, a target chart (similar to one that is often used in schools for literacy and numeracy) and a certificate. There are also 11 worksheets.
• Resources for 7-11 years: Five charts, one for each learning area, a target chart (similar to one that is often used in schools for literacy and numeracy) and a certificate. There are also 12 worksheets.
• Resources for 11-14 years: Five journals to complete, one for each learning area and a certificate.
• Resources for 14-16 years: Five journals to complete, one for each learning area and a certificate.

Learn with stories 5-11 years

Join Alisha, Jordan, Nicola and Ronnie as they explore healthy eating, cooking and where food comes from through seven stories.

The stories have been designed to support cross-curricular/ inter-disciplinary learning (with a focus on literacy and numeracy). Each story is supported by a guide, a presentation, and child friendly worksheets. The reading level/ability and associated tasks becomes more complex as you progress through the stories.

The stories are:

• The colourful present - with a focus on 5 A DAY
• The bucket garden - growing fruit and vegetables
• The farm visit - looking at life on a dairy farm
• The amazing lunchbox - with a focus on healthy eating
• The bread stories - looks at bread from around the world
• The seaside adventure - looks at fishing and fish dishes
• The exciting guests - explores aspects of Chinese culture

1. Summer holidays can be an opportunity to have a more relaxed and leisurely start to the day but eating breakfast is still important! Find out more about healthy breakfasts here and use this activity to create a breakfast menu for a week.

2. Healthy hydration. Keep a Hydration chart together to ensure that you are drinking at least 6-8 glasses a day. Watch this video to find out more about healthy hydration.

3. Keep active and motivate each other. Complete a Physical activity diary. Find out more about physical activity here.

4. A healthy lifestyle includes getting enough good quality sleep. Check out some sleep-well tips here and complete the Sleep word search The answers can be found here!

5. Lunchtimes can be challenging over the holidays. Find some ideas for healthy lunchboxes here and build a healthy lunchbox. Why not use the Sandwich generator and be creative?