First session: Introduction, digital cameras, blog and favourite foods exercise to choose seeds.

Before the session began we risk assessed the area that we would be working in outside. We were pleased to see that cardboard had been laid out on the plot, which will begin the work of killing off the grass. We met the play workers that Anthea had at the session, Andy and Michelle.

We started the session by introducing ourselves – we had homemade name badges of masking tape! – and telling the children what our project was all about. They were very excited to hear that we had lots of new technology to share with them, and especially to hear that they would be making a film. Iestyn took a group of them to show them how to use the digital cameras and I began an exercise on favourite foods with the rest of the children.
I began on the flipchart by asking the children to think of their favourite foods, which we listed, these included:
Chips, chocolate, cheeseburgers, bacon and eggs, KFC, sausages, rice pudding, ice cream, skittles, fruit pastilles, prawn crackers, cawl and chicken.
Interestingly, there was a much larger list of fruit and vegetables that were favourites too:
Sprouts, tomatoes, cabbage, peas, beans, apples, grapes, strawberries, kiwi, pears, peaches, broccoli, salad – red lettuce, carrots, parsnips, potatoes – mashed, plums, bananas, fruit salad, mushrooms and pumpkin.
Out of all these foods, I asked the children to think about what could be grown, and there was a discussion about how chocolate comes from cocoa beans in hot countries. We also discussed how rice pudding comes from rice grains, which is a sort of grass!
The next challenge was for the children to work out which of the foods that could be grown, could be grown here in Wales. They were not sure why it was that cocoa trees, for instance, couldn’t grow here, and were telling me how we could go to Africa, get a bean, bring it back here and grow it! I explained that some plants need a certain degree of heat to grow, and that Wales was just not hot enough for them.
The final list that the children came up with, of their favourite foods that could be grown in Wales, was:
Potatoes, beans, carrots, broccoli, strawberries, cabbage, pumpkins, peas, lettuce, tomatoes.
I explained that I had a small budget to buy seeds, and that I would buy the seeds they had chosen. Meanwhile, Iestyn had been out with the children, getting them to take 3 photos each, and showing them how to download them to the computer, which they enjoyed very much.