Curriculum links

Geography: 
Seasons
Food and Farming

History: 
Victorians
Inventions

Science: 
Life and living processes
Green plants as organisms

RE: 
Harvest

Threshing & Winnowing Workshop

Milling Workshop

Bread making Workshop

Charge: 
£1.25/child for Education Group Members

£1.50/child for non-members

• The children learn about how wheat was harvested before the invention of the combine harvester.
• They see sheaves of corn, a scythe and a flail and their uses are explained, including the dangers of such work.
• Winnowing baskets will be demonstrated and usually the children will all have a go at winnowing.

Charge: 
£1.25/child for Education Group Members

£1.50/child for non-members

• The reasons for milling wheat into flour and the uses of flour are discussed with the children.
• The history of milling is considered, starting from the very early attempts by man to make flour 10,000 years ago using two stones to crush the wheat. The children all have a go at making flour in this way.
• Refinements of this method are considered and the children have the opportunity to use a modern Indian hand quern, similar to those used in this country several thousand years ago.
• Advances in milling using water and windmills are discussed, a metal corn grinder is demonstrated and modern milling methods mentioned.

• The children are taken to wash their hands.
• Different sorts of bread and the history of bread making are discussed with the children including their own likes and dislikes. Unleaved and leavened breads and methods of leavening are mentioned.
• The children make a soda-bread roll each. They are shown examples of harvest rolls such as a mouse roll and plait roll. Many choose to make a mouse with cloves for eyes and nose. Bread snails and snakes have also been made!
• The bread is made upstairs in the farm restaurant and cooked in the kitchen.
• It is then bagged up and returned to the class teacher, so that it is not eaten until the children have washed their hands.
• It is suggested that the bread is used for decorative Harvest Festival purposes, if well dried out it will last for many weeks.

EDUCATION OFFICE
Telephone 01223 206004
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education.wimpole@nationaltrust.org.uk