Harvest Vegetables

Celebrating our favourites

by Manon Ceridwen James

Suitable for Whole School (Pri)

Aims

To help the pupils think about and celebrate the variety of vegetables.

Preparation and materials

Buy a selection of vegetables or print out pictures of different vegetables – about eight or so in number.

Assembly

1. Explain that you want to find out which is their favourite vegetable as a form of a quiz. You also want everyone to join in – adults too.
   
   One by one bring out your vegetables (or pictures). Create some drama by keeping each vegetable/picture hidden and only revealing it in turn. Invite children to say if one is a particular favourite of theirs by holding up their hands.
   
   Choose one person to come to the front to hold up a picture of his or her favourite vegetable. Normally, children will be keen on sweetcorn and peas and the adults will like the more exotic or unusual vegetables, like spinach and aubergine, but this may not necessarily be the case. If only teachers and assistants like a particular vegetable, get one of them to come to the front to hold up a vegetable.
   
   Ask the children how they like to eat their particular vegetable, for example on its own, or if it’s a cauliflower, with cheese, or in an aubergine bake or curry etc. . . .
   
   
2. Once all the vegetables have been chosen and are displayed at the front, explain that you are going to rank them in order of favourite to least favourite of the whole school. To do this, you will judge how noisy the clapping and cheering is for each vegetable. Get everyone to respond to each vegetable according to how much they like it. When something gets wild cheers, move it to the top of the line of vegetables. When something gets little reaction, move it down to the bottom.
   
   After playing around with their reactions (usually there will be excitement and wild cheering), joke that it’s not often that normal vegetables like carrots/peas/whatever get lots of cheering!
   
   
3. Once you are happy with your line of vegetables, present them in order to the school. Explain that we are all different, and although some vegetables are more popular than others, most of the vegetables are someone’s favourite.
   
   
4. At Harvest we give thanks for all of our food. Not just to God, but also to all those who work hard to make sure we have food on our tables – farmers, factory workers, shop workers, lorry drivers . . . Encourage everyone to give all these people one last cheer.

Time for reflection

Get the pupils to quieten down and to imagine their favourite foods in their heads. It doesn’t have to be a vegetable!

Prayer
God, thank you for vegetables and all of our food.
Thank you for everyone who helps us eat
our families who cook our food, those who work in the kitchen in school
those who have grown and harvested and produced and delivered our food.
Help us to be thankful for all that we have
and for all the hard work that has gone into our food.
Thank you for food.
Amen.

Song/music

Any Harvest song