Know Your Cereals

What a lot of variety!

by Janice Ross

Suitable for Whole School (Pri)

Aims

To consider the variety of nutritious cereal crops grown and harvested in the UK.

Preparation and materials

• You will need the PowerPoint slides accompanying this assembly (Know Your Cereals) and the means to display them.
• You may wish to use the song ‘We Plough the Fields and Scatter’. This can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccVEjKFkAV4
• Extra information about identification of cereal crops can be found at: How to identify farm crops on a country walk: How to identify farm crops on a country walk

Assembly

1. Ask the children how many kinds of breakfast cereals they can name.
   Which ones seem to be the most popular?
2. Show Slide 1.
   Some statistics suggest that the most popular breakfast cereal consumed in the UK is Weetabix, closely followed by Cornflakes.
   Discuss if the children are surprised by this. Discuss how they could check the authenticity of this statistic?
   Maybe they could carry out a class/school survey by collecting data, tallying, creating a display or graph.
3. Breakfast cereals come from cereal crops.
   The main cereal crops grown in the world are oats, wheat, barley and rye, rice, corn/maize, and millet.
   Show Slide 2.
   This slide shows three of the cereals – millet, corn/maize and rice. The terms corn and maize are used differently depending on location and context.
   Show Slide 3.
   These are the four main cereals grown in the UK - oats, wheat, barley and rye. Just over half of the land in UK is used to grow cereals.
4. Show Slide 4.
   Ask the children if they can work out from which cereal crop their breakfast cereals come. Weetabix… Shredded wheat... Muesli… Cornflakes…etc.
5. Explain that some breakfast cereals have more nutritional value than others.
   Here are five with higher nutritional value: - Porridge, Muesli, Weetabix, Shredded Wheat, Branflakes. Encourage the children to look for nutritional information such as high fibre source and no added sugar and salt.
6. Ask the children if they think breakfast cereals such as like Frosties and Coco Pops would be high up on the nutritional value list. Discuss what nutritional value means, pointing out the importance of fibre, added sugar etc. Point out that some breakfast cereals might be surprising as they are high in fats, and sugar.
7. Cereal crops are members of the grass family. They are cultivated for their starchy dry fruits which fill us up. They can be used for humans and livestock.
8. Show Slide 5.
   Oats are delicate looking. They don’t grow in spikes like some cereals, instead they hang in little clusters called panicles and look a bit like snowdrops.
   Oats are rolled or crushed into oatmeal or ground into fine flour. Oatmeal is chiefly eaten as porridge and in baked goods such as flapjacks or mixed with milk and yogurt and fruit.
9. Show Slides 6 and 7.
   Barley and rye look very similar with long spikes or beards. Barley is a yellowy-white at harvest time.
   Barley is used to make alcoholic drinks like beer and whisky, and as animal feed.
   Rye makes bread flour and crispbreads.
10. Show Slide 8.
    Wheat has a very short, straight spike and its seeds are very tightly packed. It is golden brown at harvest time.
    Wheat is turned into flour and used in most of our bread, pastries and cakes.
11. Crop growing is a cycle:
    In autumn farmers plough over the ground and sow the seeds.
    In spring shoots are appearing in the fields. The farmer fertilizes the ground.
    In early summer the ears of the crop are developing. This is where the grains are stored.
    In late summer, early autumn the crops are ready to harvest.
    The grains will then be stored carefully until they are needed to be milled.

Time for reflection

We may often take our breakfast cereals and toast, and pies and cakes for granted. However, a lot of work goes into producing our food.
Farmers and other workers, work hard all year round to enable the food supply.

Christians believe that it is God who gives life and makes things grow. Crops need to be planted, but they also need good soil, sunlight and water if they are to grow.

Prayer
Dear God,
We thank you for the food that we enjoy.
Thank you for the people that work hard to produce our food.
Thank you for the wide variety of cereals and crops that we enjoy.
Please help us to be grateful.
Please help us to always remember those who have little food and who are hungry today.
Amen.

Song/music

‘Autumn Days’. This can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf5AfKdKFp4

‘We Plough the Fields and Scatter’. This can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccVEjKFkAV4