Oinks, moos and baas were on the agenda last week when children and parents from Herefordshire Council’s Ledbury Children’s Centre enjoyed a trip to Awnells Farm, Much Marcle to celebrate national Bookstart Nursery Rhyme week.
Bookstart is a project which encourages parents to share books with their children in the early years and the trip to Awnells helped to bring Old McDonald’s farm to life for the toddlers who are aged from sixth months to four years. The children enjoyed listening to the sounds of tractor engines and cattle lowing in the background and had a go at making some of the sounds themselves too. Jack and Grandma Jill really did climb the hill to fetch a pale from the well and the children gleefully filled buckets and sacks with apples from the orchard.
After visiting the rare Hereford breed of cow in the barns they created their own cow masks and moo sounds with the assistance of Dawn Harwood from the countryside commission.
This followed a day of nursery rhymes at the children’s centre where children acted out, sang and voted for their favourite nursery rhymes.
Zoe Wood, deputy manager, said: “Many of our toddlers have never seen or heard a tractor before apart from in the books we share with them, so the experience of visiting a real farm brought many of the books and rhymes they enjoy to life.
“Working with Bookstart we were able to carry on exploring farmyard themes at the children’s centre after the trip so as well as having a great day out, the children, staff and parents have had great fun exploring farmyard sounds and images.”