So the deputy Head at my wife's school (she's a teacher not a pupil) has asked me to do a 15 minute assembly on what harvest means to me and why it has been celebrated for so long.
The school is non religious, so I won't be focusing on religious festivals or any particular faith, more what it means to people in the real world when the harvest is brought in.
So what would you include in this assembly?
What does a safe harvest mean to you?
Do you have any interesting harvest stories?
If anyone had a harvest poem they liked that would be good as well!
ReplyDeleteIt may be a little gloomy for small children but for millions a successful harvest means they will live for another year, they will be able to stay in their homes, their families won't be hungry and they may even be able to put a little aside for the future - that's what a good harvest means to the vast majority of the earth's inhabitants. Perhaps you could look at what harvest used to mean where you live and how it was celebrated, when more people relied on what they could grow and raise for their livelihoods, and then talk about how important it is to you as you strive to be self-sufficient.
ReplyDeleteCommunity, sharing and celebration. A sense of pride that toil, work and patience produced abundance to see you through the coming period of turning inward and slowing down.
ReplyDeletePagan harvest festivals. That's certainly a part of English history. We still have harvest festivals here in the Appalachian mountains, and they go back to Scottish and Irish traditions.
ReplyDeleteNot so much a poem but an hymn: "We Plough The Fields And Scatter" always comes to mind when we think of Harvest.
ReplyDelete