Meldreth Matters, November 2020

Meldreth Primary School Harvest Time!

At this time each year Meldreth Primary School would usually be getting ready to come together and celebrate the harvest. Drawing inspiration from a variety of poems, books and songs, as well as religions and cultures all over the world, the children of Meldreth Primary would – in a normal year - be delighting their Zulu Bracelets families by showing off their wonderful artwork, acting skills and beautiful singing voices. Despite this not being possible this year, due to the current climate, the staff and pupils at Meldreth have not let this stop them from enjoying the harvest season.

To go along with their Africa topic in Osprey Class, the children in Year 3 have been learning all about harvest in Africa. They have talked about the importance of the harvest all over the world, and discussed how the harvest can be particularly important for people in different parts of Africa.

In some parts of Africa, they have ‘The Festival of Yams’, usually in August, when they share yams and dance. Yams are a vegetable, like a sweet potato. In other parts of Africa, people celebrate the Homowo Festival, a celebration of a traditional harvest festival from the Ga people of Ghana, West Africa. For the Ga people, the word Homowo means "hooting at hunger". The Homowo Festival commences with a traditional Ghanaian procession in which people assume the roles of kings, queens and followers of the royal family of each of Ghana's ethnic groups.

To help us celebrate all the wonderful foods harvested in Africa, the children took part in some drama activities, where they re-enacted the story of 'Handa's Surprise'.

They also discussed the importance of rain for the harvest to be 28