Resources and Activities for Schools and Families

The resources, activities and information  were created by the staff and children of Avenue Junior School Norwich as part of a Heritage Lottery funded project for The Plantation Garden.  We are very grateful to them for all the work they put in to these materials.

Children from Avenue Junior School and Lionwood Junior School have had great fun visiting the garden and using the site as an inspiration for their own work.

Feel free to use these resources and please send us your own writing, artwork or resources so that we can add to what is already here and make this a living community project for a wonderful community garden.

Children’s Activities

Activity Book

This 16 page activity book provides a children’s guide to the Garden and a range of activities to help them explore their surroundings.

Architecture Trails

When Henry Trevor built The Plantation Garden, he used a number of styles of architecture (Italian, Gothic and medieval) and he covered his structures with a fascinating collection of fancy bricks from the local brickworks at Costessey.   These architecture trails will help you find some of his weird and wonderful designs.

Word Searches and Crosswords

Wildlife

Other Activities

Educational Resources

Creative Writing Opportunities

The Plantation Garden offers a wealth of opportunities for creative writing.

Themes might include:

• Mythical creatures: Explore mythical creatures and folklore and the books stories and films they have inspired.  Create a mythical occupant of the Garden and write from their viewpoint.
• Secret gardens:  Drawing on extracts from The Secret Garden explore the idea of rediscovery and restoration
• Atmosphere and suspense: Explore the idea of spooky, dangerous, peaceful, magical, enchanted gardens. Imagine the garden at night.
• Time travel: Using Tom’s Midnight Garden, explore the idea of going back in time and discovering a garden
• Secret tunnels: Imagine a network of underground tunnels with secret entrances

Each of the buttons below will lead you to a collection of ideas and resources.

Mythical Creatures

There is a lot you could do with an exploration of mythical creatures and folklore, and books, stories and films which they have inspired.

For younger children, explore the idea of the Fairy Doors and think about the items that can be found in the Plantation Garden that the elves and fairies could use for clothing, bags, umbrellas etc.  Setting up the Fairy Doors for the children to discover could be used for some great drama opportunities.  You can also create an outfit for them, or design the King or Queen of the Plantation Garden to sit on the ‘Elf Throne.’

Exploring the extracts and clips from The Borrowers and Truckers might also give some ideas for how the Little People can use everyday items in a very different way and would be good stimuli for writing for older children.   You could also have fun with some creative writing from a different viewpoint – what would the world be like if you were tiny?  Exploring the clips and extracts will give you plenty of ideas for this.  The above clips / extracts could be used to think about some of the dangers of being so small, along with the extract from Gulliver’s Travels which could be used with older children.

The Little People could perhaps live in the secret tunnels that exist underneath the gardens, coming out at night when the ‘Big People’ have all gone home.  This could be linked to the writing on discovering a Secret Garden, or finding the Secret Tunnels underneath.

As well as the creative story / descriptive writing, drama and art opportunities, you could create your own mythical creature to live in the gardens and produce an information page about them.  These could form part of a class book, or be added to the others on the website!

Poetry at the Plantation Garden

There are plenty of opportunities for writing poetry inspired by the Plantation Garden, exploring a range of forms and themes.

Perhaps the easiest poem to ‘write’ is the Found Poem.  These examples have been created by collecting together some comments posted on the Trip Advisor website by visitors to the garden.

You could write cinquains, haikus, tankas, or acrostics.  For children who might find it more difficult to write their own acrostic, they could use words that they find in the resources for the Found Poems.

Poetry could explore the gardens using all of the senses and would lend itself well to figurative language, using metaphor, simile and personification.  Although not a poem, the idea of personification as a descriptive tool to build atmosphere is explored in the Secret Garden writing opportunities.

There are plenty of examples of personification poems and plans that can be found online. City Jungle is good for looking at how you can create a specific atmosphere through the personification you choose. There are three examples of a personification poem on the website for the Plantation Garden which could be used for children to base their own on.

Have a look at the links for more examples and ideas.  There are examples of children’s poetry inspired by the garden on the gallery pages.

Maths

Other Resources

Useful links to more activities

Lots of simple identification sheets for animals, insects, birds, trees etc:

https://www.surreywildlifetrust.org/wildlife-spottersheets

RSPB games and activities:

https://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/families/children/index.aspx

https://www.rspb.org.uk/forprofessionals/teachers/outreach/index.aspx

RHS Plants and gardening – resources, lesson plans, activities and guides:

https://schoolgardening.rhs.org.uk/Resources

Norfolk schools outdoor education activities:

https://www.schools.norfolk.gov.uk/Professionallearning/Teaching-and-learning/Environmental-and-outdoor-learning/Step-Outside/Downloadable-activities/index.htm

Woodland Trust – Nature Detectives:

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/naturedetectives/?gclid=CPTHhsWE-M0CFdcK0wod1HsG0w&gclsrc=aw.ds

Children’s Work Inspired by the Garden