Discover your senses with Shaun the Sheep
This week: taste
Shaun's tasty treats
Despite the weather loads of people got out into the countryside on Open Farm Sunday in 2011 to see where their food comes from. Some of the farmers who welcomed people onto their farms have recorded their experiences of growing your food - you can listen to them here. You never know, one of them might have grown your lunch!
It’s not just Shaun, we all love pizza and no matter what your favourite topping is you can bet on one thing – they nearly all come from a farm. Whether it’s the beef on your spicy meat feast or the juicy tomatoes that make that special sauce, farmers grew and cared for it all.
There’s the dairy farmer who looks after the cows that eat the grass and make the milk that’s turned into stringy cheese.
There’s the crop farmer who ploughs the field with his tractor and sows the seed to grow the wheat that’s ground up to make flour for the dough that makes the crispy crust.
And what about the taste? For that there’s the vegetable grower who cares for the herbs and veggies that top everything off with colour and flavour.
Heavenly pizza, hearty stews and healthy vegetables, they all begin life on the farm.
Get creative
 
Take a look at what happened in 2011 on Open Farm Sunday
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Explore your senses further this summer with Shaun the Sheep and Open Farm Sunday
Shaun the Sheep
Open Farm Sunday
Aardman Animations
© Aardman Animations Limited 2011
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Discover your senses with Shaun the Sheep
This week: touch
Shaun's touch of class
Get hands (and feet) on a farm this weekend for Open Farm Sunday!
The countryside is not a museum, you can look and touch! Fluffy chicks, feathery chickens, woolly sheep, squelchy mud - there’s loads of different things to feel.
Touch a cow, stroke a horse, cuddle a lamb, tickle a pig, or pat a sheep (if you can catch one!). Hug a tree, feel the grass, paddle in a stream, crush a berry, squeeze a leaf, squash some mud, crunch a carrot, and grab some grub!
If you can’t make it onto a farm on Sunday why not get your hands dirty making a seed bomb, there’s instructions how to make seed bombs here . Or if you fancy something a bit more arty get some crayons and scrap cloth and do some texture rubbings. Take a listen to one of our host farmers, Liz Nottage talking about what summer feels like.
Get creative
Doodle on! What (or who) can Shaun feel through the hedge? Download the doodle sheet and get doodling!
Get out and feel the farm for yourself on Open Farm Sunday, 17th June 2012
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Shaun's top spots
The countryside is a feast for your eyes and it grows a feast for your belly too! The view from a car or train window looks the way it does because of food and farming. Fields are full of grass to feed the animals that we eat and the crops that make your breakfast cereal and toast. They are also homes and hunting grounds for bugs, birds and larger animals. Walls, hedges and fences divide up land and keep the sheep, pigs and other animals on the farm. Walls and hedges are full of wildlife and wild food themselves.
There is so much to see that it’s good to take a closer look and explore nature more deeply.
What catches your eye?
People talk about having ‘a bird’s eye view’ from up in the air but what would a bug’s eye view look like from down on the ground? If you can't find any bugs we've got some ideas for building your own bug hotel here.
Set yourself a challenge and go on a natural treasure hunt:
- LOOK for things smaller than your fingernail
- SEARCH for as many colours as you can
- SEEK seeds for birds
- FIND lots of different greens things
- COLLECT a rainbow
- Don’t forget to SHARE what you have found.
Find out how to make a nature palette so you can keep your collection together or even make a picture.
Get creative
It's a doodle! What has Shaun seen on the picnic table? A mountain of pizza? The pigs chomping on someone's picnic? Download the doodle sheet and get drawing!
Get out and smell the farm for yourself on Open Farm Sunday, 17th June 2012
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Shaun's farmyard smells
Smells can make you hungry. Smells can make you feel sick. Smells can pull you closer or they can push you further away. Smells can bring back memories and create new ones. They can take you to another place and another time. Smell is probably our most powerful sense.
Smells create a strong sense of a place, they tell you where you are - freshly cut grass in a city park, damp leaves in the woods, the animals on the farm. Think of all of the things you smell in just one day. Could you even count them? What can you smell right now?
Anosmia is having no sense of smell. Imagine that! Imagine all of the fantastic smells you could never smell again, your favourite food, the seaside, cut grass, flowers. What about all of the nasty, rotten, stinky pongs you’d never have to suffer again?
What smell would you miss the most?
What would you never want to smell again?
Get creative
It's a doodle! What stinking, rotten, revolting stuff can Shaun smell in the pigs' trough? Download the doodle sheet and get drawing!
Get out and smell the farm for yourself on Open Farm Sunday, 17th June 2012
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Shaun's sounds of summer
Twittering birds and quacking ducks. Shearing sheep and buzzing bees. Shaun’s farm can be a noisy place.
But then the countryside is never silent. Birds call to warn of danger or to find a mate. Insects buzz and hum as they look for food. Trees rustle and grass whispers as they are blown in the wind. Sheep bleat, dogs bark and pigs oink. And it’s not just nature that’s noisy in the country. There are cars and lorries, combine harvesters and tractors, planes and helicopters. There is the hum of electricity cables and the swoop of wind turbines.
Everyone loves a bit of music while they work and play, Blitzer’s radio, Shaun on the decks , the famer’s car stereo. Have a listen to some of our famers to find out about the different sounds farmers hear and what a real farmer hears in his tractor.
You can listen to more of our farmers here.
Get creative
We don’t always pay much attention to what we can hear. Try taking a minute to stop and listen – really listen. What can you hear? Your friends and family perhaps. A plane flying overhead. The whirr of the fan on your computer. There is more about making a sound map here.
Get out and hear the farm for yourself on Open Farm Sunday, 17th June 2012
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