KS2 History activities that can be carried out before, during or after a farm visit.
Make a timeline to show the effects on farm work as new technologies were introduced.
Study the effects of the industrial revolution on the population in the countryside.
Produce a portrait of a farm worker's life before and after various technological developments.
Write a day or a year in the life of a farmer at different times in history.
Study jobs children did on the farm, gleaning left over corn, thinning turnips, stone picking, bird scaring. Look at the way compulsory schooling changed children's lives.
Compare and contrast life in a Victorian village with life on a Victorian town. What kind of work life/diet/entertainment would they have and how would they differ?
Compare maps of a farming area from past to present. Note changes in buildings, field layouts, roads and railways, the changing ratio of urban areas to countryside and farmland.
Compare old and current maps of the city or town the school is in. Compare the amount of farmland and countryside.
Make a timeline to show changes over this time period in Farming. Stone aged hunter-gatherers changed to settled, self-sufficient farmers growing barley and millet and ancient wheat and as tools progressed in the Iron age the cultivation of crops became larger scale and more organised and newer varieties came from abroad such as spelt.
Look at the ancient breeds of sheep, pig and goats and compare to modern commercial breeds. How have they changed and why did people want the breeds to change?
Investigate the differences between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic Stone ages.
Either write a menu for a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer and Neolithic settled farmer. How do they differ, which menu would you prefer?
Watch the BBC Bitesize video on Roman farming in Britain. How did the Romans change agriculture? What effect may this have had on the landscape?