Today in a Writing Workshop, each homegroup contributed to a part of a shared recount about our excursion to Woolworths yesterday.
On Tuesday 2nd April 2019 the Year 2 Neighbourhood walked to Barkly Square to visit Woolworths. We went in two groups – Group 1 went at the start of the day and Group 2 went after lunch. The reason we were visiting Woolworths was because it connects to our Inquiry question “Why Write?”. We were hoping to see examples of how writing is used in different ways in the store, and we also wanted to find out more about how maths is used there.
When we got there, we met Jodi (not Sonny’s mum), Stewart and Louisa. Jodi has worked at Woolworths for 29 years and she is the Assistant Manager of the store. They told us that Woolworths has been around for over 80 years!! We gathered in the fresh produce area of the store and put on dark green aprons (that said ‘Fresh Food Kids’ on the front) and were given funny cardboard hats. Some of our hats were red apples and the others were carrots (and they were orange).
After that, Jodi asked us some questions and we had to answer them. For example, we had to guess what type of fruit or vegetable was inside a paper bag (a banana and a head of broccoli), and estimate how many bananas we thought the store sold in one day (in Group 1, Lyla guessed the right answer with 1000, and Olivia guessed the answer in Group 2). We also learned about how different colours of fruits and vegetables help our body in different ways. Green helps us not get sick, white and brown helps our tummies, red helps our hearts, blue and purple helps our brains, and orange and yellow helps our eyes.
Our knowledge about fruits and vegetables was tested with an activity where we had to identify different fruits and vegetables according to how they grew. Some fruits and vegetables grow on trees (apples, oranges, pears, and bananas) while others grow on a vine (passion fruit, grapes, beans, and watermelon). Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and tomatoes grow on a bush, and carrots, potatoes, radish, and beetroot grow underground.
Then it was time to venture into the back of the store to find out more about the different spaces and operations of Woolworths. On the way, we walked past the meat section and Stewart showed us a package of mince that was actually made completely from plants. Ike reckons that he’s already cooked with it at home and it tasted ‘pretty nice’.
After we arrived in the storage area, Jodi split us into two groups so that we could take turns going into the fridge and the freezer. Both were small spaces and it would’ve been too crowded if we all went in together. The temperature inside the fridge was between 1-2 degrees, and this kept milk, soft drinks, Big M, and yogurt cold. But standing inside the fridge felt like nothing compared to being inside the freezer. The temperature in there was much cooler… it was under 0 degrees and we all got to experience what -22 degrees felt like. Sunny W thought it felt so cold that it almost felt warm and Kat said that it was ‘frosty’ in there. Sebastien was worried that if he had to stay in there for longer than an hour, he would probably be frozen solid!
Next we went to see the cardboard crusher. Woolworths uses a lot of cardboard everyday and this machine helps them crush up boxes and make them into ‘bales’ to send back to the factory to be recycled. Steward told us that the machine makes about 5-6 bales (1m cube) a day.
At the end of our tour we got to pick a piece of fruit to take and were given a green bag with an activity booklet and quiz cards related to what we had learned that day. While were handing back our aprons and organizing our groups to go back to school, we also saw a bench made completely out of recycled plastic bags that is at the front of the store. Then we had a lovely walk back to school.
We felt happy when we got back to school because we all had a good time and it was a lot of fun. It was great to learn more about the different ways maths around us can be measured (for example temperature to measure how cold and hot it is, number when thinking about quantities of items) and how writing is used everyday in our community.