Farmers long ago and now

Ages 3 to 5 Read and do together · about 15 minutes

Read together

Farmers grow our food.

Long ago they planted by hand. Today many use machines.

Do it

1. Look at pictures of farming long ago: planting with hands, digging sticks, oxen or buffalo pulling a plough, and farming today: a tractor, a harvester.
2. Plant seeds in soil with your fingers or a stick. Water them. Say what you did.
3. Compare: what is the same? Who gets the food to us?
4. Say thank you for farmers and for the food on the table.

Talk about it

• What do farmers grow?
• What tool would help you plant faster?

For the grown-up

People began farming many thousands of years ago. In the Philippines, rice farming is very old, and farmers worked with carabao (water buffalo) for centuries. Many farmers still work by hand, so tell the story as “then and now” and “here and there”.

Mark as done

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Where this comes from

• Peter Bellwood, First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies (Blackwell, 2005)
• Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), materials on farming and food systems

Written with AI assistance and checked against the sources listed. Please read it before sharing it with a child.