14 Brilliant Harvest Assembly Ideas
By Tom Kirkham and Philippa Pearne
The period of harvest provides the opportunity to educate as much as to celebrate, not to mention the chance to have a bit of light-hearted fun along the way. This year, if you’re looking to create a unique, entertaining and informative assembly, we’ve harvested up (if you’ll pardon the pun) a few harvest assembly ideas to give you some inspiration. Get ready to conjure up your best harvest assembly yet.
Brilliant Harvest Assembly Ideas
Harvest Assembly Ideas - KS1
For children at KS1 level, the idea of the harvest festival might seem a little confusing. After all, food is quite literally handed to them on a plate at their age and they could even be forgiven for assuming it magically comes from a crate handed to their parents by the supermarket delivery driver! Abolish harvest confusion and make it a fun, yet educational time of year with these KS1 harvest assembly ideas.
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Go leaf picking
Let’s face it, for a child there really is nothing better than donning your wellies and going for a good old stomp in the fallen Autumn leaves. And better still, your teacher announcing a break from the classroom and going out to do just that in the middle of the school day (best teacher ever...)
Take your class for a walk into nature, tell them to find the brightest red, yellow or orange leaf they can find, then ask them to write one word that they think best describes or relates to harvest on it. These can then be saved, put into a basket, handed out to the rest of the school during your harvest assembly and used as a discussion point.
What you'll need:
- Pens
- Basket
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Sing brilliant harvest songs
A harvest assembly wouldn’t be anything without a performance of some feel-good, celebratory music. Singing harvest assembly songs helps to educate younger children with a little help from catchy, energetic melodies and fun, easy-to-learn lyrics. Make it a live music session with guitar or piano accompaniment, or you can simply play tracks from a computer.
To include some light-hearted, up-beat tunes in your harvest assembly, download our Harvest Song Pack which features two fabulous songs for KS1 children. ‘Big Blue Tractor’ by Niki Davies evokes some enchanting autumn images and perfectly captures the harvesting process in a song that will delight younger children in particular, whilst ‘Harvest Tango’ by Matthew Crossey and Tom Kirkham is a wonderfully wacky tribute to the incredible diversity of produce available to us. Happy humming!
What you'll need:
- Songbook
- Computer and speakers (to play the vocal or backing tracks)
- Guitar or piano (to perform the music)
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Go for the art attack
Something as simple as a picture of a fruit or vegetable can make a big difference to the feel of your harvest assembly. But forget print-outs and posters. Make this a DIY feast! Ask each member of the class to draw a large picture of one fruit or vegetable in bright colours on an A4 piece of paper. Then collect them all together, create a large collage and that’s the central display for your harvest assembly taken care of.
What you'll need:
- A4 paper
- Colouring pencils
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Get decorating
And speaking of creating the right atmosphere, making their own harvest decorations to hang in your assembly setting allows children to feel part of the harvest celebration as soon as they enter the hall or church. After all, feeling part of something special helps to encourage a child’s desire to learn more about it.
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Share the love
As a way of breaking the ice at the start of your harvest assembly, or to end it on a light-hearted note, ask your class to write down one sentence about their favourite food and why. Put them in a basket, pick a handful of them at random during your assembly and read them out. It could be that one child has written about how much they love fruit and that another has described their passion for ice-cream (us too, kid) there is no right or wrong, as long as it creates a conversation around what they are giving thanks for.
What you'll need:
- Paper
- Pens
- Basket
Take a look at our collection of KS1 Assembly Songs, with a great range of songs for different events within the school year as well as a number of great all-round assembly songs.
Harvest Assembly Ideas - KS2
As children move into KS2 (and just when you thought they couldn’t ask any more questions) they become more inquisitive and have an even healthier thirst for knowledge. Harvest is the perfect excuse to instil into children gratefulness and an awareness of what happens around the world so that they can appreciate what they have, as well as their surroundings. How to create a well-rounded service? Here are some harvest assembly ideas for KS2.
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Go travelling
To demonstrate that food comes from all over the world, allocate each member of your class a country and a food from that country. Ask them to write the name of the country and draw its flag and food on a piece of A4 paper and then display them at your harvest assembly. Better still, ask a handful of children to hold up their pictures during the assembly and use each country as a discussion point about where various foods come from. You could also use a large map to pinpoint each country as you go along for even better visualisation.
To put an eco-spin on your assembly, you could also discuss the importance of choosing your food according to how far it needs to travel, to teach children about potentially reducing their carbon footprint.
What you'll need:
- A4 paper
- Colouring pencils
- Pens
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Do the Djembe dance
Famous for its use at various celebrations in West Africa, including when there has been a good harvest, the Djembe Drum is the perfect musical instrument to accompany a harvest themed dance in your harvest assembly.
The Djembe Drum is simply played using bare hands so, if you have any budding musicians in your class, let their rhythmic juices flow whilst the rest of the class wear homemade masks and perform a dance telling the story of harvest.
What you'll need:
- Djembe Drum
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Perform a poem
Even for KS2 children, reciting a poem alone can be a daunting prospect. But as we all know, there is strength in numbers, so choose a short harvest-themed poem that is easy to learn and that everyone can perform all together.
Our editable harvest service - “Harvest Festival Download Pack” - includes the poem 'Autumn Bounty' by Tom Kirkham and can be easily divided into sections if the children would prefer to perform it in separate groups.
What you'll need:
- Harvest Festival Download Pack
- Harvest-themed poem
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Add some drama
Name us a child who doesn’t enjoy wearing a costume and participating in a bit of role play. From getting the children to think up their own harvest-themed freeze frames, to creating their own game show with questions and answers all about the meaning of the harvest festival, this can be a really fun element of your assembly. You could even play a well-known game show tune (copyright depending) for that extra authentic feel!
What you'll need:
- Costumes
- Questions and answers
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Step into their shoes
And while we’re on the subject of role play, why not ask your class to each write a diary entry to read out in your harvest assembly? It could be from the perspective of farmers who harvest the crops, or children who are starving and less fortunate. This would be the perfect opportunity to educate children on how lucky they are to have food on the table and how others around the world might be feeling at this time of year.
What you'll need:
- Pen and paper
You might also enjoy our collection of KS2 Assembly Songs, comprising day-to-day assembly songs and songs for special occasions.
Harvest Assembly Ideas for the Whole School
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Dress up
To add colour and energy to your harvest assembly, ask everyone to dress in brightly coloured clothing as a way of celebrating the joy that food brings and to represent all its varied colours.
What you'll need:
- Brightly coloured clothes
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Make a rainbow
As you know, in recent years, the rainbow has been a symbol of hope and thanks to those working on the frontline during the pandemic. Extend this appreciation into your harvest assembly by allocating a food colour to each year group – it could be in coloured packaging or a bare fruit or vegetable - and with a good system in place, you will be able to create your own harvest rainbow at the front of your assembly setting from all the children’s offerings.
What you'll need:
- Fruit and veggies
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Let us do the hard work for you
If you’re struggling to come up with a good structure for your harvest assembly, why not take advantage of our all-encompassing 'Let's Get Singing Harvest' service? It’s a lovely collection of brilliant harvest songs, harvest readings and poems and reflections, neatly tied up in a ready-to-go service, with the editable script included as standard for you to make adjustments as you feel necessary. It’s your one stop shop for all things ‘harvest’, to do with what you please.
What you'll need:
- 'Let's Get Singing Harvest' songbook
- Computer and speakers (to play the vocal or backing tracks)
- Guitar or piano (to perform the music)
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Play a game
Many children in the UK today will associate food solely with a supermarket; how and where it was grown or reared, reaped or transported, and even what certain foods looked like before they were put into tins or packets will not come into their thinking. Set up a multiple choice ‘Mr and Mrs’ style game to play during your assembly, asking questions about the origin of certain foods. Children should raise their hands for one answer and keep their hands lowered for the other. This would create an interesting and surprising debate about what the children knew and what they thought they knew about where their food actually comes from.
What you'll need:
- Quiz questions
We hope these harvest assembly ideas have left you feel inspired and ready to run the best harvest assembly yet! Learning about the harvest is an important part of the school year, and putting on an exciting and engaging assembly will only reinforce the children’s understanding of and appreciation for the food on their plates!
At The School Musicals Company, we have a huge selection of assembly songs for KS1 students and KS2 students, ready for you to make your own and put on exciting, engaging assemblies all year round. Discover assembly songs for Christmas, PSHE, Year 6 Leavers and more.