The traditional story of The Enormous Turnip is told by trumpet player Sean Chandler accompanied by members of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.

The video

The Enormous Turnip

Presenter: Sean Chandler
Composer: Daniel Whibley
Instruments: Horn / Trumpet / Trombone / Tuba

Synopsis

A farmer and her daughter dream of winning first prize at the village fair, but their vegetables are never big enough.

They're determined to win next time, so they do everything they can to help their last turnip seed grow. They plant it in soil at the sunniest spot on the farm, they water it, they read stories to it every day, and they even sing it songs.

One morning the farmer and her daughter go to check on the turnip, and it has grown as wide as an elephant and as tall as a tree! They try pulling it up but the enormous turnip just won't budge.

A goat peddles by on his bike and agrees to help them pull the enourmous turnip up, but it still won't budge. A dog parachutes down from the sky and together they all pull and pull as hard as they can. The enormous turnip just won't move.

Suddenly, a helpful rat in a cowboy hat rides in on the back of a rabbit. They all join in and pull as hard as they can, until… the enormous turnip goes 'pop' and flies our the ground!

The farmer and her daughter take the enormous turnip to the village fair and finally win first prize (and every other prize). They celebrate their victory by sharing turnip soup with everybody that had helped them to pull it up, and begin to make plans for next year's competition.

Curriculum links

Music
The film and the accompanying Teacher Notes can be used to fulfil the following objectives of the Key Stage 1 music curriculum, which states that pupils should be taught to:

  • use their voices expressively and creatively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes
  • play tuned and untuned instruments musically
  • listen with concentration and understanding to a range of high-quality live and recorded music
  • experiment with, create, select and combine sounds using the inter-related dimensions of music.

English
The film and the accompanying Teacher Notes can also be used to target objectives from the Key Stage 1 English curriculum, particularly relating to Spoken language, Reading and Writing.

Resources

Teacher Notes. document

Download / print the Teacher Notes for this episode

Teacher Notes

The instruments. image

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The instruments

Vocabulary. image

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Vocabulary

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