Working in groups Squirrels class set off on a spring scavenger hunt on the school field.
They had many different things to look for, from three different shaped leaves to something the crawls. They found almost everything however the bird nest was a little tricky to spot, when asked why this was they said “because of all the leaves”.
In small groups the children made their way into the pond area, before we made a start we talked about all the different things that they thought they may catch “tadpoles”. Then lying on the tummies they dipped their nets into the pond, dragging them about a bit before pulling them out to see what they had caught “there is something moving in my slime”.
Everything that was caught was popped into a tray of water for the children to use an ID sheet to identify what they found. We found a Newt, when looking at it closely Squirrels class pointed out that it has spots and a orange tummy. After that almost every net that went in was pulling out another Newt, we just kept hearing the children shout “I got a Newt”. The children in the class said that many of the creatures that we had found today in the pond they had seen in the ponds that they have at home. We found Damselfly Nymphs, Water Louse, Pond Snails and one rather large Dragonfly Nymph.
The children popped on some gloves and used secateurs to continue to remove the brambles growing next to the pond. As they worked their way further into the brambles they came across many different insects, one was a small green caterpillar that was found making its way across someone’s head.
There were some beautiful leaf print pictures made using paint, the children made sure to apply the paint to the underside of the leaf to make sure that they got the best print showing all the veins of the leaf.
