On Tuesday, Green and Orange Class travelled by bus and tram to explore Morden Hall Park on a hunt for animals in their habitats. While at the park, we were able to investigate three different local microhabitats: logs (dead wood), tall plants (meadow) and the path. We were lucky enough to find some fascinating little creatures such as a newts, millipedes, shield bugs, earwigs, a range of spiders and slugs, ant nests and much more! The classes had great fun becoming scientists and used equipment to gather the animals to inspect them. This helped the children correctly identify and categorise the animals according to their properties. They used a magnifying pot, paint brushes, spoons and nets to carefully collect the creatures without harming them and returned them to their natural habitat. Using the magnifying pot and minibeast fact files, we could count the legs, recognise patterns, wings, scales etc to help us understand the correct habitat and conditions for them! At lunch, we enjoyed a lovely picnic before being caught in the rain, which brought even more wildlife out of the ground for us to investigate! We enjoyed a soggy walk across the wetlands to spot some birds and discuss the life cycles and food chains of animals in our local environments. Throughout the journey home, we were singing songs and playing games through the park and on the transport.
