I had the most wonderful day with a class of children from the Vale of Evesham School. We made the most of the gorgeous weather and spent much of the morning down by the pond. We found lots of creatures in our pond dipping nets and had the excitement of spotting newly emerged dragonflies and damselflies. We also popped to the cow shed to see the calves and the meadow to see the impressive display of buttercups. The boys were very happy to be in the wood after lunch. 

The sun shone for Twyning Village Playgroup! We had such a lovely time seeing the farm animals and exploring the play wood. 

It was an absolute pleasure to welcome back the year 4 and 5 children from Cropthorne with Charlton C E First School. The weather was once again…..wet!

As the children arrived the rain was pouring down. I told the children all about the life cycle of a dragon fly. We played a similar game to beetle drive but instead of beetle body parts, the children had to roll the dice for each stage of the dragon fly life cycle. I was able to show them some real skins of emerged dragon flies. 

            

As the sun came out we decided to go on a farm walk which was a little longer than planned, but the children didn’t mind at all. We climbed to the top of the small hill on the farm and stood in a circle. I asked everyone to look out of the circle and think of one word to explain something they could see which they had to tell the rest of the class. Then in groups we used some landscape discussion cards. The children were really engaged in this activity. 

We then headed down to the pond to see if we could find any dragon fly nymphs. One boy dipped and pulled out a clear egg with a tiny newt in it. I was very excited as I had never seen anything quite like it.

Then the rain came down in huge drops, I was the only one who was worried as I had foolishly decided not to wear a coat! 

After lunch the children borrowed dry coats and had a great time in the play wood. 

The reception children from Sedgeberrow C of E First School came out to the farm. I had already met many of the children when they were at playgroup and so it was lovely to see how much they had grown since last summer. It was also very lovely to see that they were excited about being back on the farm and that they had remembered lots of ‘how to be safe on a real farm’. 

Our topic was farms and animals. The children were very good at thinking about which farm animals may live on my farm. After some prompting they also came up with lots of wild animals which may live on the farm. Some of them were hoping that I had tigers, hippos and a panda. 

We then went to see the baby calves and the children had chance to see how the calves ad-lib feed on the milk machines. They also learnt about id ear tags.

We then went to see the chickens and the children quickly spotted  my handsome cockerel. I asked them how they knew that he was the cockerel and that the others were hens. 

After that we went in search of some wild creatures in my pond. As the pond water is still very cold we didn’t find as much as we expected. Although I was very surprised to see that between the whole class we found hundreds of baby water boatmen and a tadpole (well done Mrs Green). 

The weather held off for the wood land play. 

 

The lovely Year 2 children from Dean Close Preparatory School braved the rain to look at the topic of habitats. After the health and safety talk the children visited the calf pen to look at the ‘habitat’ we provide for our young stock. I explained all the things farmers think about when making sure the ‘habitat’ is correct for the animals; food, water, shelter, space to move and friends. Throughout the day the children asked some fantastic questions. 

During the farm walk we thought about both the farm animals and the wild animals which live on the farm. The children learnt that farmers work hard to provide habitats for lots of wild animals. We walked along the beetle bank, past the wild bird seeds and then saw a badger hole. 

 

The children loved exploring which creatures live in a freshwater habitat. Whilst we pond dipped we found an adult sized smooth newt which was really exciting. The children found lots of clear jelly with eggs in which are pond snail eggs. 

The children loved the play wood.