Having spent a cold January day on the farm, it was lovely to welcome back some of the Year Ones from Cropthorne-With-Charlton school to see the farm in the sunshine. The topic of the day was life cycles. The children learnt the name of a dad cow, mum cow and baby cow. Whilst on the farm walk we saw this years spring born calves. We also discussed some creatures born on the farm which don’t look like their parents. 

The children were told about the life cycle of the butterfly and remembered the book of the ‘hungry caterpillar’. The children had learnt about the life cycle of a frog at school and told me all about it. I then showed the children a picture of an ‘ugly green bug’, which was infact a dragon fly nymph and explained that rather like in the ugly duckling book, the ugly nymph will grow into something beautiful. 

As we walked down to the pond we looked for signs of Spring. Once at the pond the children looked for frogs and dragon fly nymphs. They didn’t see any frogs but did find the nymphs, plus pond snails and their eggs, young water boatmen, a water louse, damsel fly nymphs and pond skaters. 

After lunch, lots of role playing took place in the playwood with this imaginative class. 

Tags: Life Cycles, May