The lovely chatty Willow class from Astley CE School came to the farm today to learn about animal classification. We started the day thinking about different animals and their characteristics. I lined up all my animal toys and we could see similarities and differences. The toys were split into mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds. I also put out some feathers and had ‘buzz’ my stuffed Buzzard to show the children. 

On the farm walk the children looked at the wild bird mix we have planted to feed to birds and small mammals on the farm. We then went pond dipping. I couldn’t believe how many minibeasts the children found. The children were very lucky to see dragon flies flying above the plants in the pond. The dragon flies were very brown in colour and smaller than the emerald green ones I see in the summer. A girl presented me with a mini beast I hadn’t seen before, which turned out to be beetle larvae. The pond yields different creatures in the Autumn. 

In the play wood the Year 2 children remembered their ‘fairy tales’ trip to the farm last year and re-enacted Billy Goats Gruff on the big climbing logs.