YEAR 1 children at Brookham Pre-Prep in Liphook visited Marwell Zoo as part of their topic in which they have used Saints-Saen’s music ‘The Carnival of the Animals’ as a starting point to explore the world of animals.
Through drama, stories, art and science activities they have been learning about animals of Africa and Australia, as well as animals found closer to home in the British countryside, or kept as pets in our own homes.
The children enjoyed the opportunity to see many animals first hand during their visit to Marwell Zoo and took part in an inter-active and engaging workshop where they discussed ways in which animals could be grouped according to their similarities. The children used real animal artefacts and put them into the five vertebrate groups. They then met and stroked some of the live animals, including a snake and a rat. The children were set the challenge of working out whether the animals were cold or hot blooded.
The children then took a walk around the zoo where they saw many animals such as giraffes, tigers, rhinos, lemurs, cheetahs, flamingos and zebras, but the most popular were the meerkats. The children were mesmerised and fascinated at the way in which the meerkats stood up on their legs to observe them curiously.