ZSL Whipsnade treated Year 1 to a virtual visit this afternoon to share some interesting animal facts with us as part of our ‘Animals including Humans’ topic. The children were lucky enough to have the information presented to them right in front of the giraffe house and met a rather cheeky giraffe, who definitely wasn’t camera shy, called Banusha.

The children consolidated their understanding of the five main animal groups and extended their knowledge by experiencing real animal artefacts. These included the fur of an impala, the skeleton of a piranha, a snake skin, a peacock feather and a gigantic ostrich egg. By exploring the features of these amazing artefacts, the children definitely learned more about the common characteristics of each group. Children can now use the vocabulary ‘live young’, ‘eggs’, ‘spine’, ‘warm blooded’ and ‘cold blooded’ much more confidently.

Year 1 were even introduced to a different way of sorting animals based upon what they eat and picked up new scientific language- ‘carnivore’, ‘herbivore’ and ‘omnivore’ along the way.

I think the smiles and looks of concentration in the photographs show just what an informative and enjoyable afternoon Year 1 had. Many thanks to ZSL Whipsnade.