We were very lucky to watch one of our chicken eggs hatch in the incubator. The children loved checking on the eggs each day and eagerly watching for any signs of movement. There was great excitement when the chick finally emerged from its shell! Although the other eggs sadly did not hatch, it was still a valuable learning experience.
To continue our life cycle learning, one of our lovely parents kindly brought in some quail eggs for us to observe. We were lucky enough to observe eight chicks hatch. The children have thoroughly enjoyed watching them in their warm box under the heat lamp. They were especially surprised by how noisy the little chicks are despite being so tiny. The children have been very caring and gentle while observing them, and many wonderful discussions have taken place about how animals grow and change. We are now very excited and hopeful that we may also get some duck eggs next week!
Our caterpillars have also been very busy. After eating lots and lots of food, they have now formed their cocoons. The children have enjoyed observing the different stages of the caterpillar life cycle and are eagerly waiting for them to emerge as beautiful ‘Painted Lady’ butterflies. We are looking forward to releasing them into the garden over the next couple of weeks.
Alongside all of this, we have continued our learning about minibeasts. One of our parents kindly brought in some stick insects for the children to see up close. We sat very quietly and carefully while Christine introduced us to the stick insects, and some of the children were even brave enough to hold one! The children were amazed at how much they really looked like sticks and were very surprised when they suddenly moved so quickly. We also discovered that they have tiny sticky pads on the ends of their legs which help them climb and hold on to things.
It has been such a wonderful hands-on learning experience for the children, helping to encourage curiosity, confidence, and a love of the natural world. We cannot wait to see what exciting discoveries the next few weeks will bring!