On Friday 14th June, 5B had a wonderful visit to Washington Wetlands Trust as part of our science topic ‘Lifecycles’ – even though the weather did its best to spoil our day!
When we arrived, we were greeted by our guide, Joanne, who took us into the warm, dry learning room and chatted to us about our day. Once we’d been given an overview, it was time to brave the elements again…
We headed straight for the purpose-built pond where we did some pond-dipping. We were given a tray, a small net, a magnifying glass and a special pot to in which to collect the pond’s insect life. We all chose a creature from our tray and put it into the pot and walked round to a special outdoor classroom where Joanne used a portable camera to film each of the insects so we could watch them on a big TV screen. It was amazing to see these tiny creatures magnified so much!
While in this outdoor classroom, we were also shown some real-life tadpoles, all at different stages of development. It was fabulous to see them as we had just learned about frog lifecycles last week.
Next, we took a slow walk around the park – there was much to see! We saw lots of pigeons, different types of geese from around the world, different types of ducks (including one with a ginger head that was nicknamed ‘Ed Sheeran’) we also saw a group of flamingos – fifty-nine in total! All of these birds were very brave and came very close to us – we could even hand feed some of them birdseed.
One of the best bits of the day was undoubtedly the otters. They were incredibly cute and, as it was close to their feeding time, they swam around and scampered about for us in the hope we would give them food!
We also went to the duckery to see the baby ducks. They were very fluffy and small and we really enjoyed looking at them.
After lunch, we went back to a suitable feeding point and got to feed lots more birds until, sadly, the heavens opened and a torrential downpour ended our day! Thankfully, we had the shelter of the learning room until the bus arrived!
It really was a brilliant day and the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
