Brookham Pre-Prep visits Marwell Zoo

The Year One pupils enjoyed the special trip as part of their topic for this term 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 interactive and engaging workshop.

In this workshop, 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.

Then they 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.

Year One 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.

The children spent the rest of the week writing accounts of their trip and sharing their favourite moments with their friends.

For more information about Brookham Pre-Prep, visit the Highfield and Brookham website at www.highfieldschool.org.uk.