We all climbed aboard and were strapped into our seat belts and we were off! Mr Phil's sat nav took us all through the country lanes so we were very happy that Mr Phil is such a good driver! We arrived at HCC and the lady showed us where to put our bags and she scanned our entrance ticket and off we went in search of the animals. The first animals we saw were the tapir and the capybara who were playing in a muddy puddle. We also saw a toucan who was busy chatting to us. After this we saw the squirrel monkeys who had a monkey tunnel bridge over our heads and also the spider monkeys. We went into the nocturnal area where we saw an armadillo, a slow loris and a porcupine. We had to be very quiet there and it was very dark. We were very excited to see the meerkats being fed some vegetables (just before this we had washed our hands and had a biscuit snack) and the zookeeper told us all about where meerkats live in the world (mostly in Asia), what they like to eat (their favourite thing is insects) and that they can live in groups of up to 50 meerkats! I think seeing the meerkats being fed reminded the children about their packed lunch, so we headed off for lunch at 11.40am! The children were certainly very hungry and they sat beautifully eating their tasty lunches. We read some books and all went to the toilet before heading off again to find some more animals and hoping that some of the sleepy ones had woken up! We saw wallabies, an ocelot, rusty spotted cats and the otters called Noodle and Rita who were so funny! We also spotted the maned wolf in his secure area, who was absolutely stunning with his huge ears! We had another little break with another nibble of our lunches and then headed off to see the otters being fed in their enclosure. They were very hungry and the zookeeper fed them crunchy crabs which they absolutely loved. He told us all about the otters and he was very interested in all our questions about the otters. It was then time to go and find Mr Phil in the Russell House minibus in the car park where he was very excited to hear about our day. We all climbed aboard and some of us were so tired we fell asleep - luckily myself, Mrs Sayers and Mrs Parmenter managed to stay awake! We would like to say what a privilege it was to take the children out for the day - they were so well-behaved and did super listening to us and the zookeepers. In fact, the next morning one of the children asked if we could go on another school trip! 

The next day, it was so lovely to recall all the animals we had seen and the children drew some fantastic pictures of their favourite animal for their Special Books. 

This week our story The Same but Different Too has developed the children’s understanding how some of us are the same or we can do the same things and others are different. The children have been looking at puzzles depicting children from around the world enjoying some of their favourite things, including; eating a delicious roast dinner, playing rugby and balancing a water churn on their head. We talked about where they could be in the world and the children came up with some fantastic places such as Spain, Greece and Africa. 

The children have been listening to phonic sounds by playing the Listening Box game. They loved singing the rhyme and then lifting the lid of the box to find one of their favourite objects inside the box. We then all listened to the initial sounds of each one and tried hard to think of other words with the same sound. The children were excited to find a princess, a tiger, a lion, a ball and everyone's favourite; Peppa Pig!

Over the half term, Mrs Sayers took the caterpillars home with her and they turned into their cocoons. This week, one by one, they have hatched into beautiful red admiral butterflies! We have given them some sugar water and sprinkled it onto the rose petals. Sadly, one of them is a little poorly as its wings have not developed properly, so we are going to keep her in our butterfly net to keep her safe from the busy outdoor environment. We were so delighted that we took them to show our friends in Robins, Transition, Form 1 and Form 2 and, as we heard that Form 3 has been learning about the life cycle of a butterfly, we took them upstairs to see them too! We also took them to see Mrs Tickner, Mr McCarthy and Mrs Parker. They are already well-travelled butterflies! We are going to release them from their net on Friday so keep your eyes out for them fluttering around Russell House!

We are looking forward to reading our story about the clever ladybird next week and making some special surprises for daddies too!