On Monday the children in Years 3- 6 had the pleasure of watching the National Farmers’ Union workshop: ‘Lambing Live!’ It was wonderful to see the farmers with their sheep and lambs and they were very knowledgeable about their animals. We got a tour of the farm on one of the farmer’s quad bikes and we watched some sheeps dogs hearding the sheep into the pen. The most excting part was when the farmer suddenly announce that one of the sheep was in labour! We were able to witness the birth of a beautiful lamb (some children enjoyed this more than others!), we then watched it bond with its mother and finally stand up. It was a little wobbly on its feet and so the farmer named it Bambi. It was wonderful for the children to have this experience and maybe some of them will be the farmers or vets of the future!
On Wednesday the children in Reception – Year 2 enjoyed their workshop from the National Farmers’ Union: ‘Which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ The children were challenged to order the life cycle of a chicken, thinking about how it starts as an egg. We were amazed to see how tame the chickens were – they were even sat on the owner’s head at one point! The owner was so knowledgeable about how to look after her chickens and she told us how incubators help the eggs to stay warm before they hatch. The chicks were adorable and we were very lucky to firstly see an x-ray of an egg with a chick inside and then we watched a chick hatching out of the egg!
To help the children develop their curiosity for science, they were challenged to come up with their own questions about science. We had so many interesting ones about many different topics including space, climate change and the Covid-19 vaccine. We were extremely lucky that Caroline Williams, a science journalist and Longacre parent, was able to give up her time to answer some of these questions for us. The Q & A sessions were so interesting with answers that were so easy to understand and we all definitely learnt a lot.
To end the week we had a virtual visit from the Guildford Beekeepers Society who ran three different talks about the importance of bees and other pollinators. We learnt so many interesting facts about bees and we were amazed by some of the photos and videos we were shown. The children also had the opportunity to ask their own questions about the bees which included ‘Do bees really have knees?’ and ‘How many eggs does the Queen bee lay in a day?’ We were told by the Beekeepers how important it is to grow flowers in our gardens and to put water out for the bees to help them to survive.
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