Year 4: Finglandrigg Nature Reserve

Year 4 had a fantastic day exploring different habitats on the Finglandrigg Nature Reserve.

The children had the chance to go mini-beast hunting in the woods, among the trees and leaf litter on the wood floor, with David, Jasmine and Caitlin. They carefully collected a wide variety on invertebrates and insects, and were able to observe them up close in magnifying jars and ‘pooter’ jars. We changed habitat and went to the more open grassland, here the children used sweep nets to collect more amazing animals, including the wonderful wolf spider with its egg sac.

Pond dipping was a great success and lots of fun! The children were really inspired and motivated to find as many aquatic animals as they could. We were lucky enough to find newts, dragonfly and damselfly nymphs, diving beetles (small and great), stickle back fish, water boatmen and many other small beetles – including one found by us that was new to Mike’s pond!

Back in the woods, the children were shown how to age a tree with without having to cut it down by Shirley. Tree aging was interesting, the children had to use collaboration and their maths skills for this activity – they did really well too.