This week, Year 4 went on an extraordinary trip to Eastbrookend Country Park. We went there to extend our learning on living things, their environment and to recognise dangers posed to them.
Early in the morning, we walked swiftly to Becontree Station. When we arrived, we took the District line to Dagenham Heathway, and a bus from there all the way to the park. On arrival, we were met by a delightful park ranger called Ruth. In an instant, she invited us inside an Eco-friendly building called, ‘The Millenium centre’. It was super cosy inside and gave us all time to warm up!
Before going outside, Ruth talked to us about potential dangers posed to animals in the park and what action we can take to help them. Soon, we headed outside to the grassland, on an invertebrate hunt! We managed to catch all sorts of invertebrates such as worms, centipedes, spiders, woodlice and snails.
After our invertebrate hunt, we headed out on foot towards the wetland. Using nets we were able to catch a water louse and a water flea. We were thrilled since Ruth mentioned it would be hard to find any creatures in the Winter, but we’d managed it!
Not long after we headed to the woodland, where we made a home for an animal. We also thought about food chains and grouped images of animals and plants, found in the woodland, into producers, primary, secondary and tertiary consumers.
Then it was time for our healthy lunch, which we enjoyed inside in the warm. After all the exercise of the morning, we thoroughly enjoyed it! Before heading back to school, we used maps to locate areas where the environment had changed. We then noted our observations about how we can have a positive impact on our environment.
