Jungle Jo

Today, we met Jungle Jo! She brought some of her pets from home, most of which were Minibeasts! We learnt that Minibeasts are creatures that have no bones (and some of Jo's pets weren't quite so "mini")! Have a look at the photos to see who we met this morning.

The children met a stick insect called Twiggy. She was very light and when she crawled on our hands, we thought it tickled. Twiggy camouflages with the trees where she lives, so she can hide from danger.

 

Isabella was incredibly brave when she made friends with Tilly, the baby tarantula. Tilly was only very young, so Isabella has to be very delicate with her as she held her.  The Nursery children met "curly sue" the tarantula - Alfie and Franki were very careful and still when they held her!

 

This is Milli-Vanilli the Millipede! Milli was a little bit frightened today, and when she first came out of her home, she curled up very tightly. Luckily the children were very calm and quiet so she explored the room and let the children hold her.

Here, Jo is holding Curly Sue the tarantula. She is quite a bit bigger that Tilly because she is 9 years old! The children learnt that spiders have 8 legs and they aren't actually insects but arachnids. 

Sid is a hissing cockroach. He gets his name by hissing when he feel scared. Luckily, Sid didn't hiss today, and he enjoyed being stroked by the children. He felt exactly like the top of our fingernails. Riley, in Nursery let Sid walk across his leg and said he tickled!

  

Brian the snail was very big indeed! Nothing like the snails we see in our garden. We learnt that his eyes sit on tentacles that come out of his shell when he explores.

 

Now this is Rosy! As you can see, she's not exactly mini! In fact, Rosy isn't a Minibeast at all, because she has bones in her body (but we were really pleased she came along to say hello anyway). She felt very smooth and the children noticed that she was quite heavy.

The children were all incredibly open minded meeting all the creatures today. Even when they were a little bit nervous, Jungle Jo helped them to realise that her pets really were very gentle and friendly! Afterwards, the children wrote thank you cards to Jungle Jo for visiting and wrote about which creatures they enjoyed meeting.