School visit to the Living Nativity at London Zoo.
By Su O’ Brien
On Thursday 1stDecember,Classes 1 and 2 set off to visit London Zoo.
On arrival at the Zoo, I went with Class 2 to look around the Rainforest section. We saw monkeys and different types of bugs. The children were complimented by the rainforest Zoo keeper on their behaviour while in this section.
We moved back outside to see the Giraffes, but as it was very cold they declined to come out of their enclosure, choosing only to pop their heads out as we watched them. By now the children (and the adults) were ready for lunch! We were able to use the education centre for this and this enabled us to walk past the Snowdon Aviary and get a great view of all the different types of birds housed there.
After lunch we moved off to the Gorilla Kingdom section. The children were lucky enough to see the baby gorillas and monkeys they have there.
We carried on our walk and found ourselves in tiger territory! The children watched the baby tigers playing /fighting with each other. Next on the agenda was the lion enclosure! The big male Lion was grooming himself or as one of the children pointed out to me he must be doing yoga!! ( I will leave that to your imagination ) The three female lionesses were taking it much easier. They had found themselves and sunny spot were stretched out!
Now it was time to meet up with Class 1 and start out on their Nativity adventure! We began by meeting up with two wise men (yes I know it’s three, but one had gone to get the breakfast!) They took us to the camels and explained the difference between the types. I thought the camels looked most unfriendly but they probably just had the hump!!! Ok moving on…
The star appeared and we followed it all the way to Bethlehem where we met Mary in the stable. She told us her story and asked the children to sing “Away in a Manger” to Jesus.
The final resting place of the star was in a field where the shepherds were waiting to tell us all about their part in the birth of Jesus. After lots of baaaad jokes, we left the shepherds as they hurried off to the stable. We carried on to the North Pole, after walking through the enchanted forest we met Father Christmas.
He told us all about the animals that live at the North Pole and about some of them that live right at the other end of world in the South Pole.
The children had fun identifying all the different animals that Father Christmas showed them and after singing jingle bells, we left Father Christmas in his warm grotto. Class 2 just had time to fit in the penguins, aquarium and reptile house before climbing aboard the bus to go home.
This was such a full day that it was not long before most of the children were asleep! Although the journey home was long, the children behaved very well and we were soon back at St Michael’s.
Mrs O’Brien