We are lucky to be within walking distance of Cruikshank Botanic Gardens. For the rest of the term the children will be taking turns to walk down to the gardens to search for minibeasts, study the different plants, and to play in the beautiful arboretum.

This week’s group saw a lots of minibeasts, discovered the different shapes of the leaves, climbed on the trees, and enjoyed a picnic!

Have a look at some of our adventures in the gardens…

The visits to the botanic gardens can only take place with a minimum of 3 parent helpers. If you are able to help out in any ways, please let a member of the team know! 

The children have watched them grow from tiny caterpillars to big caterpillars.

Then they watched in fascination as they went into their cocoons.

The excitement at watching them emerge as beautiful butterflies was wonderful to see.

And finally… today was a perfect day to let our beautiful butterflies fly free!

We have butterflies!!

We have had some beautiful moments in Riverbank Nursery over the past few days with our butterflies emerging from their cocoons. The children have watched in fascination as our transformed little visitors have been fluttering around the nets, eating nectar from the oranges and flowers left in the nets, and spreading their wings.

We will be releasing them out into the garden on the next sunny day and we can’t wait to see our butterflies fly free!

Today was an exciting day for the children of Riverbank Nursery – Caris from ZooLab came to visit and she brought along some wonderful little friends too!

We got to meet a giant land snail, a stick insect, a tarantula, a millipede, and even a corn snake. We got to touch some of them and even hold some of them. We learned so much about them!

It was so exciting and a day we will remember for a long time!

Have a look at some of the photos from the day…