Nocturnal Animals

Didi came to work with Sapphire and Silver Classes.

We learned about some nocturnal animals.

Nocturnal animals are animals that mostly come out at night.

First we listened to some sounds. We listened to a mouse rustling, creeping and scuttling through some leaves in a box.

Then we heard about Artemides the Owl. Artemides lived in a tree.
One day he swooped down and caught a mouse.

We also heard all about a bat and his special hearing.
Bats smell, hear, taste, feel and see just like people do. The term "blind as a bat" isn't really accurate. Bats have perfectly good eyes for seeing in the daylight, the problem is, they do most of their hunting at night! Instead of relying on their sight at night, bats make rapid high-pitched squeaks called "ultrasounds". These sounds are too high for most people to hear. If these sounds hit something, they bounce back; it's like when you hear your voice echo back from a mountain or a bathroom when you shout. The bat hears the echo and can tell where the object is. This is called "echolocation". Not every species of bat is able to echolocate, but most can.

After hearing all these interesting and fun stories we went into the hall and we moved around like the nocturnal animals we had just heard about.

We stretched and spread our wings like a bat.

We used our talons to perch on and tree and catch our pray just like an owl. Then we scampered around like a mouse searching for some food.

Finally when our bellies were full we curled up into a cosy, snug ball like a little mouse sleeping.

Lastly we went back into class and drew some pictures of the stories we had heard. We only used pencil to draw our pictures because our pictures were set in night time, and we know at night time we cannot see bright colours because it is dark with very little light.

By Sapphire and Silver Classes