Native Animal Day At Kinder

We had a wonderful morning at kindergarten today. Matt and Leanne bought their native animal zoo to show all the children. They were very excited, and very well behaved. It was so funny seeing some of the kids hold the animals. Isabelle loves animals so she just dove right in to feed and touch them.
First up we have the long necked tortoise. Do you know that they actually shed their shell. I never knew that about tortoises, and they explained that tortoises have webbed feet so that they can walk, whereas turtles have flippers because they are in the water more. How interesting. The turtle was so tiny so that's why I made the picture bigger so that you could actually see it. It actually runs along quite fast too.

Next up we have Scooby the koala. He is very cute. He just sat in Matt's arms and chomped on the gum leaves from the branch. He was really good letting all the kids pat him. His fur is very soft and light.

This is April, the joey who is about 11 months old. She was absolutely gorgeous, and I think my favourite. She hopped around the circle and ate pellets from the children's hands. She then decided to have a wander around the kindergarten, and when she was finished they popped her back into her large pillowcase which she just jumped straight into. It is like a pouch to her which the joeys usually sit in when they are with their mothers.

Here is Alannah, Isabelle and Olivia with the black headed python, which I am afraid to say creeped me out just a little bit. I did not touch it, but Isabelle kept patting it and stroking its tail. The kids all posed with the snake, and Dylan, a little boy in Isabelle's class just stood there with the python wrapped around him. He loved it.



Next up we have the bearded dragon, which looked like a little prehistoric dinosaur I thought. He was very lively and liked to wriggle around. His skin is quite prickly on the top to touch.


This is the other lizard which is a stumpy tail lizard. He was very cute and felt like a pine cone before they open up. He was quite cute to look at. There was also a tree frog and a fruit bat there too. The tree frog was Isabelle's favourite, but you must wet your hands before holding frogs so it does not take the moisture out of their skins. No-one was allowed to hold the fruit bat, just in case they had eaten fruit in the last 48 hours, because the bat would be able to still smell it, and try to squeeze your hands to find the fruit and squeeze all the juice out. He did eat some grapes and there was nothing left afterwards apart from a tiny bit of grape skin. They were all beautiful animals, and most of them are in the bush so we do not get to see them much around the suburbs. It is great for the kids though to be able to hold them and feed them, and the animals are used to being around the kids too so it makes it fun for everyone!