Rainforests (part one): How to survive

 Next Friday we are taking a trip to the Living Rainforest, so today was our training day.

After completing some column subtraction and work with doubles (you need maths skills everywhere, even in the rainforest, much to Ferdy's dismay) we packed our bags with vital equipment.

In case anyone was wondering, a net bomb is a bomb that can be thrown at a bad snake and it will trap it in a net:

Then, with Mowgli (the quintessential jungle survivor)'s wise words as our soundtrack, we set off for our rainforest training ground.

Essential preparatory activities included: spotting caimans and piranhas and therefore not swimming in the water; tunnelling; climbing; crossing some very wobbly rope bridges and navigation through a maze.

We also realised that it would be important to try our feet out on different surfaces, as we may end up in the rainforest without any shoes (no one included shoes or clothes in their survival kits), so the barefoot walk was a very good test for this. Ferdy and Gil concluded at this stage that Mum was not ready for the rainforest and would need to do some more barefoot walking practice before next Friday.

Later on, Ferdy wrote his ten steps for survival in the rainforest.

1. Keep away from piranhas and caimans.

2. Have someone else with you.

3. Have food and water with you.

4. Have some courage.

5. Make a hut out of sticks.

6. Make friends with the animals.

7. Keep a compass with you.

8. Identify the animals.

9. Don't be poisoned.

10. Stay fit because a predator might chase you so you need to be fit.

A disastrously delightful day

 Sometimes flexi- days don't work out quite as planned.

I had thought that in visiting West Midlands Safari Park, we could cleverly cover both subjects Ferdy and Gil are doing at school (rainforests and dinosaurs).

In my ever so meticulous planning, I had not realised that a) it was much farther away than I'd thought and there were a lot of roadworks on the way (thank goodness for Rudyard's Kipling's Just So Stories and Aesop's Fables) so we spent a lot of time in the car, b) the reptile house and the aquarium, where we were hoping to see rainforest reptiles and Piranhas were closed, and c) half of the West Midlands had planned to do the same thing as us..

But once we'd got over our long journey, it was pretty exciting to see zebras, elands and buffalo who came right up to our car.

Ferdy was on the look out for animals in who live in or near the rainforest so was pleased to spot the majestic Sumatran Tiger and the asian elephants.

Even better though, was our journey through the Ice Age where we met the Paraceratherium (the largest land mammal ever), a giant sloth, a Smiledon, dire wolves, woolly mammoths and many other now extinct creatures, some of whom Ferdy pointed out, may have lived in a kind of rainforest habitat. 

And the dinosaurs didn't disappoint.

Appropriately the sun also came out for our encounter with these terrible lizards so we really felt like we had gone back to the Triassic period. Gil thoroughly enjoyed informing us whether they were carnivores or herbivores and we were all a little scared by the thumping sound of the Tyrannosaurus Rex approaching through the forest.

When we arrived home after three hours in traffic jams we agreed it had been worth it, although Ferdy did suggest that reading books all day at home about rainforests and dinosaurs might have been just as good.