What a great day!

[Lisa Baines]

Today we have done two sessions at a local pre-school (2-4 year olds) showing some of our snakes, lizards, tarantula's and scorpions, oh and the whipspider as well.

It was great to see the kids get hands on with the animals. some of their parents also came to join in the fun.

out of about 40 kids from both sessions, only about 3 were too scared to come near. But some of the parents overcame their fear to encourage their kids, which I thought was awesome.

The tarantula's and scorpions went down especially well and they were really captivated. It was funny the boys were more into the reptiles but the girls loved the inverts. At least two of the kids will be asking santa for an 8 legged friend for xmas lmao. and one lad, who apparently was usually very quiet and timid really came out of his shell with so much enthusiasm.

One kid saw the whipspider and shouted "look it's a harry potter spider!"

I had forgotten how much I enjoy showing the next generation something so magical.

We are back again next wednesday for the afterschool club, with older kids to do the same.

[Steve McIntyre]

Well done Lisa, for showing the children (and parents) that spiders, etc are not horrible creatures but fascinating ones. Some of those kids will hopefully grow up and keep exotic animals rather than want to kill them!

[chris carter]

Hi Lisa

Its a great feeling to show kids that these creatures are not the scary things they think they are.

The Invicta Arachnid club Mini-beast Roadshow tours kent every weekend from June, through to September visiting school fetes & tourist attractions we are at two schools in Dover this weekend Fri & Sat, we have up to 8 members attend each roadshow and it is enjoyable for all. I also do Pre-school and cubs, scouts,Beavers etc with my own reptiles, amphibians and Invertabrates. The aim is to educate the public about the animals and it is good to see others like you doing the same thing.

Well done

Chris

[chris carter]

If you go onto our website www.invicta-arachnid-club.org.uk and open the gallery there are photo's of the roadshows.

Regards chris

[Lisa Baines]

thanks for the replies.

yes it is great educating kids, especially the young ones who may have never seen anything like what we have before.

Thanks for the link

[lynn mawdesley]

Well done you !

I once took my male Royal python into my 2nd eldest childs class to do a talk and for them to ask questions etc and out of a class of 30 children only 2 admired from a distance! i was really proud of them and they really enjoyed it

I must get round to doing the same thing with my T's

Lynn

[Mike_Strick]

I love doing school visits. It's interesting to see the age at which children start being affected by myths and rumours. Year one kids tend to be fine and have few preconceptions, but year twos have picked up all kinds of rubbish! The earlier we can get to them the better!

[Mark Bushell]

Great stuff! Myself and my OH have just done a weekend "exhibition" at Bristol Zoo with the Phasmid Study Group. There were mixed reactions, but it's always great to see the positive reactions from (mainly) the kids, especially the ones who refused to come in the tent as they were scared, and 20 minutes later wanted to hold EVERYTHING.

[Lisa Baines]

fear turns to fascination. it's great XD

[Ian Hall]

Why couldn't someone like you Lisa do demonstrations back when I was in school! Would have been well cool

[Mark Bushell]

fear turns to fascination. it's great XD

"Best" one of the day was a 6-ish year old girl who almost started crying becasue I wouldn't let her old Woody, my 8" LS Lasiodora parahybana female! No doubt she'll be wanting Santa to bring her something 6 or more legged this Xmas

[Lisa Baines]

aww bless, once they start they cant get enough

[Nicola Dolby]

brilliant work Lisa. Glad it all went well, good luck with the next one.