Polliwogs exploring the pond!

Our two Polliwogs groups (Monday AM, Thursday AM) have been learning about the pond this week!

We started out with a story called Pond Walk by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. It's a wonderful picture book about a bear named Buddy who discovers creatures at the pond, then draws them in his nature journal and references his nature ID books. A perfect book for our walk! 

We went on our own Pond Walk to see what we could see.

We saw:

• cattails
• a frog
• a big spider on his web
• dragonflies
• turtles sunning themselves on logs

On Monday, some of us even saw a fish jump out of the water!

We used nets to scoop up mud and plants from the pond and found different kinds of water bugs and water snails. Some children worked on identifying what kind of bugs we caught.

On Thursday we found a lot of dragonfly nymphs at different stages.  Did you know they live in the water for 6 years before emerging, hatching from their shell, and flying around as dragonflies?! 

Just like Buddy the bear in our story, some of us painted Turtle Rocks to take home with us. 

painted turtles (but not the ones that WE painted!)

Everyone enjoyed the beautiful water and the creatures who live in and near it. A few of us also got wet feet, but it was worth it!