Pond Studies

 Eastern Sedge Frog
 Cane toad
 Miss Five's frog
 The difference between frogs and toads
 11 ducklings!
Catching guppies
Catching fish
An unusual find on a paperbark tree - an insect nest of eggs?
Sleepy possum in the rafters
Mallard duck - an introduced species
'Mosquito fish' or Gambusia

In addition to keeping a nature journal with my three children, I recently began using Lynn Seddon's 'Exploring Nature with Children', a year long nature study curriculum. It is a beautiful and inspiring guide which follows a theme each week with suggestions for nature walks, book lists, a poem, a piece of art and extension activities. It has given direction to our nature studies. Despite being based on an American calendar of seasons, we have simply ignored the months and followed the seasons in order to follow the weekly prompts.

We began with Spring and Pond studies, visiting our local pond with nets, jars and nature journals in hand. We discovered toads, a frog, a tadpole, and eleven fluffly little ducklings. On our next adventure we caught 'guppies' and brought them home to observe. However, these tiny fish that I had noticed my whole life and assumed were native actually turned out to be an introduced species now considered a pest. One truly does lean something new each day!

As a result of our pond studies, and the many books I borrowed for the library on the topic, we have been studying the life cycle of frogs, the differences between frogs and toads, and the bird life in our local pond.

If you are interested on focusing more time towards nature study, I can't recommend Lynn's curriculum enough. xx

No comments:

Post a Comment