Greening Sam and Avery

theme week - ponds - pond class at school

This is the second year that I have taken a pond to Sam's school. I visit our nearby pond early in the morning and then bring a pool filled with LOTS of critters to the school yard for all the kids to explore at some point during the day. 

This year we started the program out by talking about what lives in a pond and listing off all the big creatures that we see at ponds. Then we read the book "Pond Circle" by Betsy Franco. This story is great because it starts with the small things, algae, nymphs and beetles. And then moves up the food chain to the bigger animals that live near and often visit ponds. I love this story as a way to learn about the little critters in a pond because you can really highlight how the story starts with the little things. That without the little critters there would be no story, there would be no food for the bigger things that we like to watch. 

The kids got the chance today to see up close dragonfly nymphs, damselfly nymphs, tadpoles, a leech, three different kinds of snails, waterboatmen and a predacious diving beetle. They learned all about each one of these critters and some of the things they do (who they eat, who might eat them, how they move, how they protect themselves, etc.) in the pond. 

It was an awesome pond day! Sorry no pictures to share, it is hard for me to teach and play photographer at the same time. 

theme week - ponds - getting started

We got all our books from the library. I just love when I go with a list and can actually get all the books that I wanted. So awesome.

The girls picked out Box Turtle at Long Pond by William George and Lindsay George and In the Small, Small Pond by Denise Fleming for our first pond books to read.

Box Turtle at Long Pond

This one is not so much a book about ponds as it is a book about the box turtle. The story talks about a day in the life of a box turtle. Some of the things that the turtle does are pretty interesting and can lead to great questions and conversations with your little ones. The story is cute and scientifically accurate.

In the Small, Small Pond

We have read this one before so to hear more about it you can go here.

 

Along with our reading today we made our first trip to a pond. I am taking a real pond (small kid's pool filled with pond water and lots of pond critters) to Sam's school tomorrow so I wanted to head to our local pond to make sure that there were lots of critters there for me to catch. The girls and some friends helped me catch lots of great critters in the pond. This wasn't a long critter catching trip because I just wanted to make sure that there were things there for me to catch tomorrow morning. But the kids loved checking out the critters and seeing what we caught each time we put the net in the water.

 

Finally, we started our big pond craft project. I asked Sam what she thought the first thing was that we needed in order to create a pond. She said we needed water.

We added some green grass around the edge and then called it quits for today. We will continue to add to this pond with all kinds of different materials and types of art!

Come back tomorrow to see what else is new. And don't forget to scroll down and check out the Pond Posts link up. There are already several great posts up there!

theme week - ponds

I found out today that Sam is having a pond week at school so I thought it would be great to extend that learning at home and give her a pond themed week at home as well. 

My brain is bursting with ideas for our week :

• week long craft project to create a LARGE pond with lots of different types of objects and materials
• pond clean up
• kayaking on a pond
• books about ponds
• pond animals
• fishing trip

So, first thing tomorrow we will head to the library to find some good pond books. I thought I would share the list of books that I am hoping to find. Just in case any of you are hitting up the library first thing tomorrow too and would want to read along with us. 

Here is out list (the first two we have read before and I can already strongly recommend, the rest will be new to us and will let you know if I recommend them later in the week):

• In the Small, Small Pond by Denis Fleming
• Pond Circle by Betsy Franco
• Science in Seconds at the Beach by Jean Potter
• Jo MacDonald Saw a Pond by Mary Quattlebaum and Laura Bryant
• A Freshwater Pond by Adam Hibbert
• Song of the Waterboatman and other pond poems by Joyce Sidman and Beckie Prange
• It's A Frog's Life by Steve Parker, Robert Morton, et al.
• Box Turtle at Long Pond by William George and Lindsay George
• Turtle Splash! Countdown at the Pond by Cathryn Falwell

Be sure to stop back by often this week to see how our theme week is going! AND help us out with more ideas for fun and learning by entering the pond themed Link up! It starts today and will run for only a week so be sure to get your link up and share any posts you have that relate to freshwater ponds!