Country – Wy

Note: Scroll down to “End of 2018-2019 data”  to catch up. This is our 4th year of keeping this phenology, following in the footsteps of Henry David Thoreau, and we are noticing some interesting changes from year to year!

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BEGINNING OF 2018-2019 DATA (scroll down and read up as most recent posts are at the top)

Monday, April 8, 2019

Today we brainstormed what we would need to create a successful model of a vernal pool in our classroom. Soon we will venture back out to retrieve the following materials.

Thursday, April 4, 2019

We walked out to the vernal pool to meet Emilie first thing in the morning. It was still very cold, but she was waiting for us with lots of vernal pool visitors.

Sunday, March 31, 2019

Mrs. Wyman visited the vernal pool over the weekend, and heard the most amazing sounds!

Thursday, March 28, 2019

Another trip out to the vernal pool to see what is happening. Still a bit of snow, but frogs!

Thursday, February 14, 2019

Our first visit to the vernal pool in 2019! A snowy one.

Thursday, November 29, 2018

Checking in on the vernal pool. Mrs. Betty’s first walk there with us.

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Our very first walk to the vernal pool.

END OF 2018-2019 DATA (read up)

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BEGINNING OF 2017 DATA (scroll down and read up)

Friday, June 9, 2017 (Day 65) —

Now that we have returned our frogs and froglets to the vernal pool, we are focusing in on our remaining tadpoles. From what we can tell, none of them have back legs yet. As an experiment, we moved five of them to a smaller tank, still with vernal pool water, leaves, and a rock. We wonder which group of tadpoles might develop back legs first. We’ve heard from our colleagues at Woodland School that they had luck raising a few tadpoles in a smaller environment.

We continue to record our observations in our science notebooks.

Thursday, June 8 (Day 64) — On Thursday morning we noticed it was time to take the frogs and froglets back to the vernal. When they start climbing the walls of the tank that’s a good sign! Click here to watch one making it’s way to the top and here to watch one giving it’s newly developed lungs a workout.

We walked to the vernal pool to return three frogs and two froglets to their natural habitat. We hope they will be happier there and stay safe.

While we were there, we decided to quietly recite our “Vernal Pool, Vernal Pool. What Do You See” play to any woodland critters that might be able to hear it. Click here to watch a video of us performing in the woods.

While we were reciting “Vernal Pool, Vernal Pool,” some of us notice a large Green Frog listening in while perched on a piece of wood. (click the link to learn more about Green Frogs.) We decide to sing “Five Green and Speckled Frogs” to it. Click here to watch what happened!

Monday, June 5 (Day 61) —

 

Friday, June 2 (Day 58) —

We’ve noticed that a number of our tadpoles now have back legs. This is very exciting news! It is also interesting that we still have a few tadpoles that have barely grown. We are wondering why this is.

One of our mysteries, as you know from our last post, is the dark, back corner behind the rock in our tank. It continues to mystify us as to why so many tadpoles gather there. Jonah and Mrs. Wyman decided to write a haiku about that corner. Here it is:

mystery corner

why do the tadpoles go there

why do they like it

Click here to watch the latest footage from the Tad Cam. In the lower left corner you can see one of the tadpoles with back legs moving around.

Thursday, May 25 (Day 50) —

Dr. Erickson sent us a challenge in the comment field at the bottom on this page. She asked us to observe the tadpoles for one minute and record what they were doing — swimming, resting, eating, etc. We found it challenging for several reasons, one of which was that each tadpole was doing something different. The other was if we tried to focus on just one tadpole, it was difficult to follow. We adapted her challenge and made an interesting discovery. We’ve noticed over the last few weeks that the corner behind the rock always has lots of tadpoles behind it, so we decided to observe that area for several one minute periods.

Mrs. Wyman put the tank on a rolling cart and moved it to where the Ladibug camera is. She focused the camera on the back corner of the tank, so we could all observe the same corner at the same time. During two one-minute observations, we noticed tadpoles didn’t leave the area, nor did any new ones join. (Click here to watch us conducting our observation.) This got us wondering why they like it back there so much. Some of the reasons Room 1 scientists shared were:

• “It’s always dark back there. They must like the dark.”
• “The rock back there is jagged. Maybe they like to be against the edges.”
• “Their food drifts around a lot. Maybe it collects back there and there is a lot for them to eat.”
• “There are always lots of tadpoles there. Maybe they like being with other tadpoles. It’s not as open as the rest of the tank.”

We’ll keep watching this area and see if we notice any changes.

Tuesday, May 23 (Day 48) —

To get a closer look at a tadpole with legs, Mrs. Wyman scooped out one and put it in an observation cup. She also added a second tadpole to keep it company. Click here to watch them swimming.

Using our new Ladibug document camera, Mrs. Wyman projected the cup onto the interactive whiteboard, which magnified the image even more. It was fun to be able to watch the tadpole with legs move up close. Click here to see!

Friday, May 19, 2017 (Day 44) — We’ve got legs!

We were very excited to discover that one of our tadpoles has clearly defined legs! Tadpoles swim quite a bit, so it’s sometimes hard to see. When reviewing our Tad Cam footage in slow motion, we could see them! Click here to watch.

All of our tadpoles appear to be doing well. We notice that while some are still quite small, others are getting much bigger. We notice bumps on several where back legs will grow soon.

When observing our tank, we notice they swim a lot, sometimes gathering in the corners. At times they stop and float. When they swim up to the sides of the tank, we can see their mouths moving. We wonder if they are eating when they do that?

In reading through last years’ data, we noticed that Dr. Erickson came to weigh the tadpoles on Day 43. Now that we are at Day 44, we wonder if she will come to do that soon? She has given our class a challenge to observe that tadpoles for one minute and record their behavior. We look forward to collecting that data next week!

Friday, May 12, 2017 (Day 37) — 

We continue to add our observations to our Science Notebooks weekly. There is much to write about, as you can see. What stands out for us this week is that some are much larger than others despite the fact that they were born on the same day, live in the same environment, and have the same food available to them. We wonder!

Click here to watch the latest footage from our Tad Cam.

Monday, May 8, 2017 (Day 33) — “Some of the tadpoles look like they are playing tag behind the rock!”

Friday, May 5, 2017 (Day 28) — The tadpoles, now almost one month old, appear to be doing well. Some seem to have grown quite a bit over the last week! We conducted our first formal observations of them and recorded our findings in our Science Notebooks. Click here to watch footage from our TadCam.

Friday, April 28, 2017 (Day 21) — Our tadpoles have settled in and we gave them extra food for the weekend.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017 (Day 18) — Today Emilie came to our classroom to deliver the wood frog tadpoles that we will be head-starting. They are now 18 days old. Caring for them for the remainder of the school year, and then releasing them back into the vernal pool, will give them a better chance at survival, since our model habitat is free of predators and extreme weather changes. Emilie also brought with her some frog eggs that were laid more recently, yellow spotted salamander eggs, and a salamander. All from our vernal pool! We touched the two different sets of eggs and compared them. The salamander eggs have a thick jelly around the entire egg mass, while the tadpole eggs are individually wrapped with jelly.  Salamanders are quite finicky in what they will eat, so we won’t be head-starting them.

Monday, April 24, 2017 (Day 17) — When we returned to school after vacation, we found a tank resembling a vernal pool set up in our classroom science observation lab. One of our science practices is to develop and use a model. The tank contains water and other natural objects — rocks, sticks, moss, leaves — from the vernal pool, thus making it a model of the pool. This model will help us study the development of the tadpoles in a habitat that mimics theirs.

Monday, April 17, 2017 (Day 10) — Emilie reports this as the day the tadpoles hatched from their eggs.

Friday, April 7, 2017 (Day 1) — We believe this is the day a wood frog laid the eggs in our vernal pool. Our conservation biologist partner, Emilie Schuler, collected the eggs from the pool for safe keeping. Although it had been quite warm up until now, the weather was showing signs of changing. This photo was taken 3 days later on April 10. Little did we know the eggs were there just waiting for us! Click here to listen to what we heard as we stood quietly and the bank of the vernal pool.

END OF 2017 DATA (read up)

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BEGINNING OF 2016 DATA (scroll down and read up)

Monday, June 13, 2016 (Day 75) —

Most of our tadpoles have back legs, but sadly we’ve run out of time with raising them in the classroom. It is time to take them back to the vernal pool. They’ll be much happier and we are pretty sure they’ll have their front legs within the week.

We helped out Room 4 by taking their two tiny frogs with us. This one looks ready to escape!

As soon as we put them on the edge of the vernal pool, they all happily swam or hopped away. Click here to see their release. We all had a good giggle when one Room 1 friend said, “Goodbye, Bob and Beverly.” We didn’t realize he’d given the two frogs these names!

Friday, June 10 (Day 72) —

Some of our Wood Frog tadpoles have well-formed back legs at this point. We hope their front legs develop by Monday, as we’ll be taking all tadpoles back to the vernal pool. Fingers crossed!

Wednesday, June 1 (Wood Frogs Day 63/Spadefoot Toads Day 22) —

In the blink of an eye, two of our Spadefoot tadpoles became froglets. When we arrived at school on Wednesday morning we noticed they were using their front legs. This meant they are ready for less water and more air. Time to make their way to their new home at Drumlin Farm in Lincoln. They’ll have lots of friends in their new vernal pool environment, as they are being released with approximately 100 other head-started Spadefoots!

Before Dr. Erickson took them, and the other Spadefoot tadpoles, away we were able to record one last observation in our Science Notebooks. We’ll continue to report the progress that our Wood Frog tadpoles are making. No froglets yet, but stay tuned!

Friday, May 27 (Wood Frogs Day 58/Spadefoot Toads Day 17) —

We are very excited about how big the back legs of our Spadefoot Toad tadpoles are getting! It is fun to watch them practicing using their legs to swim. They swim a lot and very fast. You can see them here on the Spadefoot Tad Cam.

We recorded our observations in our Science Notebooks during ABC Workshop this week.

There is still one Spadefoot tadpole that is tiny, while the others continue to grow. We wonder why this is? It’s interesting to compare them to the Wood Frog tadpoles, which are certainly taking their time to develop.

As Dr. Erickson says, “Frogs and toads develop when they are ready, just like Kindergarteners.” Click here to see the latest on the Tad Cam.

Friday, May 20 (Day 51) —

The big news this week was that we are now headstarting Eastern Spadefoot Toads! These toads, which are native to the Cape and the north shore, are a threatened species. While not endangered, there aren’t many left because they tend to lay their eggs in puddles in the road, not vernal pools or ponds.

We have side by side tanks, so we can compare and contrast their development. What do you notice right away about the environments we are raising them in? If you said we’ve recreated their natural habitats, you are correct. The Wood Frog tank is set up just like a vernal pool, with rocks, moss, and vernal pool water filled with lot of microscopic organisms. The Spadefoot Toad tank has filtered water with nothing else added, just as they would find in a road puddle. We are feeding them both the same frog/toad chow daily, that our scientist friend Emily made for them.

It was interesting to observe one of each up close and compare them. We tried using our stereoscope, but they both swim so fast that it is hard to stay focused on them.

Thursday, May 12 (Day 43) —

Thursday was weigh in day for the tadpoles. Dr. Erickson came with a special scale to weigh several tadpoles from our tank.

We were curious to see how much they weighed in comparison to each other and compared to those in other classrooms.

She placed them on the scale very gently. They don’t want to be out of the tank for too long!

She weighed five different tadpoles and here are the results. We did lots of wondering as to why some were lighter or heavier than others. Ideas included how much they swim and how much they eat. If you scroll down to day 40 from last year, you’ll see that they had much stronger back legs and small front legs. We wonder why they seem to be developing at a slower rate?

Friday, May 6 (Day 37) —

All is calm in the tank this week, with not many changes to report. We think their lungs are developing, which is a great sign. This means they will no longer need their gills for breathing, and will be ready to come up for air more. We can’t wait for this to happen! You can see them hard at work on the Tad Cam.

Monday, May 2 (Day 33) —

No news on the mystery inhabitant today. We can’t see him, so we aren’t sure if he survived the weekend. Perhaps he was someone’s lunch! As we say in Room 1 “Everyone is sombody’s lunch!” Speaking of eating, one of the things we are fascinated by is that we can almost see through the tadpole’s body. It’s easy to see them eating and breathing. You can see them very clearly on this Tad Cam footage.

Friday, April 29 (Day 30) —

Some of us noticed a tiny mystery creature living in the tank with the tadpoles. We are surprised they have not eaten him…yet! He is clear/white and very thin, but has a distinct triangular shaped head. After consulting our vernal pool field guide, we have determined that he is not a fairy shrimp, dragonfly/damselfly larva, or a salamander. Our goal for next week will be to identify him, if he’s still there. We’ll keep you posted! In the meantime, here’s the latest from the Tad Cam.

Thursday, April 28 (Day 29) —

Thursday afternoon was very exciting, because Mrs. Choi’s 4th Grade class from Field School came to visit us. They are learning about the structures and functions of a frog’s body and wanted to share this information with us. We started the visit off by having four of our resident frog experts share information about the frog lifecycle (Emerson), a healthy frog habitat (Ethan), about head starting Wood Frogs in our classroom (Ella Rose), and the vernal pool habitat (David). While all of these 4th graders learned about the frog lifecycle in Kindergarten, they are unfamiliar with our vernal pool. It was exciting to share this information with them, and we hope to accompany them to the pool at a later date.

Next, with a partner, we met with 4th grade teams to see the presentations they created on their Chromebooks. Pretty amazing!  Here we are learning and sharing information together!

Monday, April 25 (Day 26) —

We returned after April Vacation to find our tadpoles thankfully happy and healthy. Mrs. Wyman and Mr. Kelly took turns feeding them throughout the week, so they wouldn’t get too hungry. We noticed that their bodies are larger, and all have the beginnings of back legs. They are swimming very fast. Sometimes they just rest for a bit.

Friday, April 15 (Day 16) —

While watching the tadpoles on Friday morning, Mrs. Wyman noticed that many of the tadpoles swim to the front corner of the tank and stay there. (Watch them here on the Tad Cam!) We wonder if they recognize the pictures of adult wood frogs that Mrs. Wyman attached to the outside of the tank in two corners. It made us wonder if our tadpoles, while separated from their mother after she laid her eggs, instinctively know what their mother and father look like? We sure wish we could ask them!

Thursday, April 14 (Day 15) —

We were super excited today when Dr. Erickson arrived with a surprise. The salamander eggs from the vernal pool that she has been taking care of hatched! She brought some of them for us to look at on our big screen. So cool! We noticed they look a little bit like our tadpoles, but they are different. They don’t swim around as much. They also have long thin bodies. Instead of developing gills for breathing air, they already have them. Watch them here on the Sallie Cam!

With April Vacation upon us, we wondered who would take care of them while everyone was away. Dr. Erickson told Mrs. Wyman she could care for some, if she wanted to. Of course she said yes!

Monday, April 11 (Day 12) —

Over the weekend our tadpoles grew quite a bit. Can you see a back leg on this tadpole? We also noticed that most of the eggs that were left on Friday did hatch over the weekend.

Today at morning meeting we made a list of what we’d like to get from the vernal pool during our walk to make the tadpoles feel more at home. Off we went!

Mrs. Wyman bravely went as close as she could to collect water, leaves, moss, and sticks.

We sure hope “a little bit of home” helps the tadpoles to grow!

Back in the classroom, we looked at some of the water using our stereoscope. We found a nematode! It was wriggling around and moving very fast.

Can you see it? It looks like a backwards question mark in the center of this picture. We wonder if tadpoles or frogs like to eat them?

We added the moss, leaves, sticks, and water to the tank. It looks great and there are lots of tiny creatures crawling around in the moss, too!

Friday, April 8 (Day 9) —

We are a week in now, and we have seen lots of growth on our tadpoles! They are swimming so fast and we can see their bodies starting to change. We noticed something feathery developing on their tails and even some bumps where back legs may grow. Our latest wonder is if the eggs that have not hatched yet will hatch over the weekend. Fingers crossed, and we’ll report back on Monday! Want to see the latest from our Tad Cam? Click here! If you watch closely, you’ll even see one swim BACKWARDS!

Thursday, April 7 (Day 8) —

Big news on the caterpillar front. They have all gone into their chrysalids. Now we are wondering if our predictions about who will metamorphosize first are correct. Stay tuned!

Wednesday, April 6 (Day 7) —

Since we’ve been learning how to use tally marks, and count by fives, we decided to take a poll about which of our new classroom inhabitants will metamorphosize first? (That’s such a big word, isn’t it?) Here are the results from our poll.

During Writer’s Workshop we recorded our tadpole tank observations in our Science Notebooks. This helps us keep track of the latest developments, since things are going very quickly. We have many wonders, as you can see!

Monday, April 4 (Day 5) —

When we arrived on Monday morning, we discovered that many of our eggs had hatched. Tadpoles were swimming everywhere. This was very exciting.

We also discovered that the tadpoles have neighbors — Painted Lady caterpillars! It will be interesting to watch both develop side by side.

To make things even more exciting, it snowed ALL DAY today! We are now wondering about the impact of this drastic weather change on the vernal pool and it’s inhabitants. We wonder if our tadpoles will hatch first, since they are protected in our classroom?

Thursday, March 31 (Day 1) —

After wondering quite a bit throughout the week about what the new tank in our Investigation Lab was for, we finally learned the answer.

Dr. Erickson arrived with a small tank full of Wood Frog and salamander eggs that she and biologist Emilie harvested from the vernal pool.

It was amazing to see them up close. The eggs in the thick jelly are salamanders and the other eggs are frogs. We learned why there is a stick in the tank, too. Ask a Kindergartener to tell you why!

Everyone who wanted to had a turn holding the eggs. We used some great describing words to describe how they felt — cold, slimy, slippery, smooth, squishy, wiggly.

Some of us liked how they felt, and some of us did not.

It’s hard to believe eggs this tiny will grow up to be frogs and salamanders!

During Writer’s Workshop we wrote what our wonders are in our Science Notebooks.

Dr. Erickson told us there are eggs being kept inside the trap in the vernal pool. She asked us to think about which eggs would hatch first, those we are headstarting in our classroom or those kept safe in the vernal pool. Here are some of our thoughts. Click here to read the guesses from all seven Kindergarten classrooms.

Tuesday, March 22  — We had an exciting visit to the vernal pool today. Our guide was biologist Emilie Schuler from Grassroots Wildlife Conservation in Concord. We had not been to the pool while there was snow on the ground, so it looked very different! The last time we walked there, about two weeks ago, the ice had melted. Today there were slivers of ice floating on the surface. It was very quiet, too. The chorus of mystery animals we heard on that very warm day had disappeared. Our suspicion was that they were male Wood Frogs calling to the females. It was cold today, so they were most likely keeping warm somewhere until warmer weather returns.

Wood Frog

While we know the vernal pool well, we’ve never met any of it’s inhabitants. We met two today! The first was a Wood Frog and…

Yellow Spotted Salamander

…later we met a Yellow Spotted Salamander. We learned that the spots warn predators that they are poisonous to eat. It’s safe to touch them, though.

Skunk Cabbage

We walked down the trail a little further and discovered some Skunk Cabbage that was coming up.

We were excited to hear that in a week or two, we’ll be getting some Wood Frog eggs to head-start in our classroom, just like the 3rd Graders are head-starting Blandings Turtles. We’ll take care of them through their life cycle and return them to the vernal pool in June. Stay tuned!

END OF 2016 DATA (read up)

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BEGINNING OF 2015 DATA (scroll down and read up)

Friday, June 12, 2015/Day 47 —

Well, we were hoping a lot would happen before school ended and it did. When we arrived at school on Monday, we had one frog and several froglets. They were all moved safely to the smaller tank with just a drop of water and lots of rocks.

They are so tiny! It’s hard to imagine them surviving in the wild. We can see how they’d be easy targets for much larger predators.

We also moved the rest of the tadpoles, in their various stages, into a holding tank while their large tank was cleaned out. The water gets very dirty and smelly from food and their waste.

Word spread pretty quickly that we had a frog. A 5th grader from Field School named Eunice stopped by with Mrs. Erickson to do some observing of the frog and froglets. She made a few notes in her science notebook just like we do!

We guess you could say our tanks were hopping, because by the end of the week we had 3 (almost complete) frogs! Click here to see “the happy hoppers” hopping around.

Here are some of the observations we recorded in our science notebooks during the week.

Mrs. Wyman brought the three frogs home for the weekend to look after them. By Sunday morning she couldn’t bear to see how sad and lonely they looked, so…

…she went to the vernal pool and released them.

Goodbye, little frogs! We’ll return the remainder of the froglets and tadpoles to the vernal pool during an all-school woods walk activity on Wednesday.

Friday, June 5/Day 40 — It’s hard to believe we have had our tadpoles for 40 days now. They’ve come so far, yet it seems they still have so far to go. With only 11 day of school left, we are really hoping a lot happens in the next week or so. Fingers crossed!

It was an exciting week in Room 1. We came in on Monday to find that some of our tadpoles have more substantially developed hind legs. We are hopeful that front legs will appear soon. We even nicknamed our most developed tadpole “Big Mean Mike” after the book Mrs. Hoff read to us in the Library on Monday. He seems to like to hang out on the small ledge of the rock we added to the tank last week. We think this was a good idea!

So that we could get a better look at the tadpoles with more developed legs, we moved the seven tadpoles with well-developed hind legs to a smaller tank. It was easier to watch them move around and see them use their legs. Here’s how they looked.

We noticed that the tapoles with less-developed hind legs hung out with each other a bit more in the corners of the tank. We wonder why they do this? Here’s how they looked.

It was fun to have Mrs. Erickson come to our room to weigh the tadpoles. We are learning about measuring during Math, so the timing was perfect! If you weigh the tadpole in the cup with the water, you can’t tell how much the tadpole alone weighs. You have to weigh the cup with the water and no tadpole first. This is called the tare. You “zero this out” from the weight of each tadpole to get it’s true weight. Mrs. Erickson recorded all of the weight data she collected. We got to see that scientists use a lot of math and what we think of as math tools. Click here to see her talking to us.

When Mrs. Erickson came to visit, she brought scientists Emilie (whom we met at the vernal pool) and Dr. Bryan Windmiller with her. They work for Grassroots Wildlife Conservation. It was fun to have them visit and answer some of the questions we had. We had been dying to know if the red thing we can see in each tadpole is their heart, and it is! Mrs. Erickson asked if we would perform “Scientist, Scientist” for Emilie and Bryan, because she thought they’d enjoy hearing that we’ve learned the life cycles of both frogs and butterflies. Here we are performing for them!

Friday, May 29/Day 33 —

We have so many “wonders” about our Wood Frog tadpoles, we decided to record them to share with you. Here they are!

One of the things we were wondering about is how the tadpoles in the other Country K classes are doing. We decided to pay Room 4 a visit and they came to see us.

Half of our class visited in Room 4 with half of their class and Mrs. Dedonato, and half of our class stayed in Room 1 while the other half of Room 4 came to us.

After our visit and sharing time, we switched. This was fun!

One of the things we noticed about Room 4’s tank was that they had added some moss and a few rocks from the vernal pool. They were wondering if the tadpoles needed places to rest from time to time, rather than just swimming and floating non-stop. We thought this was a great wonder! Perhaps this would help them, somehow, to develop their legs faster.

This inspired us to add a large rock to one corner of our tank. Now the tadpoles can explore and rest in a more interesting environment. We can’t wait to see what happens. Stay tuned!

Friday, May 22/Day 26 —

We continue to observe the tadpoles each day. We notice their bodies continue to get larger. We wonder why the legs aren’t growing as fast as their bodies? Their eyes are getting big and black. When we look up close, we can see their eyes are on bumps that stick out from their head! Some of us notice something red inside of them. We wonder if it is a heart?

When we notice changes, we record them in our Science Notebooks.

Mrs. Wyman was nervous about leaving the tadpoles for the long weekend, as she wouldn’t be able to feed them daily. The tank is large and very heavy, so it wouldn’t be easy for her to bring home. She decided to conduct a test, or inquiry, of sorts. She brought home a small tank with fresh water and six of the tadpoles. They will be fed each day, but the tank doesn’t have the aerator with the filter on it, that keeps the water circulating. The remainder of the tadpoles will be left at school with the aerator going, but won’t be fed for three days. We are interested to see what  happens. We’ll report back next week!

Friday, May 15/Day 19 —

So much has happened in the last week or so, we hardly know where to start! After the tadpoles hatched we realized we had way too many for our tank, and that they’d be happier back at the vernal pool. Mrs. Erickson and Mrs. Wyman took most of them back early one morning, and they swam happily away.

Look how big they are. They grow overnight!

Sometimes we say like are going to be whales! We made a little movie with what we call the “Tadpole Cam.” It’s fun to watch them swimming like crazy! Click the link below.

Tadpole Cam 5.15.15

Wednesday, April 29/Day 3 —

We couldn’t believe how many eggs hatched over night. Now we have many tadpoles swimming around. It’s sadly time for the rest of the egg mass to go back to the vernal pool. It will be fun to visit the tadpoles there!

Changes are happening every day, so we are recording lots of information in our Science Notebooks.

Mrs. Erickson came and took the egg mass from the tank. Now the tadpoles that are left have lots of space to learn to swim. We added some tadpole food to the tank, so they’d have something to eat.

Monday, April 27/Day 1 — We were very excited when Mrs. Erickson arrived in our classroom this morning with our wood frog eggs. She harvested them from the vernal pool this morning — while a deer looked on! She put them right into our tank and we couldn’t wait to get started with our observation.

When we looked closely, we noticed several tadpoles had broken away from the larger egg mass. Now that they are in warmer water, we think it won’t be long before more hatch. We’ll keep you posted!

In the meantime, we will start recording our first observation before they change too much.

Friday, April 17, 2015 —

On Friday, April 17, our class walked back to the trails to meet biologist Emilie Schuler from Grassroots Wildlife Conservation. After a few stops along the way to explore the wonderous environment around us, Emilie lead us to the vernal pool.

When we arrived, she showed us the wood frogs, spring peepers, and yellow spotted salamanders she had collected that morning.

She also showed us frog and salamander egg mass. WOW! We got to touch everything!

When we return from vacation on Monday, April 27, Mrs. Erickson will go out to the pool to gather up the wood frog eggs, which Emilie put aside for us. We’ll be taking care of these eggs in our classroom observation lab. It will be exciting to observe the eggs when they hatch and record their growth over time. Eventually, at the end of the school year, we’ll return any frogs to their original home. Stay tuned for future blog posts!

END OF 2015 DATA (read up)