Our pond a couple of weeks ago:
I know, I don’t mean to confuse you all. We did a pond study, at the same time as treating everyone to hot chocolates for A5’s birthday, just before we went away on holiday. I had planned to write this pond study up whilst I was at my in laws, as they had kindly said I could use their computer. Unfortunately, although I had prewritten a few posts prior to travelling once there my motivation dwindled a little. This meant I ended up taking an unplanned lazy week away. Oh it was wonderful!! This is my catch up post for that week (week 28 I believe). I had thought of leaving it, but I knew it would niggle me each time I looked at our one year pond study and saw that I had a week missing!
We went early in the morning, accompanied by Gary, who takes every family member’s birthday off work to spend the day with them. We popped into my favourite coffee shop and treated all five children to hot chocolates:
It was a fairly unusual time for us to be going and it was quite misty, with the sun starting to rise high in the sky:

Whilst the older one’s went off exploring:
A5 snapped away at everything and everyone with her new birthday camera:
This week there was a lot of action at the pond. First the children exclaimed that they had just seen a ‘huuuuuge’ frog leap out from the reeds and into the pond:
I wandered over and managed to get this photo. It is not clear what it is but it certainly looks like it could be a large frog:
The heron was in it’s normal place:
Although, spotting us, he did not stay for long:
The heron flying off caused the ducks who had been swimming about quite peacefully to fly off also:
Although they settled back down fairly quickly. Once settled we heard a huge splash and saw a large fish leap out of the water and flop back down again. This seems to happen a lot over summer, but I am never quick enough to get a photo. But I did manage to get the splash:
Our goals for this pond study was to do a water study, collecting some water and looking at it under the microscope. We did some looking under the water using our periscope:
And we even collected some water. We had of course forgotten to bring any containers, so we rinsed out the hot chocolate cups and used those. Resourceful, no?
We took our carefully collected water in the hot chocolate cups home and popped them on the kitchen dresser out of harm’s way. And that, unfortunately, is where they stayed until we returned from our holiday two weeks later. I’ll not divulge the state of the water at that time, and I don’t even want to think about the smell emanating from the cups. Suffice it to say, the cups were not cleaned quite as well as we had hoped. Say no more.
I’ll leave you with one last photo of our pond, taken just before we left, as the mist was beginning to lift:
Beautiful!
I bet that you had even more life to look at when you returned. You were …ummm…incubating your water samples for more growth, right? 🙂
Yes!! Oh, Amy why didn’t I think of that! It sounds so much better than a lapse of memory!
I can easily imagine that smell…..
I wouldn’t if I were you!
I don’t mean to laugh….I am sure it was horrible! Now you have me hooked. Everywhere I drive, I am looking for a pond. We have a nice pond in a park very near to where we live, but it is well managed, so I am not sure how well it would work. I know what you mean about leaving a week out. That would bother me, too. Thank you for sharing your study. It is fun seeing the children having fun and learning. Good for you for taking some time off from your regular tasks just to relax. We all need that now and again.
It was truly revolting, truly, truly! I’m not sure I will ever have a hot choc again!
Every time I read these posts, I wish there was such a lovely pond near here, especially one with a stork! Oh, and thanks for not describing the smell 🙂
You’ve got the sea. I miss living near the coast so much.
You are so welcome. I couldn’t have described it if I tried!
Love the photos of your pond, and all the activities that the children were engaged in. C5 must love her new independence with the camera! Isn’t it good of Gary to take days off work on each child’s birthday!? My husband does the same for Tiger and it makes me think that men who do that for their children are very special. 🙂
She loves her camera. She takes photos every opportunity. Photos of the floor, of the ceiling, of the walls. Occasionally there is a person! But she thinks it’s fab and tells everyone she is taking them for her blog!!
Where did you purchase the pond periscopes? Who is the manufacturer?
I think we got it from The Early Learning Center HTH!