I made some pond animal puppets, which they enjoyed playing with.
The older ones enjoyed some play time with A4 on her own!
Trays
Pond play with foam shapes:
This tray activity was for use on the white board. I cut out pond themed shapes from foam and gave A4 some water to help them stick.She enjoyed making the pond up (half of which you can see in the back ground)
Learning about the life cycle of a frog:
This tray was intended to help the littles explore what would happen to the tadpoles when ‘they grew up’! I included a book, the actual tadpoles and some felt cut outs which I made showing the transition from a tadpole to a frogL10 read the book to the girlsB2 was fascinated by the tadpolesSimple, if not an absolutely accurate portrayal of a frog!!
A number fishing game:
The final tray was another homemade game, this time a magnetic fishing game. I cut fish out of foam, wrote numbers 1 to 10 and pinned a safety-pin to their mouth. I made a fishing rod from a set of chop sticks by adding wool and a (rather large!) magnet at the end.This tray was the biggest hit. A4 played and played. B2 didn’t quite have the coordination, but adapted it so she could still play! A4 needed to fish for each fish in order 1 to 10, which she did brilliantly!
Games or group activities
Gathering tadpoles to raise
We took the girls down to our local pond:
The ducks were feeling very friendly on this particular day!
A4 took her net down to the pond to try to capture something….anything would do:
Daddy helping her on the banks of the pondThis was a special pond specimen pot which came with a pond kit we ownWe also owned a mini aquarium/viewing pot which we had used to grow sea monkeys in when we did Creation years ago. This is ideal for viewing the tadpoles in more depth as the glass walls are impregnated with magnifying glasses
We’ll be keeping an eye on these and releasing them back to the pond just before they become fully formed frogs!
Pond sensory box
We used the water beads from the little girl’s science on Monday:
Looking down on the box: I put glass beads of all colours; some green and blue water beads; tadpoles in various stages of growth; pond weed, wood and cone; plastic animals and I cut a lily pad and lily from foamA4 loved it, even adding more animals!
Food
Frogspawn (tapioca coloured slightly green). I also melted some chocolate and put it in a frog shaped candy making mold:
Pond Punch – blueberry ice cream, made with frozen blueberries, whizzed up with natural yogurt and sprinkled with blue sugar:
A4 with her ‘pond punch
fruit fish, made from an apple, banana and raisins:
A fish made from apple and banana and some raisins
Pond muffin tin meal
Our pond muffin tin meal consists of fish fingers, duck shaped fried potato, pea plankton, carrot fish, lemonade dyed blue for pond water and chocolate pudding as the muddy banks! This was one of their favourite muffin tins
DVD’s and YouTube videos and any other learning bits and pieces
Wow! This is a really wonderful unit. It must have been fun to watch real tadpoles. Your flannel tadpoles are just wonderful. I will be sharing this post.
What a wonderful pond unit!
I love the puppets and the foam activity!! What a neat idea. Your snacks and muffin tin are all great.
We had a few tadpoles a few years ago and they were such fun to watch. We ended up letting the frogs go after a couple of weeks, which was a very sad day. Hoping to do it again someday. Right now we are (well I am) anxiously awaiting our caterpillars to go with our Butterfly unit. The children don’t know I ordered them. I love surprising them.
Just stopped by from MTM, didn’t expect to see so many great ideas. So cool.
Wow! This is a really wonderful unit. It must have been fun to watch real tadpoles. Your flannel tadpoles are just wonderful. I will be sharing this post.
Thank you so much!
Good fishing A4. Can you show me how to do it? Love the tadpoles!
Can we go today, Daddy? Perleeeease?
Hi supermom – love the post! Amazing banana apple fish 🙂
Zee, you are so good for my self esteem!!
Thanks so much for taking the time to leave such encouraging messages!
I love their puppets, so cute. Of course, I’m partial to puppets in general.
They didn’t turn out looking quite as good as they seemed in my head, but the children didn’t seem to notice!
What great ideas! I found you through MTM linky. Love the lunch and the apple banana fish.
Thank you Eileen!
What a wonderful pond unit!
I love the puppets and the foam activity!! What a neat idea. Your snacks and muffin tin are all great.
We had a few tadpoles a few years ago and they were such fun to watch. We ended up letting the frogs go after a couple of weeks, which was a very sad day. Hoping to do it again someday. Right now we are (well I am) anxiously awaiting our caterpillars to go with our Butterfly unit. The children don’t know I ordered them. I love surprising them.
Just stopped by from MTM, didn’t expect to see so many great ideas. So cool.
Thank you, that’s so kind!
This is one of our favorite stories! I love how you have made it really come alive for your children. So cute!
Thanks Lisa, I think this was one of A4’s favourite too!
Those look like great books to go with your pond study and the sensory pond bin is awesome.
Thank you
I’ve really been enjoying your B4FIAR posts. Keep ’em coming! 🙂 Thanks for sharing all of the wonderful things you do.
Thank you so much, that is very encouraging!