This week we learned about ponds, pond life, and frogs! I have to admit this week forced me to sort of overcome my squeamishness over getting my hands mucky – I am not a fan. Luckily Billy doesn’t mind so he could take over some of the messier aspects of our pond dipping experiences. That is the first thing we did – pond dipping! I had never heard it called this before but I like it. We bought Wyatt a catch and release beach aquarium, suited him up in his rain gear (he would not have liked sitting in muck either..), and let him explore the shallows of our favorite pond. Honestly, we didn’t find much! We did manage to spot an aquatic snail in our pail but otherwise, nothing. Lol. We did spot much larger creatures, from herons to water snakes to toads in the sand, so it wasn’t a complete bust.

This week, we also played with a pond sensory bin, which was welcome on the hottest day for us so far. We kept to the shade and Wyatt loved the small water play. We also worked on counting, number and letter identification, size comparisons, patterns and sequencing as well as discussing pond habitats and the animals that live there, and the life cycle of frogs. It was a busy week!

Art is becoming one of our favorite activities! Wyatt loves to paint so this week I lined up two painting projects – a rendition of Monet’s Water Lilies, and then I had planned to do some carton creatures, but then we swerved off plan! Wyatt was having more fun painting on the paper I had put down on the table, so I just scrapped the carton creature idea and just let him create some process art.

 

I am getting a kick out of finding these art projects that are based off of famous artists, that also match our theme, lol. This one might be my favorite so far!

This was a pretty fun week, even though my hands got a little dirty…

 

Resource Round-Up:

Pond Unit Study – Stephanie Hathaway

Life Cycle of a Frog – Stephanie Hathaway 

Pond and Frog Preschool Activities – Pre-K Printable Fun

Scout and the Gumboot Kids – Frogs

Books: 

(This section contains Amazon Affiliate links for which I will receive a small commission. I use all money made this way to purchase more educational materials)

Over and Under the Pond || Growing Frogs || In the Small, Small Pond ||The Wide-Mouthed Frog || Big Fish, Little Fish || Fish is Fish||The Usborne Outdoor Book || Across the Stream|| Have You Seen My Duckling

 

Videos and Art Projects:

Caitie’s Classroom – Frogs 

Scout and the Gumboot Kids and the Case of the Spotted Jelly – Amazon Prime

Monet Inspired Water Lilies = Messy Little Monster

 

Also, I wanted to share that The Hidden Way has teamed up with many different homeschool resource creators and is offering a Mega-Nature Bundle for $25! It is over 1800 pages and offers studies on many different topics for learners of all ages. I bought mine yesterday; there were so many different units included that I plan on doing with Wyatt, such as bees, owls, birds, and so many others, that it would have been crazy not to. I would have spent that on just one or two of the units alone!

Please let me know if you have any questions about how I use or adapt these materials in my learning time with Wyatt!