Today was a warm and foggy day in the woods– 55 degrees! It was a day for finding animals: slugs, worms, roly-polies, centipedes, and spiders. We talked today about how we care for the wildlife in our woods by putting animals back in their homes and carrying them on wet leaves or bark. Though we get to play with them, they are wild and we can’t “own” them forever.

Char Fox, a Chewonki high school semester student, joined us to learn about environmental education for a project she is working on.

Our trees now have even bigger leaves on them!

Aisley found these fiddleheads on our trail. They will uncurl and grow into ferns.

Jaydon at home in his Sit Spot with his slug.

After Forest Fridays we studied some wood frog eggs that I took from a pool in my backyard. We touched them first, gently, and then became scientist writers recording what we saw in pictures and words. It was amazing to see how much they had changed from yesterday to today. Yesterday most of the eggs were round black dots, and today they were the shape of a comma, becoming little tadpoles.

Henry noticed that the eggs feel like jelly.

Ella noticed that the eggs were slimy and cold. Her picture shows how some were round and some already the shape of tadpoles.

Hugh noticed the wood frog eggs were wobbly and they have tails.

Reuben drew the life cycle of the wood frog that he already knew about. He also noticed when the eggs are in water the water feels cold.

Josie also drew “what is next” in the wood frog life cycle. They noticed that the eggs feel like jello and they take water (I think she means that the egg mass starts off small but absorbs water the longer it sits, so it grows).

Mollie noticed the eggs were “slimy and cold and tiny and some egg shapes and some like a line”

Alexis “touched a tadpole.” Her picture clearly shows that!

Next week we will see how much the eggs have grown!