Snails are another great animal to have visit your class. You will need a tank with a lid, some rocks, dirt and greenery. Snails are easy to find in wet, dark places, inside empty flowerpots, for example. They love sunflower and pumpkin leaves. Once you have them in your tank, they will love lettuce and cucumbers. They are very neat to observe. You can take them out and watch how they move. You can have snail races. You can do snail art, but letting them slime around on a piece of paper and then when they are safely away, sprinkling it with colored powder paint or jello powder. They are easy to observe, draw and write about because they are so S L O W !! They will love to be sprayed with a spray bottle full of rain water!
Tag Archives: pond life
Fun Food and Games Friday, June 15, 2012 — Pond Life
This gallery contains 8 photos.
Games- Read the book, Have You Seen My Duckling? by Nancy Tafuri Cut apart the pictures and words from the pond life words PDF. Allow the students to choose one and let another student hide it behind their back. The student that chose it, must go up to 3 people and ask, Have you seen […]
There’s A Song For That Thursday, June 14, 2012 — Pond Life
I’m A Little Turtle
( To the tune of I’m A Little Teapot)
I’m a little turtle with a shell.
I have four legs, a head and a tail.
When I get so scared I want to hide,
I pull my head and legs inside.
Frog Life Cycle
( To the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star)
The tadpole hatches from an egg.
Then it sprouts two strong back legs.
Soon it gets its front legs too.
Can you guess? What will they do?
Now the tadpole is a frog
Jumping off a great big log.
Hop, Hop, Hop
( To the tune of Do Your Ears Hang Low)
Does it hop, hop, hop
‘Til you think it will not stop?
Does it make a ribbit sound
On a day that’s very hot?
Then you can tell
It is a frog!
Creeping, Creeping, Little Snail
( To the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star)
Creeping, creeping little snail
Crawling in your little shell
Your big foot slides all around
Your tentacles look round and round
Creeping, Creeping little snail
Crawling in your little shell
For this song, you can make snail puppets for the children to act it out with, out of plastic gallon milk jugs. Cut off top, going down lower where the handle is. Draw a spiral on each side with permanent marker. child, makes 2 fingers be tentacles and the milk jug goes on the child’s wrist and hand.
OOO-E! Slimy!
( To the tune of I’m Bringing Home A Baby Bumblebee)
I’m bringing home a slippery, slimy worm.
Won’t my mommy wiggle and squirm?
I’m bringing home a slippery slimy worm.
OOO-E It slimed me!
I’m bringing home a slippery, slimy snail.
Won’t my mommy wiggle and squirm?
I’m bringing home a slippery slimy snail.
OOO-E It slimed me!
I’m bringing home a slippery, slimy slug.
Won’t my mommy wiggle and squirm?
I’m bringing home a slippery slimy slug.
OOO-E It slimed me!
Be sure to check back tomorrow for fun food and games on Friday!
We Get Messy On Wednesday, June 13, 2012 — Pond Life
To make frog eggs, get bubble wrap with large bubbles and some black permanent markers. Allow the students to add a black circle to the center of each bubble. Cut out in small groups to be clusters of eggs. Good for display!
Use left over bubble wrap to stamp frog shapes with, making green and speckled frogs, just like in the song!
Use green sponges to cut into a lily pad shapes to use at your water table.
Use gift wrap tubes to make cattails. Glue a piece of brown crepe, felt or tissue paper to the top and wrap around and around, to make a soft fluffly cattail. Glue the flap down at the end allow to dry.
To make lilypads, get green paper plates and let children cut out a wedge (draw lines on the back as a guide). Using tissue paper circles or coffee filters, make the flower for the pad. Twist in the middle and stick in to corner of the wedge.
Long Wiggly Snakes — Don’t know what to do with all those leftover toilet paper and paper towel rolls? Paint them, string them together, add eyes and a tongue to make way cool snakes!
To make realistic turtle shells, paint bubble wrap with brown paint and apply to a white paper plate. It makes a pattern much like a turtle shell. Just add head, tail and feet.
The bubble wrap with the paint on it has a really neat squishy feeling. The kids love it. 
Be sure to check back tomorrow for lots of new songs for the theme, Pond Life.
Talk, Read and Write Tuesday, June 12, 2012 — Pond Life
Read
Some more books to peruse during the Pond Life theme:
In The Small, Small Pond by Denise Fleming
Lily Pad Pond by Bianca Lavies
Jump, Frog, Jump! by Robert Kalan
Splash! by Ann Jonas
Do Not Disturb by Nancy Tafuri
In The Pond by Ermanno Cristini and Luigi Puricelli
Busy Beavers by Lydia Dabcovich
Beaver At Long Pond by William George and Lindsay George
After reading the last two, you may want to add pebbles, twigs, sticks and leaves to your sand/water table and challenge the children to try to build a dam, just like the beavers.
Talk
— Brainstorm animals and plants that live in a pond.
— Act out the animals actions. Don’t forget to clap and give encouragement for each action!
— Read Leaping Frogs, by Melvin Berger. Print out the frog life cycle, laminate or coat with clear contact paper. Allow the students to retell the stages in the lifecycle of a frog.
Write
Print out the following PDFs, laminate or cover in clear contact paper, if wished.
cattail tracing dragonfly tracing duck tracing fish tracing frog tracing mosquito tracing snail tracing water strider tracing
Cover with a piece of tracing paper, using paper clips to hold in place. Let the children trace the drawing and the word. They can then take the tracing paper off and color the picture. This is great for fine motor control. It is reusable and the children get a feeling of accomplishment that they traced the picture and the word and now have their very own copy!
Be sure to check back tomorrow for some messy fun!
Mad Math Monday — Pond Life
Sorting — Fill a plastic tub with strips of blue crepe paper to serve as water. Place fish of different, size, shape, color or texture in the tub. I used left over pieces of scrapbook paper in different patterns and textures.
Allow the children to find and sort the fish. In the winter, I did this as ice fishing with the children. I made fish in 3 sizes, laminated them and attached paperclips to each. I got a set of magnetic fishing poles at Lakeshore. I put the fish in a plastic container with lots of ice. They went fishing for the fish and then had to sort the ones they caught into the right sized bucket- small, medium and large. They loved it. They could have done this for hours, over and over.
Measurement — Let the children measure worms: gummy, rubber or even real. They can use rulers, cubes, standard or nonstandard units of measurement. Compare findings at the end. Talk about which was the shortest, which the longest. What they had the most of, the least of. 
Be sure to check back tomorrow for Talk, Read, and Write Tuesday. I have a ton of books and ideas to go with them!
Holidays and Theme Sunday — Pond Life
International Holidays this week:
Sunday, June 10 — National Day in Portugal
Monday, June 11 — National Day in Libya, King Kamehameha Day in Hawaii, U.S.
Tuesday, June 12 — Independence Day in Philippines, Dia dos Namorados (Valentine’s Day) in Brazil
Thursday, June 14 — Flag Day in U.S., World Sea Turtle Day, World Blood Donor Day
Friday, June 15 — National Flag Day in Denmark
Saturday, June 16 — Youth Day in South Africa
This week, I will continue with ideas for the theme, Pond Life!
Science and Social Studies Saturday — Pond Life
If at all possible, while studying Pond Life, it would be great to visit an actual pond. You could walk, if it is close enough. You could also arrange to meet there on the weekend, with parent’s help, if transportation and money are an issue. You could even have a picnic after your exploration. Some people do pond skimming, where they scoop up some of the water and examine it. I think it is okay for this age if an adult is doing this and the children are observing. If you plan to do this, come prepared with the materials you will need. You may want to bring jars with lids. This way, you can collect water, seal the jar and pass it around. Warn the children not to get too close to the edge of the water, as it is slippery. They should not go in or drink the water.
If you cannot do this, then why not bring the pond to your classroom? Use a water/sand table or even a blow up baby pool. If possible, bring buckets of water to your classroom from an actual pond. Be sure to include plants and sand. If this is not possible, place sand in the bottom and add regular water. Use artificial plants, foam and plastic pond creatures to make it more realistic.
You can have clipboards with Pond Journal pages on them. The children can draw pictures of what they see. They can try to add words. You can print out this PDF, pond life words, for them to use as a guide. When you return, they can add details and you can add photos and you can make a Class Pond Life Journal.
Here are a few photos of what my class saw on their trip to the pond: 
Egret and turtles on a log
Dragonfly
Ducks
You can also bring some pond life back to your classroom. If you are lucky, you might find some tadpoles or frog eggs to bring back. If not, some pet or fish stores sell tadpoles. Just be sure you do not buy bullfrog tadpoles. I did this one year and they took months to develop into huge frogs that lived for years. Make sure you have a tank with a lid, many plastic ones come with these. Place a rock or two in the tank, so the frogs will have something to sit on. Let the water sit in the tank overnight before you place the tadpoles inside or, even better, gather pond water with the eggs and put the whole thing into the tank. When the eggs hatch and tadpoles are there, you will need to feed them fish food flakes. On the weekends they can have weekend food for fish that is time release. You will need to change the water frequently because of cloudiness and smell. Eventually, they will become frogs and sit on the rocks. You should release them back to the pond where you found them, if possible. If keeping a little longer, they eat meal worms, which can also be found in fish and pet stores. Be careful when changing the water, they jump! It may be helpful to hang this life cycle nearby: frog life cycle .The children can even have copies and cut them apart to make a book.
Please check out the blog tomorrow when I share international holidays for the coming week and more on the Pond Life theme.
Fun Food and Games Friday — Pond Life
This week, I have a food and a game that I have used several times in the past.
Fun Food- Pond Snack
Take a bagel, cut it in half. You can toast it or leave it as is if desired. For this you can also use an english muffin or a rice cake. In a bowl, mix cream cheese and blue food coloring to make the water for the pond. Spread this on the bagel. Using a cucumber, cut slices and then in each slice, cut out a wedge. Put a few on each bagel’s water to be lily pads. Use gummy frogs as the finishing touch on the lily pad or in the water.
Game- Frog Tongues
Print out Bug Bingo and make a few copies. Cut out the bugs and put velcro on the back of each. Buy a pack of party blowers and let each child choose one, writing their name on it. Carefully unroll the paper roll and apply the other part of the velcro to it. Lay the bugs on the table, velcro side up. Allow the children, in small groups to see how many bugs they can catch with their sticky, long frog tongues!
There’s A Song For That Thursday — Pond Life
Songs and finger plays for the theme, Pond Life.
Five Green and Speckled Frogs:
Five green and speckled frogs,
Sat on a speckled log,
Eating some most delicious bugs.
Yum, yum.
One (or say name) jumped into the pool
Where it was nice and cool
Now there are four green specked frogs.
Keep going until you get to none.
I like to do this to dismiss them to wash their hands for snack, to line up at the door or to leave for the day. If there are more than five, do it in smaller groups or one big one.
What Do You See?
(To the tune of Do You Know the Muffin Man)
Oh, look! I see some hopping frogs,
Some hopping frogs, some hopping frogs!
Oh, look! I see some hopping frogs,
Hopping around the pond!
Continue with seeing crawling turtles, swimming fish, slithering snakes, flying dragonflies and soft cattails growing.
I’m a Little Turtle
(To the tune of I’m a Little Teapot)
I’m a little turtle, oh so slow
I wear my house on my back you know
When it’s time for me to go inside
I tuck my legs and then I hide
Grasshoppers
(To the tune of Jingle Bells)
Grasshoppers, grasshoppers!
They don’t have a care
Their strong legs push off the ground
And lift them in the air.
Grasshoppers, grasshoppers
They can jump so high
I love to watch them as they go
Leaping toward the sky.
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