At the Pond

It's spring and our neighbor's pond is brimming with turtles, salamanders, frogs, eggs, and all sorts of slimy, cool stuff. Yesterday the neighborhood girls spent the afternoon exploring it (and they're back again now). The water was cold and the ground was so saturated that water squished up between our toes when we walked. Tadpoles raced out from under the wet leaves at the edge causing little thrills of excitement.


I joined them for a few photos, but then, after extracting promises that they wouldn't actually swim, left them to their own devices. They arrived home at the end of the afternoon with frog eggs which they are planning to settle into an aquarium. They were only wet to the mid-thigh :)

This is the kind of nature-time I want our kids to have. I want them to feel daring by a pond without an adult. I want them to watch out for each other. I want all their senses to be engaged--cold toes, slimy fingers, smelly hands.




I want them to hold a living thing and to worry about the impact of their actions on it.





I want them so alive in nature that time floats away.


We will probably make nature journals for the summer. We'll probably go out sketching wildflowers. We'll probably engage in some deeper learning of nature. But more often, I hope the girls are out having days like today--they'll be learning plenty.