And then there was one...

tadpole that is.


We had two that seemed to be growing and doing well. We had an observation time in the media center the other day (the tadpoles had moved into the media center while the classroom was being painted and will stay in here until testing is over) and the first graders were all excited at how much the tadpoles had grown. I am wondering if the fact that one of the tadpoles got spilled out of the cup we were using to observe them had anything to do with his demise - guess we'll never know.


The class also held a little poll, 5 students think the tadpoles are frogs, 7 think they are newts, 4 think they are lizards and one student insisted that it was a dragonfly!


Here are pictures of the tadpoles from the other day (before we lost one).

We have LEGS!

Well, our tadpoles do!

They are a little hard to see and the tadpoles are still VERY small, but I think this * might* confirm that they are indeed frogs, not salamanders, but I guess we will still have to wait and see. I am getting a little nervous that we won't have the answer before the end of school on May 21st!

Is it really a frog?

Ok, so here are the latest pictures from the tank - the eggs are hatching and quite a few of the "tadpoles" are getting bigger. (just wish I had a better camera and could get some clearer pictures!)

In this week's Scholastic Student news that the 1st grade classes receive there is a story about things that live in the pond and it shows a baby newt - looks an awful lot like the things swimming in our tank. So this got the teacher and I thinking - is it really frog eggs that we found or something else??

But then, I found a picture in one of our frog books that shows a tadpole with "gills"

So the question is - do we have frogs or newts?

I guess we'll just have to wait and see!!! The kids in the class are having a great time writing about what they are observing and now they will be writing predictions about what they think is really living in the tank!

Stay tuned!

Nature - Growing Frogs

I am back - last week was full of depression after the super bowl loss on Sunday (and to make it even worse, I was at a party with plenty of Giants fans!) and then I had a wild and crazy Mo Willems week in the media center. I will post soon some of our entries to Mo's contest - I hope we win!!!!

My youngest son (age 7) has been playing in the mud. Behind our neighbors house there is a wooded area with a creek that runs through it (we've lived here 2.5 years and I never knew this was back there!)  yesterday they discovered frog eggs!  And somehow my son convinced me that we needed to keep them and watch them grow into tadpoles.  So after a trip to Walmart to buy some supplies we are now the proud owners of two frog egg sacs.  We are going to take them into school tomorrow to show his class and then we will wait and watch and *hopefully* some of these eggs will turn into tadpoles.  

As luck would have it, I just purchases the book Life Cycle of a Frog by Ruth Thompson so I am thinking of a way to share these in the media center - not sure yet what I will do, but how often do I have the chance to bring some

 science into the media center.

James looking for the eggs

egg sac in the murky water