Growing Frog and Chicks

It was the end of April and the school year was starting to wind down a bit.  I was getting tired, yet I knew that we should continue forward.  We still had a few more lessons of math, science and history to accomplish, plus we still had to complete our testing for the year, but my heart just wasn't into school.
Then came along an email from a fellow home schooler that she had lots of tadpoles and wanted to share some.  Her neighbor's pool had been the spawning area for local toad and now these little ones were about to be displaced, as the owner's of the pool wanted to get it ready for the upcoming summer season.   This was just the thing to get me excited and 'back into school'.   We headed off one Thursday afternoon and pick up some tadpoles.  Thus began our mini unit studies on frogs and toads.

I found some printables on the life cycle of a frogs and we read many books about frogs.

....and we kept watching our tadpoles of changes.  We often raided two local ponds for fresh food.  One at Randolph Park, and the other at our local veterinary clinic.  We are friends with the vet, and Jared Morgan said we could get grass and leaves (covered in delicious algae) for the tadpoles.  However, we didn't see much of a change in the little toads.     The Morgan's had come over to our home for something, and Dr. Morgan said that the water was too cold for them to grow....so outside they went in the sun....yet, still they didn't change.  By this time two months had gone by, plenty of time for them to have changed.  So, I called up Dr. Morgan and asked if we could put them in his pond at the clinic.  He gave the okay and so we got them ready to transport. 

We put them in the ziplock bag and then set the entire bag in the pond.  This way the water inside the bag could slowly adjust to the temperature to the water in the pond.

About 15 minute later we opened the bag, but didn't pour the tadpoles out, we just set it in the water and let the tadpoles slowly swim out.  Most of them did and after another 15 minutes or so, we pour the remained ones into the pond.  Then the waiting game began.

I waited too long....about 9 to 10 days later, we came back but couldn't find one single tadpole!  I was sad and I thought that they didn't survive the change of the temperature--culture shock of sorts.  But that wasn't the case at all....Jared said he meant to call me and tell me that they had morphed and changed so quickly that they went from tadpole, to toadlet ( with their hind legs and tail) to fully formed toads within one week!! By the time we got there they had all jumped away to find new homes.   I was bummed that I had missed it, but glad that they didn't die.   After staying the same for so long, I didn't realize they would change so quickly when given the perfect environment.  A lesson learned for me!!

A week or so later, while on a walk, we did find a little toad near the path we were traveling....so even though Delaney, Liam and I missed the chance to see them change, we did see the final product!

We've tried hatching chicks a few years ago....that was a bust too.  This year, I'll try hatching painted lady butterflies and making an ant farm....hopefully we'll have better scientific fun with them!

A side note---I knew Liam liked his 'Thomas the Tank Engine' shirt, but until I started posting all these photos from many different day....and he was wearing the same shirt each day....did I realize how much he LOVED that shirt!!  What's funny is that he's noticed it too....and now's he's off to find it.  I know where it is--it's filthy!! and need to be washed.  I hope he won't look in the laundry room. ;)