WonderWorks: Pond Life (Science)

What flora and fauna lives in and around ponds?

Today's Topic: Ponds!
Supplies:

round blue tablecloth
pictures of pond creatures and plants
blue paper cut roughly into pond shapes
band-aids
wiggle eyes

Books:
  In the small, small pond / Fleming, Denise

The dark, dark night / Butler, M. Christina

 What We Did:  We were so excited to have the wonderful Anne Moser of the UW Water Library with us to share her knowledge about ponds!  She read two books to the group:

She was very expressive and the kids were very engaged listeners!

Then, each kid called out an example of flora or fauna commonly found at ponds and Anne gave them a picture of the example they'd named and they filled the pond with wildlife!

 

Anne also showed some actual pond plants she'd picked that morning (cattails! milkweed! compass plant!) and brought in for the kids to enjoy touching and smelling.

Then, each kid made their own pond using paper, markers, glue, wiggle eyes and... Band-aids!  (the Band-aids were quite popular, but tricky for younger kids to open by themselves)

I loved how this participant made a frog that looked just like his shirt--all the way down to the orange tongue!

Purple glue stick swirls make great water textures...

And, well, just WIGGLE EYES!!!  (maybe they're representing frog eggs?)

This participant wanted to know how many toes to draw on her green frog.  I loved how her mom first went to the collection of books Anne had brought to see if any had pictures that would answer her question...

 

And when none of those frogs was quite right, she used her smartphone to answer the question.  I love it!

Related Apps: during class, I had these two easy-reader apps available for use:
At the Pond (Learn to Read Books) -- this app has very simple text and pictures that support the text.  You can also put your finger on each word and hear the word being read aloud.  The story is a bit slight.
Life at the Pond (ReadSmart) -- this app has more text (still in beginning reader formatting) and a bit more of a non-fiction storyline, but the words are not at all interactive (except for a handful that are underlined which you can get definitions for if you tap on them) and there is no read-aloud option at all.
You might also enjoy:
Just at day at the Pond with Little Critter (Oceanhouse Media)
Plants by Tinybop (not specifically pond-related, but lots of flora and fauna to explore!)