Tadpole News

Wow, May is busy! Field trips, special activities, wrapping up the school year...it's a pretty hectic time. But it's been a good May for me, mostly measured by the number of frogs I've caught on trips with students (3), the number of trees I've planted with students (30+), and the fact that the yearbooks arrived at school on time and with no problems (whew!)

We've been raising tadpoles again this year, with much better success than last year. Here are some simple steps to raising tadpoles in the classroom. More information can be found at the NatureNorth page.

1. Check out your state's rules for tadpoles.
2. I never really gather tadpoles myself...they always just show up. This year, the tadpoles were brought in by a student, and she will take them home later. Wherever you get the tadpoles, it's important to collect a good amount of water for them. I always have the best luck using water from the tadpoles' ancestral home.
3. The best container ever for tadpoles? Plastic pretzel containers! Rinse them very, very well to be sure that there is no salt in them. Then put your tadpoles in, along with the water that you collected from their original home. (Never use water straight from the tap.) The tadpoles don't need very deep water. A few inches at the bottom of the plastic container is fine.
4. Feed your tadpoles bits of cooked lettuce. I just cover some lettuce with water and boil in the microwave for a minute or so. I let the lettuce cool for a few hours and then put it in with the tadpoles.

Long term care...
-Keep a few gallons of pond water on hand to change the water frequently. Try to change 1/3 of the water each day. (I never manage to do this, though. I have kids work to collect bits of mud and--uh, tadpole waste--from the bottom of the container with droppers, which really helps to keep the water clear.)
-Every day or two, take out the old lettuce as it starts to decay.
-When the tadpoles start to grow legs, put some rocks in the water for them to crawl out on.

Get ready for surprises!
This tadpole came along in an algae-filled bottle of pond water that another teacher brought to me. (Thanks, Kelly!) I thought it might be a bullfrog tadpole that had overwintered as it was much bigger than any of the other tadpoles.

A wood frog tadpole

When it fully transformed, however, it was obviously a wood frog--right down to the tiny black mask that is so characteristic of wood frogs. What a neat surprise. The kids had read about wood frogs in the Chronological Order texts activity, so they knew how to recognize it. Just like with spring peeper tadpoles, the full-grown frog is actually a little smaller than the tadpole.

An adult wood frog

This is a good scientific lesson, because it shows how we need to make observations and be ready to change what we think we know. A similar surprise happened with what we thought was a salamander larvae, because it had external gills. As it turns out, spring peeper tadpoles have external gills for a few days.

Keeping froglets
This is the hardest part of the process. In years past, we have not been able to figure out what kinds of tiny insects to give our froglets and toadlets. I always tried to release them quickly after they transformed.

A student and her father discovered a solution last summer. We live in orchard country, and the student's father found that fruit is the key. The froglets don't eat fruit, of course. But the fruit attracts tiny fruit flies...just the food for a tiny froglet! He also found success with aphids from tree limbs.

Today we made a new home for our wood froglet, complete with mulch, a water dish, and moss. Hopefully the froglet will thrive until the end of the year.

Why tadpoles?
The table of tadpoles is just a quiet hub of activity for the last two months of school. Kids check in on them every day and talk about what has changed. There is always something new to see or discuss, and always tadpole care to manage. As our own little classroom star becomes the supernova of brilliant May, the tadpoles give us one last long project to share together.

Worms, Pond Water, and More!

So this morning we had a worm invasion at my school. I stepped out of the car, thinking that last night's rain had brought leaves or seed pods down from the trees. But no--they were worms!

Not only did we have great invertebrate observation opportunities outside, but we also had some pond water to look at inside. At this time of year, I also like to have some pond water in the classroom for students to observe. Students often bring in some tadpoles for us to see as well.

Setting up the observations is pretty easy. I use foil pie plates and clear plastic cups to make sure that everyone has a close-up view of something. Some plastic pipettes are also useful for catching tiny creatures like ostracods, copepods, and damselfly larva.

For initial observations, I encourage students to write and draw what they see. Many students will spontaneously turn to similes in their observations. (For more that you can do with creature observations, check out this blog post from three years ago. You can read about some of our poetry conferences after we wrote tadpole poems here.)

This year's pond water seems to have many ostracods, or seed shrimp. Here is a little video that shows you more about these creatures. They are so common and probably living in a pond near you right now!


How does all of this nature relate to reading? Noticing the small details of the natural world attunes children to the small differences and details that they will see in text. And also...these hands-on experiences really help students to feel more positive about our classroom. :)

Notes and Updates
-Parts of Speech Readers Theater is up and ready to go!
-I am working through some of the peregrine falcon texts from Text Structure Introduction in my reading class and the red-tailed hawk text from Intervention 1. Today I discovered that there is a red-tailed hawk cam! What an authentic way to quickly compare and contrast the nests and the looks of the birds.
-I'm starting text structure literature circles with one group...I'm sure that I'll have a lot to write about once we get going.

Lots of blogging

 I had over 70 comments on my kid nature blog today! (And they're not spam, which is even better.) After I checked to make sure that they were all appropriate, I showed the comments to my students so that we could talk about them and try to figure out who wrote them. It was a great learning experience.

I'm wading through the comments so that I can post and respond to them. Check them out on A Kids' Guide to Exploring Nature. They are adorable.


In other news, I had a blog post published on the Teaching Tolerance website. I'm so thrilled! It was the best news of the day.

http://www.tolerance.org/blog/led-tadpoles-across-social-divide

Tadpole Time!

Two weeks ago, I brought in a mass of unknown eggs to the classroom. For the first few days, we thought they were salamanders. Then, they hatched! We found out that they are actually wood frog tadpoles. Their gills were on the outside at first, but are now inside.

I like having the tadpoles in the room. They are the launching point for some great learning opportunities. Here are my favorites!

Tadpole personification: While learning about personification, students observed the tadpoles and tried to write about what they were doing using personification. We had fun trying to think about how to describe what they were doing. Many students thought of them as running races, playing tag, or even playing hide and seek.

Tadpole census: After a lesson from our guidance counselor about the census, several students undertook a tadpole census, counting the numbers of tadpoles at different stages in development.

Tadpole drawing: I have a LONG arrival and dismissal time to fill--about half of my class comes in 15 minutes before the rest, and stays 20 minutes later. It's hard to find productive but engaging activities for students during these times. Luckily, the tadpoles are very motivating for the students! Students have been drawing pictures of the tadpoles each day. I've been amazed to notice how the students' pictures have changed throughout the weeks--they have improved at how they were representing the tadpoles and the level of detail that they used.

Microlife observations: Students have also been using the Guide to Microlife to try to identify some of the other creatures that live in the water. Their discussions are fascinating to listen to. Students are citing evidence, pointing to pages in the text, and carrying on long conversations as they try to figure out what else is living in there. (We've found amphipods, copepods, snails, caddisfly larvae, and mayfly larvae.)