Beach Day ~ Tuesday Froglets

It might not have looked like the perfect day for beachy fun to you, but for FH kids it sure was! 

We checked out the train tracks on the walk to the beach:

 

ooo, note how A was all set in his FH uniform today! 

We heard the sound of the waves as we approached:

 And we got right to it, playing dodge the big waves, and feeling the cold Salish Sea!

 

While I made a castle nearby!

Boots were soon off and discoveries and play was under way:

We are magnetically attracted to forts it seems, and so of course there was a lot of play at this castle/pirate ship today:

 

After I.B. found this Dungeness crab molt, pretended to eat it; and got to hear Teacher Erin go and on about this little guys' features: his gills, his male identifying "rocket", and how he molts like a snake or a tarantula; the castle became "Crabby Castle". 

Which is also sometimes a pirate ship where the crew calls out, "Ahoy Captain!" (to me, I got to be captain!):

And this crew was well fed let me tell you, Cook Ian made lobster stew, and Cook E had a machine gun that fired food right into your mouth! 

 Guess the crew was ready for a real snack!

Fortuitously, as we were eating a birder happened by, and I asked him if he could tell us what we might have seen earlier when a flock of ducks came by.

Q was able to recount the characteristics of the birds well enough for him to guess they were likely red breasted mergansers. He also set up his powerful telescope and let the kids look through it to check out a female surf scoter. He had some great ideas for me as well. Now we are ready for bird week next week, back in the woods!

Winter Schedule!

It looks like Shoreline Park will be running Froggy Holler again in the winter! The schedule will be another 10 week session from January 25th to March 31st. That means we'll have a few months off from late Nov. through December and most of January. I'm planning on looking into doing a few non-park associated "field trips" during this time if others are interested.

Under a Log/Bug Day ~ Thursday

We really got into this week's theme in class this Thursday. We turned many a log finding beetles, centipedes, ants, pill bugs and sow bugs, and so much more! Here's the group taking turns holding a pill bug we found:

Then we stopped and read a pill bug story: Mimi!

It was a rainy day at Froggy School, but there are plenty of dry places in Hamlin, so we stopped for snack in a new fort:

Then we were off, and pointing out fungus along the way:

And watching slugs devour a mushroom:

J gave the big guy a pet after I snapped this and we all watched it curl up tight.

We slid on "sliding rock"!

And collected pellets to keep them from birds and animals in the woods while playing at the big fort!

We also read a few other books, lots of poems, and did some great journal writing and drawing today as well!

Under a Log/Bugs! ~ Tuesday

This week our theme was "Under a Log/Bugs". In true fashion to what FH is all about I'm not so inclined to push the themes I have composed for this class, so, this week I did chat with the kids about bugs, decomposing logs, pill bugs vs sow bugs, but there was also a good share of so much more.

 

We had this smug slug attempt to join us on E's backpack! We'd just read Some Smug Slug, so it seemed fitting...

We had snack and did some fort play in a whole new fort we found, 

and log climbing and bouncing,

E found this mushroom he wanted us to all check out:

there was lots of imaginative play and friend time, 

 

"Super I" can make a scary face!

 "Super I" can make the log bounce too!

 

Choo, choo! The Froggy Holler Express is coming down the track!

These two were friends when they were only weeks old, it's sweet to see them together again now.

There was lots of discovering and tasting the fruits of the season: huckleberries, Oregon grapes (ooo sour!), 

 

and of course blackberries in "blackberry meadow"! 

"Super I" to the rescue when someone called for "help" in blackberry meadow!
It was another fun day at Froggy School!