All Creatures Great and Small

There's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is that we have a small ant infestation in our room. The good news is that the Little frog's are fascinated by them. So, we decided to study them (as we have been studying all of the bugs we are finding outside.

We put some in our bug jar, and then we started wondering what ants might eat. First, we put out a little piece of apple, then some orange, then a cheerio, then a raisin and finally a cracker. we watched them very carefully.

Before we knew it, it was time for Music class with Jenny.

We sang some of our favorite songs.

Then Jenny gave us bells. We felt compelled to sing Jingle Bells.  Then we sang and danced a song about Mother Earth.

She also sang us a book called Inch by Inch.

And when we were leaving, Jenny let each of us strum her guitar.

When we returned to our room, we quickly went to check on our ant experiment.

At Morning Meeting, Carol showed the Little Frogs some new books that we will have in our library, that will help answer all of our questions about the bugs we see.

Then we read a story called, The Lonely Lightning Bug, and friends said they would be on the lookout for the first fireflies of the season.

Next, we made a chart to keep track of the results of our ant experiment. Each friend went over to study the ants and then came back to report what they had observed. We discovered that there were a lot of ants on and around the piece of apple, and pretty many on the cracker. There were a couple on the orange and the raisin, and NONE on the Cheerio! From this, we decided which foods they liked best and least.

We had a little time on the playground before we headed off on our day's adventure.

We stopped at the puddle tree, but there had not been enough rain to make any puddles today.

When friends were hiding to jump out and scare Carol, they looked in a window and saw birds! We immediately decided to investigate.

We found the room where the birds lived, and we got out our new notebook (where we now write down all the things we find out when we are adventuring, and all the questions we have). Each of the Little Frog's checked out the birds, and then we wrote down anything they had figured out by looking at the birds and their environment. We also wrote down questions they had, or things they wondered about (like, Do these birds talk? What kind of birds are they?)

Then we met a new friend, Justin. He teaches math to the eighth graders and he was very interested in what we were studying. We showed him our bugs and told him about our experiment and how we were using math to figure out what ants liked best.

We also got to sit in the big kids' desks...a peak into the future?

Then we were off again.

We worked our way past the place where there are crocodiles.

We followed our ears to the source of some beautiful singing.

We revisited our art and said hello to our Purple People Eater. We paused at the science room, but Roseanne wasn't there, so we couldn't ask her about our bugs.

So we headed to the library and said hello to the fish. then we returned our books and left a note for Gwen, telling her that we needed some books about ants.

Outside the library, friends tried to guess the answer to this weeks "What Is This?"

Then we headed out for a little time on the kindergarten playground.

We also stopped to climb our favorite mountain and we noticed many different kinds of rocks today.

After we got back to the room and gathered for lunch, Carol asked the Little Frogs a Very Important Question. She reminded them that Princess Froggy has been very lonely since Nellie died. Then she said that she had talked to a woman named Julie, who worked at an Animal Rescue, that helped to find homes for guinea pigs. Julie told her that they had a baby guinea pig, who's name is Popcorn (friends thought this was a great and funny name), who needed a home. Julie said that they didn't usually send guinea pigs to live in schools, but when Carol told her how great the Little Frogs were at taking care of guinea pigs, she said that she would make an exception...If the Little Frogs thought that they could take care of a baby guinea pig! Friends were sure that they could, so Carol promised to go and get Popcorn this weekend and bring her and Princess Froggy back to Froggyland on Monday.