Today the kids and I headed over to Sheringham Park, [the place where I work] to do some Pond Dipping in the Bower.  It is organized by the same staff who did the other events I have blogged about before: Animal Adventure Adventure, A Shore Thing, Magnificent Moths and Don’t Worry Bee Happy. I’m looking forward to signing up for the Little Acorns Group every other Wednesday come the Autumn.  It is really a fun, interactive nature class for active preschoolers & parent.  

They had little buckets set up with nets, spoons, magnifier glasses, along with a laminated sheet with photos and descriptions of all beings which live in the pond.   Each kid was given instructions on how to move the net around in a figure 8 to catch as much good stuff as they could. Once they dumped the net into the bucket and removed a lot of the weeds, they could do some investigating.  Between the three kids, they found some dragonfly nymphs, newts, tadpoles and pond snails galore. Once Soren thought he found a bi-valve, but it was actually a baby pond snail.  

I warned him several times to close his mouth – LOL – thankfully nothing dripped in.

Soren really really enjoyed it – he could have stayed there all day, looking at each item up close, especially the pond snails.  Maebh was asking to go to the cafe for a drink & cookie over & over again.  My mistake was that I didn’t bring her a drink & snacks and plunked her in her stroller when she was no longer interested.

Afterwards, we set up a picnic at the picnic tables near the car park.  After the kids played around a bit including races, and Maebh’s version of hide & seek “WHERE IS ME?”, we headed back in for an ice cream.