I had such a hard time narrowing down the books I wanted to use this week with Exploring Nature With Children. The literature set in, or about ponds for toddlers is wonderful! I tried to mix some old favorites in with new finds. This is what we ended up with:
- Have You Seen My Duckling? by Nancy Tafari
- Over and Under the Pond by Kate Messner
- It’s Mine! by Leo Lionni
- Jump, Frog, Jump! by Robert Kalan
- Pond Babies by Kathryn Falwell
- Ponds by Diyan Leake – This is a great nonfiction introduction to ponds for young toddlers.
We were also able to do some activities at home before heading out into nature so Big Kid was able to become familiar with the animal/plant names and what we might encouter.
This set I had from my classroom when I used to teach about habitats and trout. It worked perfectly with our pond study.
Big Kid also worked on some 3-part cards from 1plus1plus1equals1.net. She enjoyed trying to teach 5 month old Little Kid the names of the animals and plants on each card.
Mid week we visited a county park with an incredible exploration room, which had: a beaver lodge replica we could play in, pond animal puppets, a magnetic wall painted like a pond where we could move animals around (air/water/land), and other interactive activities. We also got to hike around a pond on the property.
We got real lucky this week when I found out our local nature preserve was having “Brookside Story Time” near a pond (no idea why it’s called “Brookside”) on Friday. It was the perfect way to wrap up pond week. We got to explore the pond, see a beaver damn, an egret, and explore the vegetation.
We were busy this week, but it was so fun, and I think Big Kid learned a lot!
What books did you read about ponds last week?
Kid's Lit Life 
2 thoughts on “Summer Pond Study”