Down the street from our house, just a stones throw from the freeway, is a little pond paradise. We visited it today for our "pond study" that we are doing with Paddle-to-the-Sea . We arrived at the pond and the kids were impressed immediately with two things- the size of the leaves (no picture but there were huge maple type leaves) and the swans. We were also interested to see pond water plants that we had read about. Our mission to was to "look and listen". One of our first hidden finds were some spiders. We sat for a while and drew some of the things we saw. The kids who finished their drawings each chose a quiet spot to sit by themselves and observe. I was impressed by all they were able to tell me about what they heard and saw- dragonflies, bird calls, ducks,... The turtle were quick on their feet, so we thought we were not going to get a picture, but MeLei caught these two near the end of our trip. To the right, the ki...
