Bush Kindy
The Great Bush Kindy Tadpole Rescue
When the children returned to Bush Kindy after the holidays, they were excited to discover the remaining shallow pond of water in the forest teeming with large tadpoles, many of which had grown back legs and were beginning to look rather frog-like. They gathered a collection of these tadpoles in various containers to observe and enjoy, before returning them to their habitat at the end of our Bush Kindy session.
The following week, when the children returned to the pond, they were amazed to discover that it had completely dried up, leaving only a small patch of wet mud covered by drying leaves where the pool of water had previously been. Upon digging about amongst the leaves, the children began to discover many tadpoles lying on the surface of the mud. Thus began a flurry of activity as they collected water from the creek close by and began to retrieve as many tadpoles from the mud as they could find.
Approximately half of the tadpoles had grown their front legs, and as the children placed them in containers, the more frog-like ones began to crawl out of the water, while those that were still needing the sanctuary of water remained below the surface. The children found rocks and sticks to place in the containers to assist the new frogs to move to where they were most comfortable.
When it was time for us to return to camp, we had to decide what to do with all the tadpoles that had been collected. After a short discussion, it was agreed that we should carefully return the ‘frogs’ to the wet mud and cover them over with leaves, to fend for themselves in their own natural habitat. The children took charge of this operation with great tenderness and care. For the remaining tadpoles, a group of the children carried a large pot between them up to the small garden pond in the grounds of Silver Birch Kindy (Playgroup), to which they were gently transferred by hand by some of the children.
So unfolded the Great Bush Kindy Tadpole Rescue. Under the guise of these simple activities, in response to natural events in the changing cycle of the seasons, the children were engaged in deep and natural learning, developmentally appropriate to their age; a range of areas of the curriculum were being addressed, most obviously in the sciences (biological and ecological). They were witness to a crucial phase in the miraculous transformation from a tadpole to a frog, and experienced firsthand the seeming indifference of nature in the great cycle of life and death.
Perhaps most significantly, they were enacting the values of custodianship (Caring for Everything) that we have identified as the underlying framework of our place-based Bush Kindy and Bush School programs.
We hope the Playgroup children are able to discover and delight in some of our rescued tadpoles thriving in their garden pond. Certainly the children from Bush Kindy will be returning for a peek during our next session.
