work for eyes and ears, taste and touch; she will prick the brain... and the part of the mother or teacher in the early years... is to sow opportunities, and then to keep in the background, ready with a guiding... hand only when... badly wanted.
Mothers shirk their work and put it... into better hands than their own, because they do not recognise that wise letting alone is the chief thing asked of them,
seeing that every mother has in Nature an all-sufficient handmaid, who
arranges for due work and due rest of mind, muscles, and senses."
-C. Mason
Nature suprised us with a find of tadpoles!
And, we seized of the opportunity!
atop a low, but flowing waterfall. (and pond snails too)
We kept a clipboard of notes.
I wrote my son's observations in his own words as well as some of my own.
eyes beginning to bulge, feeding on lettuce and spinach from the garden.
The water needed to be changed in this photo!
We changed it about once every week and a half.
- not that their tiny legs could hop out yet, but just in case.
Their tails are shorteing at different rates. They're slightly larger than a pencil eraser!
One poor little one remains skinnier than the rest :(
Their little tails were mostly gone in no time at all,
and we wanted to be sure to release them before their need for live insect food arrived!
...surely there is a pond within reach––by road or rail––
where tadpoles may be caught, and carried home in a bottle, fed, and
watched through all their changes––fins disappearing, tails getting shorter and
shorter, until at last there is no tail at all,
and a pretty pert little frog looks you in the face."
- C. Mason
It really is "a field of unbounded interest and delight."