Final Friday...Hike to the water!!!

We were so thrilled that the weather held up for us for our final day of Creepy Crawly Creek Critters!  We headed out on a longer hike to the Wissahickon.  We made so many fabulous discoveries along the way!!

White bracket fungus

We've heard this called "Elephant Ear" but we're not positive that is the official name.

Sharing a find

Waterfalls

What's that?!?

Millipedes!!!

When we reached the water's edge we kept on exploring and discovering!

Arman made a discovery

Decomposing leaves

Brightly colored fly

A freshwater clam

This damselfly really likes Piper

A mallard leading geese?!?!?!?

He found his mate

Some animals were having a clam feast last night.  We found so many clam shells!

Silvia found flakes of mica 

Ella is enjoying the sparkly Wissahickon Schist

Some crayfish claws

that used to belong to this crayfish.  An animal had a tasty treat recently!

Happy to find a clam shell

Brightly colored mushrooms along our path

Wineberry plant

They are safe to eat, though we didn't eat anything in the woods.

 In the afternoon we worked to weave webs.  It was harder than we thought!

Goodbye Creepy Crawler Creek Campers!!!!!

We hope to see you next year!

Thursday means creek critters galore

The rain doesn't stop these creek campers!  We were ready to find some fabulous creatures today!

We had just read the fun picture book, Diary of a Spider, before our creek walk.  However....

Spiderwebs are hard to photograph....

We made a wonderful early discovery.  Ms. Moore heard a splash and then managed to capture a feisty green frog that went off swimming down the creek.  It tried to hide in the rocks, but Lani pointed out that the green that looked like a leaf was the frog.  She was right!

We found so many other fabulous creatures today. Crane fly larva, stonefly larva, caddisfly larva, tiny aquatic snails, a few larva we couldn't identify, worms galore, baby salamanders and some adult salamanders.  We encouraged the kids to take the time to search for macroinvertebrates today.  It takes time and patience to search in the creek.

We were incredibly excited when we found a ringneck snake!!

We brought it back to the classroom to observe for the afternoon

The Birthday Girl was very intrigued!

But we still needed some outdoor time as well!