Friday 8 April 2011

Building a Frog pond

A week or two ago while out on a field trip my kids spotted some frog eggs in a pond. My daughter has been dying to watch frogs grow ever since last year when we studied various animal/insect life cycles. Since these were in someone's garden pond we asked permission to take a few eggs home. I understand it is against the law in England to remove frog eggs from a natural pond but okay if the eggs are in a garden pond. I haven't looked this up to see if it is true just going by what I have been told:)

We have about 20 eggs and put them in a small container and took them home.








After only a few days we notices the eggs were changing shapes and wiggling about. I went in panic mode because I didn't think they would hatch quite this quickly and I wasn't prepared.






Off to our local pond to get pond water and pond weed to make a tadpole habitat.






Also went looking for some big rocks that we could use for our habitat







I used a glass bowl and we added pond weed, stones and pond water as directed by our resources and added the eggs and began to watch them grow.






Every day we noticed changes in the eggs and watched them hatch out of the eggs and become tiny little tadpoles.







After only a few days look how big they are getting and the children noticed that teeny tiny legs are starting to develop, which brought to my attention that this bowl wasn't going to work much longer:(





Luckily Princess had been reading one of her wild life magazine and spotted this article
So on Daddy's day off we got the supplies needed and began to build a small bucket pond in our back yard.










Princess and Daddy got to work on digging a hole that would fit our bucket.










Next we lined the hole with sand and evened it out









Add the bucket ours was a 14 liter garden bucket.










Add stones and brick to the bucket for the frogs to rest on. We made several adjustment to these stones but this is the only picture I took of it.









Add rain water or pond water to the bucket.











Add sand and soil around the sides of the bucket.











Here is our tiny frog habitat in the garden. I just need to buy some Elodea pond weed to add to it and it is finished. It was super easy to do and Princess is so excited to soon be having some full grown frogs in the back yard.








Please link up to the NOBH. Tracy, Lynda and I would love to have you there.

28 comments:

  1. What a great way to reinforce the frog life cycle - think I have a bucket that may be big enough :)

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  2. This looks like so much fun and educational! I'm sure your daughter and son will remember this forever and never forget their "frog facts" from this experience! My children would love this adventure also :) Thanks for sharing and clicked a vote for you!

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  3. Loved this post! I think this is such an awesome project that your children will have great memories of. Enjoy those moments! LeAnn

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  4. My mom thinks you're very cool. What a wonderful experience. I know my son would love to have his own frog pond. Your children better appreciate how much mom and dad do for them. What great parents you both are.

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  5. Super cute. Although...truth be told...I'd totally rather be your neighbor and let the kiddos go enjoy it at your place! :P

    ...danielle
    www.raisinglittlerhodies.blogspot.com

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  6. That is sooooo neat!!! We tried to grow a frog from one of those Uncle Milton kits last year. Very disappointed. Both of them died. I will have to keep an eye for frog eggs. Someone actually posted last year, maybe they will this year too.

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  7. I had no idea that you could build a habitat so easily. I thought you had to build something complicated. I think we're going to give this a try. Thanks for posting about it!

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  8. This looks like such a fun project, and I know my daughters would LOVE it!

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  9. Very cool habitat! We are too cool here to have frogs eggs yet.

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  10. Wow--what a fun project!

    We have a tadpole in a jar (from one of those mail-order kits.) He's been a tadpole for a looooong time. Maybe we should make him a little pond to encourage him to become a frog!

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  11. Hi Zelda,
    Hope you give it a try it was actually very easy to do, now let's hope the frogs like it enough to stay:)

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  12. Hi Tracy,
    Princess is really checking on the progress of the tadpoles and as a family watching the transformation is fascinating. Thanks for voting

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  13. Hi Lynda,
    At least someone thinks we are cool:) My kids are getting to the age where I embarrass them now:( I love it:)

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  14. Hi Danielle,
    You kids would be very welcomed if we lived near by. I never would have thought I would have so many interesting things in my kitchen prior to home schooling

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  15. Renita,
    I didn't know you could order tadpoles, we have been searching for frog spawn for 2 years. Thankfully we found some this year and the lady was willing to give us a few We are really enjoying watching the process.

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  16. Hi Maureen,
    It you want a copy of the article saying how to build the frog pond let me know and I will send it to you. My only advice is to buy a slightly sturdier bucket then we did as is sort of got squash in a bit with all the dirt.

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  17. Hi Phyllis,
    Hope it warms up soon for you we are enjoying late 60 degree weather right now and it is wonderful!!!

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  18. Hi Sparklee,
    According to our books it takes about 12 weeks to transform to a frog:) we have had ours for only 4 weeks so far.

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  19. HI Anna-Marie!
    Happy Sunday and frog watching to you! Stopping in to say HI and clicked a vote for you which put you in the lead again! :)

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  20. Hi Anna-Marie, that's a cool project to do with your children. I'm not sure if one would survive in our yard with our 95 pound chocolate lab. We were once in a yard that had a man made pond with fish in it and he stepped right into it to get a drink of water before I could stop him. I thought he would sniff at it... not step in and drink from it. Those poor fish!

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  21. Awesome project! My boys would love that. I don't know what our frog egg laws are, but we have some in a pond (man made) near our house.

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  22. Hi Noreen,
    Might be difficult with a Lab in the yard:) Don't they love water? But to be honest I would rather have a dog then frogs in the yard. I do this for my children:)

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  23. Hi Lori,
    It was fun to do and my daughter took real ownership of the project which was so great to see.

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  24. You're such a good mom Anna-Marie!

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  25. Thanks Noreen that is very sweet of you to say.:)

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  26. The primary factor to recall when putting in your pond is to take some time and plan the pond out so it would not become greater of a headache than an enjoyable revel in for you. I might opt for Pond Repair as my buddies had advised me. It is simple manner to have beauty of nature at your own home.

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