We (re)visited Raccoon River Park Friday to present a geocaching class. Before we headed to the soccer side of the park, we went to the nature lodge to pick up our reserved "Life in a Pond" Park Pack. This is a backpack filled with picture books, identification books, games, magnifiers, etc. for different ages. The naturalist was very friendly and let us into the classroom to see all the animals living at the lodge.
My kids played in the nearby marsh, ready to collect anything that crossed their paths, clad in rubber boots and armed with seining nets and tubs. They came back with a chorus frog and a small snake. We have now come full circle -- hearing some frogs two and three weeks ago, seeing (bullfrog) tadpoles in various stages at the Reiman Gardens one week ago, and now catching a frog to view up close. We really like _The Salamanders and Frogs of Iowa_ and an audio cassette of frog calls from our Park Pack to help us learn more about the animals we're discovering.
The families who met us at the park for class added to our animal count: an owl, a red-sided garter snake, Canadian geese, and mallards. And Cole and Gabe loved that people had trouble finding the container (HS4) that they hid in the rocks.
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