Nature Science: Snail Trails

When we started the At The Pond theme we built our own observation pond for the children to get hands-on up close and personal with pond life despite it being winter and us not living anywhere near a pond. My sister did not think they would survive the month. Well here we are a month into haveing our mini aquarium and the fish and snail have grown so much. The snail’s new diet is clearly showing in his shell with new growth smooth and strong.

Nature Science: Snail Trails

For the day we learned about snails and the trails they make we pulled the snail out and placed him in a cookie sheet with a thin layer of water so the children could observe him and his travels up close and personal. We talked about the changes the snail has gone through since coming to live with us. We discussed the different parts of the snail and everyone got a chance to hold him.

Snail trails

Mother Goose Time sent an Invitation to Create for this one. As much as I love invitations to create I felt this activity would best benefit from a small change. We looked at the photo of snail trails at the bottom of a sandy pond. This was great because we can not see this in our tank that is filled with rocks instead of sand for easy cleaning.

Nature Science: Snail Trails

I spread the provided sand out onto the cookie sheet after cleaning up from our real snail Sticky. This created a thin layer of sand.

Each child received one of the large cotton swabs Mother Goose Time provided and used them to draw snail trails into the sand.

With a quick shake of the tray we could start all over again and again. Which kept the kids happy until they got a bit overzealous and sand ended up in places sand does not belong.

 

Nature Science: Snail Trails

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