Madrona Marsh - Earthworms

Yesterday we went to the Madrona Marsh for their science program. Every Friday they have a free program for young children that focuses on bugs, animals, or plants that are found in the Marsh. The first part includes a short story time, a hands on, if possible, and a craft. Then they will walk into the Marsh for a good forty minutes. I wasn't interested in the walk this week, so we just stayed for the class. It was priceless.
This week focused, as you can see, on worms. They read a picture book on worms and then a great book called The Diary of a Worm. The latter is very cute. You really should check it out from the library. After learning about worms each child got a magnifying glass and an earth worm to research. Kaeley enjoys this sort of thing. After looking at the worm through the magnifying glass she gently stroked her worm. When it began to crawl off the plate she would gently guide it back onto the plate with her open hand. At one point she accidentally guided it not onto her plate, but ended up throwing it onto her lap. She let out a high pitched, sincere scream. She would not pick it up again, because she didn't want to crush it. I finally had to pull myself up by my bootstraps and pick up the worm. Yuck!
Nathan was fine with his worm and enjoyed using his magnifying glass the wrong way. Now this is quite ironic to me, because he enjoys learning about snakes and animals and what not. Why, just that morning he was running around with a stuffed snake and annoying his sisters. He thought he was quite clever.
So, back to my tough guy and his worm, he was nose to nose with this worm until the worm moved. Then he let out a wail and began to bawl, because the thing was moving. He left his station, ran to me, and asked for me to hold him. It was funny. We're such city folk.
Alynna didn't care about the worms this week. She usually is enthralled by the taxidermy birds around the perimeter of the room, but this week she spent most of her time looking at the babies. I love how children think anyone a bit shorter then them are true babies. So my eighteen month old inspected the baby's feet, their faces, their hands, she repeated, "Baby!" It was precious.