23 May 2008

Frog Skin

West London, 7am
West London, 7am

In the end, they did hire me to stay at the kindergarten. I'll be there until July. So lately, life has been full of early mornings - the school is a long way from home. Life has been about Sharing, Looking with Our Eyes, Listening with Our Ears and examining bugs.

We are learning about minibeasts this week. Yesterday we took twenty children down to the long grass at the end of the field and hunted for minibeasts to poke and capture. We found various assorted slugs, spiders, worms, caterpillars, woodlice and a frog. Have to admit that my enthusiasm for bug hunting was completely pretend. I come from a country where most spiders are poisonous if not DEADLY, and know in my heart of hearts that worms are slimy and should never be touched.

About that frog. My co-teacher caught it, but it didn't go down without a fight. She gave me the frog box to hold while she hunted for more. That frog was a survivor. It pushed its bumpy green nose out of the box we caught it in.

I have never touched a frog in my life.

I tried to pursuade the children to push it back in. They were not easily pursuaded.
I would have to push it in myself.

Frog skin, in case you are also a girl who does not like touching frogs, is strangely electric. It seems to flicker, perhaps because all those froggy vital organs are so close to the surface. Maybe there is something to be learned from this minibeast business after all.

2 comments:

Eloise said...

I always wanted a frog :)
El

Anonymous said...

You are very brave. I have bad childhood memories of a frog...he was brown, cold and very jumpy. In more recent years we befriended a magnificent large green frog with golden stripes whom I am sure was a human turned frog. He lived in the agapanthus by the back door and I learned he was a threatened species. For several years he was there then suddenly he was gone. We were very sad to think that maybe he was no more. Shimnjill