Tadpoles...

Just another item on the list of "Why It's Cool to Homeschool" is that school really never ends, there's always something to teach. Take this morning for instance...(queue rolling harp).

HRHTDP and i are out doing the morning inspection of the various flora and fauna around the Kingdom. The roma's, watermelon, cantaloupe, and punkin's needed waterin', the compost needed turnin', and just the general perimeter recon. Of course, with her, the questions are all good questions.

Upon our surveille of the front yard and a redbud i've been babyin' along this Spring, she cut loose with a CindyLou Who-esque squeal and pointed excitedly, "Daddy! Daddy! Look at THAT! I had completely missed it, mainly due to the exquisite camouflage. This little guy was clinging happily to an upper branch of the redbud.
Of course, she wanted to pet it. Funny thing about her, she's Miss Priss when it comes to dressin' up and jew'ry and by all means...shoes. But when it comes to critters...she's hands ON!

"What is it Daddy?" "I mean what KIND of frog?"

"Well, baby, it's some kind of tree frog."

"I think ... ... let's call him JarJar."

Which i think is odd, since she's never even seen one episode of Star Wars.

"You wanna let P2 and The Prince in on this?"

A whirling flash of pink and grass clippings.

The other two boiled outta the house like...like, well it was kinda early for them...a crab coming out of a conch shell. But, they made it over nonetheless and everyone got to touch "JarJar". He was examined with the intense scrutiny that a five, three and one year old can muster without disturbing him too much. JarJar was very calm, apparently scared shiftless, and when he deemed it expedient he leapt to higher and safer confines.
"Do you all wanna go find out what kind of frog he is?"

"Yeah!"

"Alright, let's go..."

So we all gathered around Google and discovered JarJar to be a Squirrel Tree Frog (which would be a little out of his normal range of habitat, but not entirely unbelievable) or perhaps just your average American Green Tree Frog. Its more than likely the latter, but sure looked alot more like the former. Regardless, we had a good time understanding the difference between toads and frogs, and how tadpoles become frogs. Believe me, they were INTO it. Shockingly, after the short lesson in metamorphosis, JarJar had fled the premises since his location had been compromised.