Tide pooling

This past week was a great week for tide pooling. It motivated us to take a twenty minute drive and get to the beach. The lesson learned is that it takes many trips (maybe a lifetime) to the beach to fully appreciate its wonders. In my boys' three years they have probably only been to the beach a dozen times- and not to the same one. Therefore, low tide was not as special to them as to me. Why should the creatures of the inter tidal zone be any more special than those higher up the beach?

It was a slow journey out to the best tide pooling. First we has to stop at the driftwood...and then the sand-as pictured here and the only reason we were this far out was because of a preschooler named Mathew said, "come with me and I will show you where to find hermit crabs!" My own boys were slight interested in the crabs.  They know a bit about them from various stories we have read & from playing with a hermit crab puppet, but in real life at that moment they were no sure that they were ready to gently touch these living creatures.  Only after playing in various areas ( digging in sand/ pretnd fishing in a tidepool, splashing in puddles ) did they finally decide that tide pooling was quite great especially if it meant PLAYING!