Snails and Slugs

Today Kathy and I took Paige to Runge Nature Center in Jefferson City. I signed Paige up for a program called Babes in the Woods which provides activities for children ages 0-2 years old. Today the topic was snails and slugs, so Paige got to learn about snails and slugs. It was a fun time!

Here Paige is learning that snails and slugs have eyes on the top of their tentacles and that when snails sleep they go inside their shell.

Here we are practicing looking around like a snail or slug does.

Paige got to crawl through a tunnel to practice moving like a snail and slug move.At first, Paige was a little hesitant to go through, but when she saw me and her Grandma at the other end, she started crawling. The second time that she went through, she really picked up her speed!

Paige got to go out to the pond and try to catch some snails in her net. She got one snail and a tadpole! Paige liked this a lot and wanted to fling water on me with the net, so we had to move on from that activity! LOL!Next, we went out to the garden to find some snail and slugs, since they like to eat plants. The teacher made it easy and gave us a snail to hold (I was secretly happy that she didn't give us a slug like she did some other kids...yuck!) Paige liked looking at the snail and feeling the shell.

In this picture Paige has the snail in her hand. I bet you can guess what she tried to do with it...that's right, she tried to put it in her mouth (more than once). Needless to say, the snail hid in his shell!

I tried to hold the snail so that Paige could see him come out of his shell. He did come out for a second and Paige must've liked him because she immediately wanted to pick him up again. Look at the concentration on her face! After class, we went back inside the nature center to look around. Paige got to see a really big frog and a real snake. She liked watching the snake slither in his tank.