It’s an exciting time of the year for Audubon and other wildlife enthusiasts as the amphibians are beginning to emerge from their winter hide outs. Many species will even migrate from the woodlands to certain breeding grounds known as vernal pools to mate and lay their eggs. These migrations occur between March and May on warm and rainy nights and are known as “big nights” or “amphibian crossings”. 

One species that joins the migrations is the yellow spotted salamander, and that was this week’s animal-to-find. Despite their bright yellow spots warning predators of their toxins, these salamanders still have a number of predators from skunks to turtles. 

After reading a story about another amphibian, the spring peeper, Wednesday’s class ironically ventured to Peeper Pond to play. No amphibians were found at the pond, but the kids still had a lot of fun running around playing tag and looking for acorn caps. 

We later returned to the education barn to eat lunch outside and play in the front yard. The class still had lots of energy despite the big hike and continued to play tag-based games. 

On Friday, Forest Classroom also read a couple of books on amphibians native to Vermont. We then hiked up to Mossy Rock to play for a while. With the snow gone, many fallen logs and rocks were out; a perfect place for smaller critters to hide. Sure enough, after a few flips, a red-backed salamander was found. After everyone got a chance to look at it, we returned the rock to its original position and left the salamander alone. 

We then hiked back down to eat our lunch outside and finished our day playing tag in the backyard. It was nice to see everyone playing together as one big group rather than sticking to our usual pairs our small groups. This is an important time for younger children to learn how to play and interact with others that don’t necessarily play the way they do. Empathy is a vital trait for people of all ages to have, and already Forest Classroom is showing it.