Playing With Worms

Playing with mud in the backyard on a gorgeous Saturday, we came upon some worms.  

Big ol' worms just loving life in the compost pile!

Sensory discovery ensued...

The worms were cool, and slimy, and dirty, and tickley in our palms.  

Some moved fast, some slow.  

They changed shape as the moved- from fat and short, to long and thin.

So proud of my kids for being down with worms.  I loved digging for worms as a kid... and I still get a little too excited when we find a big one.

We've found worms before, but never really spent time exploring and playing with them in this scale.  Smarty Pants 3 Year Old and I talked about how worms eat dirt and make tunnels that are good for the plants.

I felt secretly kind of sad for the worms as the kids dropped them into a container to take on their first ever fishing trip.  But I was honest with them about what we were doing with the worms... a little Circle of Life/Food Chain lesson.  And the next day they had no problem seeing their friends from the yard put on a hook for the fish.