Our Frog Died

Just on two years old, and we were hoping soon to have spawned, one of our two mother frogs died in a horrible accident last night.
She'd been chasing a fly, high on the glass when David saw her jump off. He noticed sitting funny, that her tongue was out. He watched her take two big breaths then she stopped.



We found she had landed on a piece of wire that had lain unseen on the pot holding her water weed. All our frogs had loved to sit in the pot, and the wire, that must have been to hold the weed in place, had come adrift and now faced upwards. It pierced through into her tongue, killing her.

Today we spend time with her, looking at her, learning about her. One girl carried her around in a paua shell and wanted to take her home to show her mum she had died. She sang her a song to make her come alive again.

One of the boys wanted to put her in water to make her alive.

In the end after one of the children thought we should have something soft for her the teachers left cherry blossom on the table.

The children found it and covered her with flowers.

We then dug a hole, first in a specail spot one of the children had wanted to share, and then, when this prooved to hard, in another beautiful location.

In a coffin of paua, one of the children sung her "Delta dawn" as they shared their experiences of funerals and decided what we should do. And so we buried our friend frog.

Then the children started to gather flowers, and another one of the girls sang her a five minute song about all the things she wanted for her, creating it as she went. She wanted to know, how she would come to life again under the ground. I had to say I didn't know enough about frogs to answer her question.

It was a sad day, full of learning and questions, sharing and discovery.