Our weekly sightings of red efts during ECO sparked children's curiosity, so over the past several weeks we conducted research as a whole group to learn more about these cute creatures. First we brainstormed a list of questions we had about red efts to help focus our research. We talked about how scientists sometimes gather information from  non-fiction sources such as books and how they gather information by observing. Children were encouraged to observe the efts closely during our forest time to see what questions they could answer this way: red efts are not actually red, in fact their color can vary quite a bit, from orange to greenish, but they always have spots. Red efts have distinct toes that seem to be quite grippy and yes indeed, they can climb trees. We've seen them do it, but when they get to a certain height they almost always gently tumble down! We also read a few books about red efts which answered many of our other questions, such as: What do they eat? What do they do in winter? How do they find their way? and Where do they live? 

After gathering all of this information we synthesized by completing four sentence stems: Red efts can.... Red efts are...  Red efts have...  and Red efts need. We capped our research by completing painted illustrations. These are now hanging in the hall and will be there during conferences.