Penrose Tidal Fun!

Recently a local family we met, and our little crew, went on a beach adventure to Penrose State Park. 

Before the beach adventure Bear and I discussed simple rules for behavior on the beach (totally lost once we got out of the car obviously!) as well as reading a couple fun books about tide pools, one was A shine the Light Book by Usborne (I will review it at another time).  I wish I would have brought out the loops but plan to again soon when we go back out.  It was a very fun outing for us.  Messy, but fun.

We discussed the types of things we might expect to find on a beach in a tide pool, we discussed and reviewed erosion and what that does to beaches.  We talked about what kind of creature we might see that didn't live in salt water... People, dogs, cats, deer....  we didn't mention the one amazing surprise we seen... as you will later see!

 I didn't expect to find SAND DOLLARS and not just one or two but whole beds of live and dead sand dollars!  The purplish ones are very much alive so be sure to handle them very carefully and place them back the way you found them.  No, you can't take them home with you! 

We also seen several Moon Snails.  Someone said this odd thing might come from them?

The mucky shoes, sticky wet pants, and dirty hands were well worth the fun we had!