Early one morning, I was putting the trash out for the garbage man to pick up.  The air felt humid and damp.  I briefly looked at the grasss as I walked back to the house when I noticed two worms mating.  

A perfect homeschool moment!  So I did what any excited homeschool mom would do, I called for all the kids to come and see this amazing event.



I have been wanting to do an earth worm unit study.  Several months ago, I put lots of material together, but other things took precidense and I still have yet to do it with the kids.  I hope we can get this unit on worms done soon.

But today was a spur of the moment natural SCIENCE lesson.  I couldn’t believe what a great visual we had. Two very long and large worms were stretched in both directions for a very long distance.  But at one end they joined a section of their bodies. 

I knew from experience of catching worms to go fishing that if they sensed any vibration on the ground they would quickly go into hiding down a whole.  Their stretched bodies were actually a quick get away plan.  They were ready to recoil in opposite directions, like two rubber bands. 



We all observed them for quite a while.



We noticed they were exchanging a white colored sticky fluid.  The kids guessed this white fluid might be eggs, or the worms might be fertilizing eggs.  We decided we would look up what this was on the internet when we got back inside the house later.



Eventually we did disturb the worms and they tried to dart away quickly.



They tried to hide in the grass, but we caught them, gently held on untill their bodies relaxed and let go of what they were clinging to, and brought them over to the sidewalk for a closer look.



They were wiggly, slimmy, and sticky.  After observing them for a while, we released them back into the grass and they quickly went back into hiding though they did not completely disappear down a whole.  We guessed they needed to recouperate their strength after our observations.  But we checked later and they were gone.  So we know they fully recovered and no harm was done from spending time with us in our outdoor classroom!



Here is a video we made during part of our observations.




Several months ago, we spent some time with a WORMOLOGIST at Roper Mountain Science Center. 



This was a great opportunity for us to see worms at different stages in their life cycle and learn about what they eat and how to keep a worm habitat at home.



I was amazed how small worm eggs, and baby worms are.  Here are worm castings (poop), worm eggs, and baby worms in my hand.



I will post more about the trip to Roper Mountain Science Center in a future story.  It is a great place for hands on learning.

When went back in the house,after observing worms in our yard, we looked up some information about worms.  Here is some basic info we learned:

• Earth worms can live about 6-8 years, but if a worm’s skin dries out, it will die. 
  
• Worms do not have eyes, but can sense light. 
  
• Worms eat soil, leaves, and vegetation.
  
• Worms are hermaphrodites.  They carry both male and female organs.  Mature worms mate by sticking together and exchanging sperm at the clitellum.  Both worms pass sperm.  Then the sperm mixes with eggs in both worms.  The fetile eggs develop an egg capsule, or cocoons, and worms deposite these in the soil.   
  
• Baby worms hatch from very small cocoons. The worm cocoon is smaller than a grain of rice.