Tide Pool Discoveries

Oh my gosh, we had such a blast at the beach last week when we were on vacation. We went out on Thursday morning during low tide and discovered dozens of tide pools to be explored.

We found:
    
     2 hermit crabs
     3 sand snails that we managed to dig up out of the sand
     1 sand crab that wasn't too disturbed by our insistence that he stick around
     1 live shrimp
     2 dead jellyfish
     more than a few minnow fish

We spent a great deal of time playing with the tiniest hermit crab. He gladly graced us with his ticklesh little claws as he crawled all over our hands (as long as we kept our hands under the water). He was quite adorable. He would have easily fit on the end of a pencil eraser.

I would love to live near the ocean so we could explore the tide pools on a more regular basis. I think it would be a cool project to do a daily log of one of those pools. We could measure the tide pool's width and depth, then keep a log and drawings of what types of critters we find in the pool each day. That would be such an awesome science project. (And art... and math... and hmmm... what else could I work into that one?)