Dissecting Frogs

These kids are grossly obsessed with cutting things open to see what's inside..and by "things" I mean creatures. Jared, 11, has been doing this from a very young age. When he was 8 I walked into the backyard to find him dismembering a lizard. At first, I was horrified, worried that we had a young Jeffery Dahmer on our hands,

but I soon realized that he is just very curious and passionate about nature and...guts. In order to better direct this interest, I ordered each of the boys a dissection kit from Carolina.com. It came with a frog, crayfish, grasshopper, and earthworm. The kit was great for the animals it came with, but I recommend purchasing some better tools separately, like these from Amazon. Also, it comes with one tiny styro tray like the ones the ground beef come with from the meat department, so we got these trays as we know they will be used again and again. The bottom is made of wax so the pins can stick in. (You will also need pins! We used my sewing pins because the kit did not include any, but might I recommend these?)

Pepper wanted in on the action of course, so I made her frog from clay, complete with anatomically incorrect organs. She loved cutting it open and pulling everything out. The red tray you see below is the one that came with the dissection kit. No bueno for real critters, perfect for clay critters (and ground beef). 

The kit DOES come with a little instruction manual, which was helpful, but we also watched this You Tube video before and during the process. 

Jared was SOOO excited that his frog was full of eggs! Ashton's wasn't, but his WAS getting all ready for hibernation because it was full of fat cells! 

We loved this project! Please let us know if you do it, we want to hear all about it!