Two second-grade students who went missing from a Topsham elementary school Thursday morning were found safe about three hours later, according to police.

The 7-year-old girls wandered away from the Woodside Elementary School playground around 10:45 a.m. Thursday, the district said in a news release issued about an hour after they were last seen.

Topsham police Chief Marc Hagan said at the scene around 1:45 p.m. that the girls had been found “safe and sound.”

“They left school on purpose with the intent to go wandering to the store is what we believe right now, and then they started seeing everybody searching the area and they realized they might be in trouble and started hiding,” Hagan said.

A neighbor found the girls in the woods behind their home, about 100 yards from the school and notified police.

School officials said school pickup would happen as normal Thursday, despite the fact that the school had entered shelter-in-place status after the girls went missing.

This story will be updated.