Yusef and Samira, my two eldest, are currently putting together a project folder about triops. We recently set up our Triop Tank Project and the two of them are working together to make a fact file containing information, pictures, drawings and observation worksheets that relate to the project.
More details soon insha’Allah.
As part of our Dinosaur theme studies I decided it would be fun to let the kids grow their own ‘living fossils’ that have been around since before the dawn of the dinosaurs. Triops are aquatic crustaceans that can be found all over the world … they are sometimes referred to as tadpole shrimp. You can read more about Triops here.
I bought this Triop Park set from Argos for £18.99. This set is quite large and comes with additional extras but you can get smaller and cheaper sets if you shop around on places such as Amazon and Ebay.
This set consists of a large plastic moulded tray which contains a separate section which serves as a nursery for hatching your triops and an L-shaped tray for growing your own ‘jungle’. An extra plastic fitting attaches to represent a volcano and the set includes lava stones which can be placed in the top of the volcano.
*** The instructions claim the lava stones glow in the dark … we found this not to be the case but anyway we used them as an addition to our Rocks, Minerals and Fossils studies and Samira, who is currently studying the Rock Cycle, enjoyed looking up about lava stones and how they are formed.***
The set also included a plastic ‘fossilised’ Triceratops replica which we decided to bury in compost and grow our jungle on top. By the way, the jungle is actually a packet of grass seeds.
Amina and Basma spooned the compost into the L-shaped tray, burying the Triceratops skeleton, added some water and then sprinkled some grass seeds on top and pressed them down with a spoon. We plan to ‘excavate and discover’ the Triceratops at a later date.
Everything mentioned above is supplied in the set including compost, seeds and spoon. The only thing you need to supply yourself is bottled/distilled water because the triops cannot survive in tap water because of the chlorine content.
The triop eggs come packed in a sealed foil pack. They are microscopic and are contained within the detritus. We filled up the nursery area with bottle spring water and shook half of the pack content into the water, saving the other half in case the first lot don’t hatch, or in the case of growing a second lot of triops.
The eggs can remain dormant for upto 15 years and become activated when they come in contact with water. In the right environment the triops hatch within 24 hours. We actually put a desk lamp over our nursery to provide extra light and heat (as recommended in the instructions) and we were surprised to find our hatchlings scooting around in less than 24 hours!
At first they are really hard to spot because they are mere white specks and we could only see them using a magnifying glass. We also found a couple of other creatures hatched out that had also been lying dormant in the detritus including a water flea and a fairy shrimp, but they didn’t last long … they became triop food!
For the first 3 days the hatchlings feed on the detritus in the water and then they are fed daily with the shrimp food supplied in the kit.
While we waited for the triops to grow and become more visible, Yusef and Samira began putting together their Triop Project Folder which contains details, pictures, drawings and observations about triops.
The kit recommends releasing the triops from the nursery into the main tank after 2 weeks. By Day 12 we were in fact down to one very large triop who appears to have eaten the other hatchlings. Originally we had around 8 triops.
We laid the gravel and sand provided in the bottom of the main tank and filled it with bottle spring water. I used the spoon to scoop the triop into the main tank and cleared out the remaining detritus from the nursery area and refilled it ready for the second lot of eggs.
We are now enjoying watching as our triop grows … it doubles in size almost daily and is fascinating to watch it swimming. The grass grew quickly and the triop actually bites and feeds on the strands that dangle in the water!
Yesterday we added the final batch of eggs to the nursery and we hope to have a few more triops to add to the main tank insha’Allah. Perhaps we will try adding them earlier to avoid them becoming cannibals!
We then hope to carry out some of the non-invasive experiments suggested in the instruction booklet including encouraging the triops to spawn and then perhaps we could start a second generation.
I had the idea to design this wall chart while my daughter, Samira was learning about Animal Classification. She made her Animal Classification Lapbook a couple of months ago and I thought this wall chart would be useful for all the kids to refer to anytime we need to look into Animal Classification.
The chart can be used to look up various animals from the different groups. And we can also practise identifying animals and putting them into their correct groups.
Under each sub group are a set of cards that can be removed and re-attached using sticky tack (although felt and velcro would work better, something I may re-do at a later date insha’Allah).
The Animal Kingdom is divided into two Phylum, the vertebrates and the invertebrates and the Phylum are then sub-divided into classes. There are 5 main classes of vertebrates and 4 classes of invertebrates.
I made a heading for each class. You can see in this picture below. Each heading includes details of the identifying features that are present in that class, i.e. Mammals are warm-blooded, give birth to live young, have hair or fur, etc.
The individual animal cards are then attached under the correct class heading on the wall chart. You can see that humans are classified as mammals but we have placed the picture of the human above the animals because of the unique position that Allah gave us when He favoured Mankind above all Creation.
Similarly, you can see under the Phylum invertebrates that there are various classes. Invertebrates are the most numerous of all the creation in the Animal Kingdom and some classes are sub-divided again into smaller groups. Such as the Arthropods who are sub-divided into crustaceans, insects and arachnids, each group having its own identify features that sets it apart from other arthropods.
Again, the cards are placed under the group headings. The group headings list the identify features so that the children can easily identify to which group the various animals belong.
If you would like to make your own wall chart you can find the printable files to download free from my File Share Widget which you will find as you scroll down the right of the screen.
This is my daughter, Samira’s Animal Classification Lapbook. We have been doing a lot to do with animals lately and alot of vocabulary has been cropping up relating to classification and I was fortunate enough to find this Animal Classification Lapbook on the Homeschool Share website.
Samira completed the lapbook and I also made a few extra worksheets for her to review what she had learned. We also made an Animal Classification Wall Chart for interactive learning.
Here’s what the lapbook includes as the first page folds out.
Here is a close up of the Wordsearch and Crossword puzzle that I made.
On the reverse is a Missing Word activity sheet.
Here is what the lapbook looks like when it’s opened out completely. It’s packed full of little mini books.
The first page contains mini books all about how animals are classified.
The next two pages are divided into booklets on Vertebrates and booklets on Invertebrates.
First up is a flap looking at the structure and classification of animals into their various groups.
Then there is a double flap to understand what are vertebrates and what are invertebrates.
At the bottom of the page is two mini books explaining that vertebrates are split into 5 main groups and invertebrates are split into 4 main groups and under the flaps Samira wrote the names of each of those groups.
In the vertebrates section the first minibook is all about mammals and how mammalian features are identified.
Then we have a stacked set of cards all about amphibians.
Below that is a matchbook about fish and a T-book all about reptiles.
Finally, completing the vertebrates section is a set of fact cards all about birds which are held together with string.
Moving onto the invertebrates section, the first flap is all about arthropods. Under the flap Samira explained what an arthropod is and listed a few examples.
Next is the echinoderm matchbook. Echinoderms include animals such as starfish, sea-urchins and sea cucumbers.
Next to that is an accordion book about annelids. The only examples of annelids that we were able to find seemed to be various forms of worms.
And finally, a collection of cards strung together containing facts about mollusks – land and sea varietes.
This was a very interesting project and even I learned a thing or two. If you would like to make your own lapbook you will find all the templates and worksheets available to download for free from my File Share Widget which you will find as you scroll down the right of the screen.
