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.
As part of our Raising Frogs Project, my daughter put together this lovely lapbook all about frogs. I found a free study unit and lapbook templates here on the Homeschool Share Website.
In addition to the unit study we also watched a DVD all about frogs as well as various documentary videos and clips from Youtube.
When the lapbook opens out it reveals a collection of mini-books.
There are also a few little attachments on the reverse of the lapbook.
When the front page is opened it reveals a page of lily pad flaps containing facts all about frogs.
When the lily pad flap is folded down it reveals a question.
And underneath the question flap is the answer written in by Samira.
This is a mini book that the student completes in stages, first writing about what they already know about frogs. Then before starting the project, they write what they want to find out about frogs and finally at the end of the project they write what they have learned about frogs. I found this minibook on the Kid Zone website.
Next up are some cute little vocabulary cards which I hole-punched and strung together.
On each card is a word relating to frogs and Samira wrote the definition underneath.
Then there is the comparison mini book, looking at the differences between tadpoles and frogs.
Next up is the quartered flap book all about why frogs ‘sing’.
Samira wrote some of the reasons why frogs sing under the four flaps. Apparently frogs sing because they know when the weather is going to change, masha’Allah. We watched a couple of video clips on Youtube to see the different sounds different species make for different reasons – very interesting.
This is a Venn Diagram flap book looking at the differences and similarities between frogs and toads.
This is the list of similarities between frogs and toads:
Here are another collection of cards strung together, focusing on phonics, words ending with ‘og’.
This is quite simple for a 6 year old, but we included it anyway. Samira wrote down a few ‘og’ words and drew pictures to illustrate the words.
Below is a pocket containing sequence cards for the lifecycle of the frog. The little ones enjoyed putting them in order and telling a story about the life cycle.
Similarly, here is the life cycle on a pin wheel, using the same pictures. Samira cut them out and glued them down in the correct order.
This neat little pocket is to store news paper cuttings.
We didn’t find any stories relating to frogs in our newspapers, but after looking through the BBC website, we found quite alot of interesting recent stories about frogs that had been discovered and rediscovered. So I copied and pasted the stories Samira liked and we printed them out to put in the pocket.
Here is a little flap that opens out to show a diagram of a frog with various body parts labelled by Samira.
This neat little flap book helps children to understand the differences between ‘predator’ and ‘prey’.
I got Samira to write a definition of predator and prey under each of the flaps.
Then under the bottom flaps she drew pictures of animals (insects) that a frog hunts, and pictures of animals that prey on frogs.
These are another set of fact cards which I strung together. On each card Samira wrote one fact about frogs. We visited All About Frogs.org to find out some weird and wonderful facts about frogs.
Next is this lift the flap fact book looking at four of the frogs body parts.
Samira wrote some information under each of the flaps.
At the end of the project Samira chose a species of frogs to do a small report on. She chose the Red-eyed Tree Frog.
We found some nice information about this species here and here.
We found this nice diagram of a Red-eyed Tree Frog on the Enchanted Learning website.
The other pictures and maps included in this reported were selected randomly from Google images.
On the reverse of the lapbook is this great little ‘sticky tongue’ feature. The card tongue fits through the slit made in the frogs mouth and then little pictures of insects are cut out and glued onto the tongue.
Also on the back of the lapbook is a little folded up mini-book with the ’5 Little Speckled Frogs’ song alongside a pocket containg 5 frog puppets, coloured, cut-out and mounted on ice-lolly sticks.
I mentioned recently how we had done a Raising Frogs Project back in Spring 2009 but that, unfortunately we had lost most of our pictures and video clips from our week by week diaries.
I decided we would do this project again, especially since Amina and Basma are that little bit older and understand more, masha’Allah.
A little later than planned, we collected our tadpoles from nanny and grandad’s pond today. It turns out that there were three huge clumps of spawn on the pond this year so the pond is filled to the brim with little wriggly tadpoles.
When we last did this project we took home a small clump of spawn as well as a few loose tadpoles, but since we have had such lovely warm, sunny weather the past few days, the tadpoles have eaten their way out of the spawn already, and at only 10 days old they are at least twice the size that they were in our first project!
Grandad collected up some tadpoles for us – about 40 altogether. I decided it would be best not to add gravel to the tank this time because last time it made it extremely difficult to clean the tank, trying to separate the tiny tadpoles from the tiny gravel! Instead I added in just 6 large rocks from the garden and as the tadpoles begin to develop legs and lungs, I will reduce the water level and they will serve nicely as little resting places above the water level.
Last time we fed our tadpoles on goldfish flakes and they grew very quickly, much quicker than they would have done in the wild and we are doing the same this time.
Samira is currently completing a larger lapbook project on Frogs, which you can view here and we shall be keeping a week by week project diary as well as completing worksheets and activities, so be sure to follow along with us insha’Allah.
We’ve only had our caterpillars for 10 days and already they’ve doubled, tripled and quadrupled in size! Masha’Allah!
When we first collected the caterpillars we were putting loose leaves from the comfrey plant into the tank for them to feed on, but they didn’t last much more than a day before wilting. So I decided instead to uproot one of the comfrey plants from the garden and pot it before putting it into the tank for the caterpillars.
They seemed quite impressed and in less than a week they had literally decimated it! And as they stuffed themselves we found many remains of molted skins all over the tank.
Molted skin on a twig
Here is a picture of a leaf that one caterpillar munched through in less than 20 minutes.
It was quite amazing to watch them munching away and see the leaf slowly disappearing. And as a result of all this munching, there was also alot of pooing! It never even came to mind that caterpillars poo, but I guess like all creatures: what goes in must come out.
We started to notice a lot of very tiny pellets at the bottom of the tank and at first we wondered if they were eggs, but it soon became apparent, after witnessing a caterpillar in action, that these were caterpillar droppings. And as the caterpillars grow, their droppings get extremely large. In fact this caterpillar pellet is bigger than the caterpillar’s head!
Anyway, today I decided to get rid of the shrivelled up comfrey plant and replace it with a new one. I had to remove it leaf by leaf, separating the caterpillars and putting them into a plastic tuppaware box so that I could clean out the tank and put in the new pot of comfrey without squashing the little things.
We really got a close look and saw the difference in sizes, and we had an official count up and found we had 15 caterpillars altogether, so I’m guessing a few more sneaked in on the uprooted comfrey plant.
Our largest caterpillar, fondly referred to by the kids as ‘The Abi’ is now 4 cms long and more than 5mm wide. All of the caterpillars are now settled back into the tank to munch their way through another comfrey plant. I am going to look for some suitable branches in the next few days ready for when the first caterpillars decide to start making their cocoons insha’Allah.
'The Abi' close up
We got some fantastic close up shots and managed to do a more detailed anatomy diagram.
We are looking into how long it takes before our caterpillars enter the pupa stage and how long the pupa stage lasts.
My daughter Samira recently completed her Butterfly Lapbook and was so keen to see the butterfly life cycle first hand. I promised that as soon as Spring comes we would try to collect some caterpillars for a project on Raising Butterflies.
Every year we always find lots of caterpillars in our garden around March time, so today I decided to go and collect the fish tank from the bottom of the garden to clean it up before we go on a caterpillar hunt. The tank had been sitting out since last summer and was covered in baby snails, so we collected a few baby snails to add to the tank too. We also spotted quite a few ladybirds which my 3 year old Basma also wanted to add to the tank! I have no idea about the ladybird life cycle but after reading this wonderful project about Raising Lady Bugs on Umm Abdul Basir’s blog I think it’s something we would love to try in the future insha’Allah
Our baby snails are smaller than a fingernail at the moment, masha'Allah!
Close up - this snails shell is only about 4-5mm tall
Once the tank was clean, the kids and I went out into the garden to where we usually spot the caterpillars. Straight away we found plenty of leaves with holes in them and a closer look revealed around 20 caterpillars perched on the leaves of a comfrey plant.
I cut off a few stems of the plant along with the leaves that we found the caterpillars on and put them into the tank. We collected around 12 caterpillars altogether.
We added in some small twigs for the caterpillars to crawl along.
Some of the caterpillars are slightly larger that the others. And we hope to have the opportunity to witness close up the caterpillars molting their skin.
Smallest Caterpillar 17mm long, 3mm wide / Largest Caterpillar 20mm long, 4mm wide
After the caterpillars were settled into their new home we went online to identify our caterpillars and find out what they will turn into. It was then that we found out, we aren’t actually raising butterflies, we are raising MOTHS.
We visited a website called UK Safari, where we was able to identify our caterpillars through the photo gallery. Our caterpillars will, insha’Allah, turn into the Scarlet Tiger Moth.
The Scarlet Tiger Moth is not like the common, duller moths that come out at night time. It is a brightly coloured, day time moth.
Caterpillar stretching up and looking around
While we wait for our caterpillars to develop we are looking back and reminding ourselves of some caterpillar and butterfly facts, and learning a little more about the differences and similarities between butterflies and moths.
We managed to get a close up photo of one of the caterpillars as it crawled up the side of the tank. Samira identified and labelled the main body parts including the true legs and false legs. Most caterpillars have 16 legs: 3 pairs of true legs (characteristic of all insects) close to the head end of the caterpillar and 5 pairs of false legs that support the rest of its body.
Insha’Allah we will be keeping a week by week photo and video diary of our caterpillars. Join us as we witness the marvels of Allah’s creation.
Back in the Spring of 2009, we started a mini project on Life Cycles, and I asked the kids to choose which life cycle they wanted to learn about. At the time Samira wanted to learn about the life cycle of the butterfly, while Yusef wanted to learn about the life cycle of the frog.
So it was rather fortunate that grandad found some frog spawn on his pond just around the same time. He collected some of the spawn for us and we were able to keep the tadpoles in a fish tank and watch them develop.
At the time, the kids completed a few activities on frogs and their life cycle while I kept a week by week photo diary of our little tadpoles and froglets. Unfortunately, all the photos seemed to have completely vanished from my hard-drive except for a few from Week 5.
We had been hoping to repeat the activities and learn more while watching another lot of tadpoles develop into froglets. But in 2010 the frogs spawned rather late and the tadpoles failed to develop.
Then this morning, we got a call from grandad to say that he and nanny have spotted some frog spawn on their pond and so, insha’Allah, we hope to collect some next weekend and start over a whole new week by week project.
The kids are very excited and can’t wait to get started, but in the meantime, we are looking back at the few photos we still have. I will share them with you below.
Week 5 - Swimming froglet. Below the water are a few tadpoles who are still developing
We put this little guy into a white bowl to get a better look at him.
Close up
Not much bigger than a thumb nail, masha'Allah
Resting on a rock in the tank
A little froglet with his long tail
