Life Cycle of a Butterfly

Recently we have realised our plants in garden not growing well. All the leaves looked eaten and when we checked we found so many caterpillars. As usual curious Little Reya wanted a closer look. We managed to catch a few and put it in a bowl full of leaves for her to observe as it grows in to pupa and butterflies eventually.

Huge one here

Put 'em in a bowl for our observation 

We continued to learn on life cycle of  butterflies throughout the day. Included in our lesson is the Grolier's I Wonder Why book which has nice pictorial explanation on the butterflies life cycle.

We did'nt manage to see all the caterpillars to grow into a beautiful butterfly as they managed to crawl out from the bowl.. Little Reya was a disappointed but i can tell that this kind of activities has nurtured her ability to observe and think creatively.

Science Experiment: Volcano Eruption

It is Chinese New Year's holiday and long weekend. We continued on home schooling as we didn't plan for any outing as it surely will be jammed up every where.

I read from a web that children basically are good observers and learn in every process or changes that takes place around them. Their natural curiosity makes it easier to introduce science concepts and activities in daily routines.

For example: using toys during bath time that will float and non floating toys will make them learn that not everything will float on water. This is a basic concept and science vocab that we can teach our children at home.

I remember a Chinese proverb saying ~ "I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand"

So we have started to focus on learning science that Reya can gets her hands on it. So she understand better.

Science Experiment: Volcano Eruption

Things you'll need:

Large container
small cub/bottle
Bicarb Soda
Food Colouring (Red/Yellow)
Vinegar
Play doh/sand to mould like a mountain

First make a mountain using sand/play doh in a large container. Place the small cup in middle of the mountain.

Than, add in the bicarb soda into the cup and let the child to pour in colored vinegar mix. Watch the eruption and repeat the process. For Reya the mountain erupt more than once and produced lots of lava.

She really enjoyed this experiment and kept asking for more as i ran out of the vinegar. Promised her that we will do this again soon and switched for clean ups and other activities!.

Thank you for reading!