I thought I would post our experience with triops. They are the 21st century's version of sea monkeys. They don't wear little crowns and rule over their Atlantis kingdoms, but they are pretty cool.

The kit (fun-books.com, I think) was on sale for about $12. It included a little plastic tub with lid, paints to decorate it, triops eggs, triops food, a magnifying glass and a thermometer. Oh, and instructions. ;)

It took about 3 days after setup for us to see life moving around. At about 7 days post-setup, we have 3 good-sized triops swimming laps in the little tub.

Learning opportunities:

* life cycle of specific animal, what they eat, etc.
* history of triops is interesting (older than dinosaurs)
* temperature changes in water - triops water has to be within a certain range on the thermometer
* magnification

Lots of little biology lessons (and other lessons) to be had here. (photo of our triops tub in my sigline)

Tara

Aw, man!!! They don't wear crowns?!?!? :eek:

That sounds like a lot of fun, Tara! Thanks for the review!

Neat-and love that kitty picture : ) That is a picture of contentment !

WE BOUGHT SOME!!!!

But we bought just the critters for like $6 and figured we could hatch 'em ye old fish bowl.

Eli was unimpressed. But I was like, "Dude, TARA has these!" And he was all, "Well, in that case...."


Jennifer.

Are these the same creatures that Candace posted about a few weeks ago? They sound so cool. I know my ds would enjoy something like this. Glad your little friends are doing well Tara. :)

Yeah, Candace just posted to me on the sewing board about it! She said they dug their setup as well. We've never had fish or anything, so I'm getting into it slowly here. But they are fun to watch. And amazing to see something so cool hatch out of these tiny twiglike brown things.

Since I can't seem to get a photo of an actual triop, here's one more photo of their tub - different cat this time. I'm a little worried about this cat; he's been pawing the top of the tub for most of the day so I might need to relocate it out of his reach.
http://www.urbanfibers.com/fpdb/images/gunder.jpg

And OT but a homeschooling funny - the globe behind him is so old that it still has the USSR and Yugoslavia. Sam said, "why does our map on the wall have different countries than the globe?" I should toss it and get a new one but I tried to use it as a teachable moment about world politics. ;)

Tara

LOL, that other cat looks like he thinks the triops will make a yummy snack.

Cool project and thanks for sharing! I loved my sea monkeys as a kid. LOL!

Those sound really cool Tara. We'll have to pick some up.

We belong to a charter school and I had a bunch of $$ left over that needed to be spent, so I placed a huge order with Insect Lore. We just received a bunch of bug kits:

silkworms
ladybugs
worms
hermit crabs
butterflies
ants

We're up to our ears in cool projects!