Butterfly Eggs

We just learned about Mosquito Larvae

Let's learn about something pretty like butterflies!

Butterflies are beautiful creatures, and we know they come from caterpillars, but how?

Butterflies lay eggs on to a leaf, and the eggs stick to the leaf with a special glue. The eggs are protected by a hard outer shell called the chorion, and they are made waterproof with some wax.

The eggs usually hatch in a few weeks. If the eggs are laid close to winter time, they will hatch in the spring.

(from: wikipedia - butterfly)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Rooster Comb

Stomach - Pylorus

After the food is all mushed up into chyme, it slowly goes out of your stomach into a tube called the pylorus.

Your stomach's job of mushing up all the food is done, so now it's time for your body to do something with all that mushed up food and it sends it down the tube.

(from: wikipedia - pylorus)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Triceps

Cameroon

Cameroon is a country in Africa on the West coast, right on the Pacific Ocean.

(from: wikipedia - cameroon)

Just like Ghana, the Cameroon flag has the colors green, red and yellow..
These are sometimes known as the Pan African colors, and countries in Africa share them to show that they are all together in Africa.

The flag has a green stripe for the forests, a red stripe for unity (which means working together), a yellow stripe for the sun and desert, and a yellow star in the middle which also stands for unity.

(from: wikipedia - flag of cameroon)

To eat in Cameroon you might have ndolé, which is a stew of nuts, bitter leaves, and fish or beef.

(from: wikipedia - ndolé)

There is an active volcano called Mount Cameroon that erupts from time to time. The last time it erupted was in 2012.

(from: wikipedia - mount cameroon)

A musical instrument in Cameroon is called the Bamileke drum.

(from: wikipedia - bamileke)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Greece

Love your Enemy

During Jesus' Sermon on the Mount he told his follows that they should not hate their enemies, but instead should love their enemies.

This can be difficult to do, but God loves all of us.
It can be really easy to love the people who love us back, but to love even our enemies helps us to understand how God loves all of us.

(from: wikipedia - sermon on the mount)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Books of Poetry

Solar - Magnetic Field

The magnetic field of the sun is the area outside of the corona in space,
and it is so large that it stretches beyond earth all the way beyond pluto in our solar system.

The magnetic field is like a big cloud with winds that have an effect on all of our planets, and can even cause changes in the weather on earth.

The field swirls around in a circle, and can't be seen but scientists have tried to draw what it might look like.

(from: wikipedia - sun)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Betelgeuse

Spanish - July, August

Let's keep learning the months of the year in Spanish!

We've learned that January, February is Enero, Febrero March, April are Marzo, Abril and May, June is Mayo, Junio.

July - Julio - sounds like hoo-lee-oh /?/

August - Agosto - sounds like ah-goh-stoh /?/


(from: wikipedia - Association of Spanish Language Academies)

Do you remember how to say it in French?
French - Juillet, Août

Mercury

We just learned about the element of Copper

Another chemical element is Mercury, called "Hg" for short (from the Greek word "hydrargyros" which means "water-silver") on the Periodic Table.

When we think of metals, we think of heavy hard things, like iron or copper.
Those are all solid metals.

Mercury is a very special metal that is a liquid at normal temperatures!

All metals can be melted down to be liquid if they get hot enough.
The temperature they turn to liquid at is called their melting point.
Most metals have to get very hot to turn to liquid, like iron needs to be 2,800 degrees F.

Mercury stays liquid at normal room temperature, and won't turn into a solid until it gets super cold -37 degrees F.


(from: wikipedia - mercury)

Another interesting thing about mercury being a liquid, is that some metals are lighter than mercury, and the metal can actually float on top of the liquid.

(from: wikipedia - mercury)

Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Capacitors