A silk museum

Suzhou, a city of silk.

There is a small silk museum in Suzhou, a city in China.  It is small but interesting.

http://www.wingsunfurled-web.com/en/travel/asia/china/suzhou.html#silk-museum


There is a statue of Princess Leizu, the Goddess of Silk.

Baskets with fresh mulberry leaves.

A dummy... with real worms!

Real silk moths.

Lots of cocoons.

A pupa and a cocoon.

And then there were... five!

The last cocoon is ready!

There are five cocoons in our classroom now.

We are very happy!

Great news!

The first cocoon is ready!

We are very happy because one of the cocoons is ready!

How many cocoons are we going to have?  We have to wait and see.

It's almost time

Silkworms are getting ready to spin the cocoon!

There are a few silkworms left now.  And they are getting to start spinning the cocoon!

When will the cocoon be ready?  Let's wait!

Welcome back

A new meeting with Lorena.

Lorena is back at school.  We meet her in the school library after lunch.  Our teachers Silvina and Silvia come with us.

As usual, Lorena gives us a surprise.  Today, she has got a microscope.  We are going to make some observations with the binocular lens and the microscope.

We all pay attention.

It's time to listen and get information.

It's time to observe now.

We take turns.

We look at a slice of onion under the microscope.  It looks great!

Then we take a look at a slice of tomato under the microscope.  Amazing!

We also look at a pumpkin leaf under the binocular lens.  Wow!

These are the samples of tomato and onion on the slides. 








 Now it's time to register what we observe.  We complete our observation worksheets.

 

We are great scientists!

Sharing time

We share our experience with 1st. formers!

Today the girls and boys in 1st. form visit us.  We show them the silkworms and we tell them all we know about them.

They draw the silkworms.

Ready, set... go!

We measure silkworms again!

Silkworms eat mulberry bush all day.  They can't stop eating.  And they are getting bigger and bigger!  Today we measure them again.  They are 5,5 cm long!

 

We use the binocular lens to take a close look at a silkworm and its moulting.

This is how the silkworm looks like:

And this is one of the moultings.  Look:

A travelling silkworm

Hey!  Where do you think you are going?

 

The silkworms are very restless today.  They must be looking for a safe place to start spinning their cocoon!

Detectives at work!

We share some facts about silkworms.

The silkworm (Bombyx mori) is the caterpillar of a moth whose cocoon is used to make silk.  This insect is called the silkworm-moth and the mulberry silkworm.  It is native to Northern China.

 

The silkworm can be classified in this way:

Class:  Insecta (insects)

Order: Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths)

Suborder: Ditrysia (moths, butterflies and skippers)

Superfamily: Bombycoidea

Family: Bombycidae

Species: Bombyx Mori

The very hungry caterpillar... in action!

We feed our silkworms.

 

Do you remember the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar we read in 1st. form?  Its author is Eric Carle.

If you don't remember it, you can read it again.  You can even watch it:

 The silkworms are as hungry as the caterpillar in the story.  They eat and eat and eat all day.

 

And they grow bigger and bigger.  Now they are 3cm long!

Welcome to our school!

The silkworms are here!

Today Silvina brings the silkworms to our classroom.  They are inside a plastic box.

 They are very hungry.  They eat fresh mulberry leaves.

We get in groups and we have a look at our pets.

We measure them.  They are very small.  Only 1,5 cm long!