Put some fruit in a bowl and simply, wait for fruit flies to land on ’em !

While the flies are feasting on the fruit, discuss what the flies may have done. “What are they doing?” ”What kind of changes do you see on the fruit?”

Whip out your magnifying glass and look at the fruit. Do you see any eggs there?

Cover the platter of fruit with a cloth and fasten it with a band. You could lift the cloth off

at various intervals in the day and look for changes in the fruit. In the span of a week, you

and your child can view the changes as the eggs hatch into larvae, the larvae grow into

pupae and watch as the the pupae emerge as adult flies.

Well, this experiment won’t enable you to do that, but it does give you an idea of what it’s like to see in two different directions.

Get an egg carton. Cut two egg holders from it. Make a hole in the bottom of each carton of

about 0.5 cm across. The holes should be a slightly off-centre. Put the egg holder over each of your eyes ( the holes pointing in different directions).

What do you see? Or rather, how do you see?

Our eyes are placed in front, enabling us to perceive depth and to have binocular vision.

Observe where horses’ eyes are placed. Horses’ eyes are placed at the sides of their heads and

they are placed high up. This gives them a 360 degree vision, enabling them to see far above

their heads as well. Amazing.

Fill an old nylon stocking with compost ( soil-lest). Make a knot at the opening. Now you’ve got a head, somewhat. Use some markers and draw in a face. Plant grass seed on top of the head. Wait for the ‘green hair’ to grow on your stocking head.

You might want to make little ones as well so you eventually get a family of grass heads.

Part of the blessings of living in those quarters was that we’d have ’wildlife’ right inside of our apartment. There were lizards creeping on our walls. The occasional roach scuttered across our kitchen floor at night.This we steered clear of.  Bugs paid us daily visits. Best of all, we had spiders in our bathrooms and webs along the walls of the stairs leading up to our place.

These creepy crawlies made our home into a mini zoo. Joy and I would spend hours talking about them and observing their habits. She gave them names,said goodbye to them when they were gone and bade them ’hello’ when they returned.  When we found a dead one, we’d whip out our magnifying glass , and then Joy would wonder where its life had gone.

We’d take out torches at night and go on a night hunt in our apartment itself. I’d turn off the lights and showtime started. We’d squat under bathroom sinks and peek at the spiders snug in their gossamer webs and then try to beat each other at spotting the first lizard. Sometimes we’d tell stories under covers -with our torches on- espeecially on rainy nights.  At other times, we’d do shadow puppets with a table lamp beaming its light against the wall. Sometimes a lizard or two might join in and feast on the perpetual supply of mosquitoes.

Once I found a centipede creeping steadily across our bedroom floor. Twice I found them in our bathrooms in the middle of the night. These I kept Joy away from.

I suppose that’s how it began for us. Looking at what there was, and then looking again to see

things differently. Is that science? I don’t know. But it sure makes living fun and meaningful.

Soil can be really handy for kids to practise scientific investigation. In fact, they already do that to a large extent. But you could make it more meaningful by providing opportunities for them and being the ever-useful Dr Watson to your lil’ Sherlock Holmes.

Set up a rock and stone collection at home. With your child, carefully observe the different colours, shapes and textures of the various rocks that you bring home from the park or the beach. Help your child sort them out according to texture, size, colour or a classification of their own making.

Ask your child what soil is made of . Help them examine how soil feels like , how it looks like ( colours, what’s in it e.g. bits of leaves, stones) and how it smells. Nevermind about tasting it. They’ll do it without our help. How are different types of soil different ? You could let her try exploring potting soil and ‘burnt soil’ and playground soil. Better still, if there’s a beach nearby, investigate how sand and soil by the beach are different from the samples in your garden.

Provide tools for investigation. Use a magnifying glass. What can you see. Examine sand on the beach and sand in the sandbox: look for bits of coral, bits of shell, plants. What happens when you pour water into sand ? What happens when you pour water into soil?

Remember though to check for broken bits of glass and metal . And wash your hands after handling soil and sand.

Cut off three leaves from an African violet plant. (Make sure the leaves are in good condition.)

Then place the leaves in a cup of water in a sunny place. A window sill will do very nicely.

Watch and wait ! You could write down or sketch the changes that you observe .

In time, you will see that small leaves and new roots have grown from the leaves.

Prepare the pots : Firstly, push a string or thin strip of cloth through the hole that is at the bottom of each pot. Next,  fill the bottom layer of the pots with a thin layer of small rocks for drainage.

Then fill them with potting soil. Plant the leaves in separate pots.   And place the pots in the respective saucers of water. Add water from time to time.The water will travel along the string/ strip of cloth , thus keeping the soil moist. Then, watch and wait . Sketch the changes again.

Instead of using the violet plant, you could also use the ”daun setawar” , which you could transfer from

the plastic cup directly into the potting soil without bothering about the string.

Enjoy!

You could also ask your kids to be silent ( if that’s at all possible!) and ask them what kinds of

of sounds they can hear. Better still bring a recorder to record the sounds. Can you guess what

made each of the sounds?

You could also look for animal footprints and try to identify them. Where is each one leading to? Sketch the footprints and you could look them up in a field fguide when you’re home.

Collect some pond water in a plastic container. Look at it with the naked eye and see what

you can spot. Then examine it closer with the help of your magnifying glass. What can you

see? Algae, tadpole eggs, fish, plant bits?

If you have a microscope at home, take a sample of pond water home and look at it on a slide

under the microscope.

I still remember that tree today , in my mind’s eye, and recall the light and shade it bestowed upon those common birds, making them , for that moment- ethereal.

I loved exploring our garden. I especially enjoyed pulling weeds ( not anymore!), digging soil

and making ’chocolate soup’ with bits of stones, feathers and twigs. At the bottom of the garden was

a clump of what I then thought were ’diamonds’, left there by dwarves escaping from treacherous goblins.

These stones were my responsibility, entrusted by the dwarves. Each evening found me among those

‘diamonds’, poking them, rolling them over with my foot, chiselling at them with other stones and

then gathering them furtively into a ’special’ plastic bag.  They broke off easily, and looked like orange crystals, glimmering in the sunshine when I held them up. What were they really ? I have asked my mother several times but she does not remember them. I still don’t know what they were, but they definitely filled me with great wonder and set my imagination spinning .

I must have outgrown those rocks when I started going to elementary school. I can’t remember when

they were removed, for I recall looking for them before we moved house in my teen years. But they

were no longer there.

Gardening also put things into perspective. So what if the books weren’t properly shelved by the end of the week?

Since our garden plot wasn’t very big, we used pots for planting potatoes, carrots, onions and  radishes. We bought small spades so Joy could do all the digging she liked and a child’s watering can so she could tend her plot of earth. Her garden gave her something to care for, as we couldn’t deal with a pet at the time. Whenever she stepped out the front door, she would go to her pots and see if leaves had sprouted. She wanted to dig them up to see if there were any changes happening underneath but of course we said, no. And so there was the opportunity to teach her about patience and about the reward of waiting.

You can grow plants from fruit and seed pips.  Cover them with potting compost. To keep them warm and damp, add some water ( not too much) into the soil and then cover the top of the pot with a plastic bag. You needn’t water them as water that evaporates fall back onto the soil because of condensation.  You could try mango pips, kiwi fruit seeds, orange, lemon , papaya and lime seeds.

If you are doing a series of walks, it makes sense to make a nature notebook to record your observations

then compare them with the guide afterwards.

To help you look up the animals/plants in your guide, you could ask yourself these questions:

- Where did you see this animal? Was it in the water, in a hole in the ground or up a tree?

-How did the animal move? Was it moving?

-Was it alone or was it with a group of other animals ?

-When did you see the animal? Was it in the early hours of the morming or at night?

-Did it see you? How did it behave ? Did it stay still or run away?

-Was there anything about the animal’s body that fascinated you?