The girls are really digging into the Science of setting up the fish tanks. Just in planting their tanks, the girls learned about layers of dirt, what plants need to live, the parts of plants and the job of each part does, how to divide plants, how sediment in the water makes water look murky, foreground and background, how to evenly space the plants around the tank, and how to read thermometers.

MsE was a total pro at planting. It's rather tricky using the giant tweezers to get the plants deep enough into the soil under the sand that their roots will take, but also not disturbing the dirt too much to mess up the look of the sand on top and muddy up the water. She planted her entire tank herself. She had to keep the low growing plants to the front and the tall ones to the back, and she was very particular about where she wanted each plant to be.

Even adding the water was finicky. They had to be careful not to disturb the sand in any way or else the tank would become muddy - it's there to keep the dirt out of the water. They used a water pump and learned about how siphons work, and used a little plastic lid to land the water on.  

Before they could add the plants to the tank, the girls had to split the large plants into many smaller ones. The little ones will grow together in the tank quickly enough.  

Did I mention Jonathan is leading the girls through all this? It reminds me of when they hatched Chickens from eggs a few years ago. I'm just documenting and adding in some more context for the girls to what they're doing hands on: things like how I got the girls to think about the different parts of the plants when they were cutting them apart.

Currently, I'm working on a Scavenger Hunt Worksheet to help the girls learn the names of the types of aquatic plants and fish in our house. They'll use the pictures and clues to find them in the tanks and then count how many they have found. I "accidentally" threw out the plant labels so it's taking me longer than it should have, while I sort out what the plants are named.

The aquariums just need their water tested and then they'll be ready for fish.