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Weekly Activity
Our activities section suggests things for you to do with your children.
Most of these will have educational value, which we'll point out.
However, the main idea is just to have fun with them. We'll also suggest
ways you can extend them.
Making a Wormery
Slithery, icky, creepy-crawly worms. Slimy worms. Yuck!
Studying them at home is simple enough - all you need to do is make a
wormery. All you need is a transparent container, soil and some worms.
For this type of wormery, ordinary garden earthworms are fine. If you
want to make a wormery to make large quantities of compost for your
garden, you'll need worms sold for the purpose.
To make a Wormery
You could use a large jamjar, but the worms tend to stay in the middle
where you can't see them. Something narrow would be much better. There
are commercially made wormeries on the market, but these are expensive,
and copying them at home is difficult.
A good compromise is to use an old fish tank. Get a piece of hardboard
as long as the tank and as wide as it is deep. Put it into the tank so
that it blocks off a narrow section of the tank, and fix it into place
using gaffer tape.
Now you can fill your wormery. It's most interesting to use different
coloured soils in layers. Make sure at least some of the soil is rich
in compost. It should be slightly damp, but nowhere near waterlogged.
You'll need to add dead leaves, or fresh compost to the top of the
wormery from time to time (but see Activities With Your
Worms for ways to make this more interesting and educational).
Finding Worms
If you are squeamish about handling worms, it's probably best to
practice when your children aren't around - the last thing you want is
for them to pick up on your nervousness.
All you really need to do to get the worms is dig in the garden (or a
park - but you should probably ask a friendly park-keeper first).
However, you can make it more interesting by talking about where and
when you'd be most likely to find worms - for instance, is it true that
worms come out after it rains?
Once you've got your worms (you'll probably want half a dozen or so,
depending on the size of your wormery), take the opportunity to have a
good look at them. Talk about how long they are, what colour they are,
and whether they are the same all the way along. Your children could
draw or paint them - or watch out for our
Mini-Beast Puppets activity.
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