The Best Mother

Tuesday (05/04/2011) a) Mother Octopus Yun Xin: My mum said the suction cups helped them to walk well especially on slippery surfaces. Qian Joe: Can the cup be removed? • Suction cups are good at tasting sense besides enabling them to walk well. They are very powerful; thus, it’s very difficult to remove them. • They are usually shy except when they are looking for mates. A female octopus can lay up to 200,000 eggs which hung in branches like flowers. A few months after mating, male octopuses will die. Meanwhile female octopus will protect its eggs for 1 month without eating any food. Jun Yu suggested that octopuses should store some food in advance but that will attract other predators. Thus, a hungry female octopus will sometimes eats its own arms……eerrggghhh……wow! It’s okay because their arms will grow again. However, a few months after that, mother octopus will also die. (Actually, the death of parents is due to losing of nutrients which were required for reproduction.) b) The Intelligent Octopus • The kids said that octopuses can’t learn letters or shapes. We played a game whereby I prepared 3 cups of the same colour. Then I placed an eraser in the cup and arranged the cups on the table with mouth facing downwards. Next, I swapped them quickly so that the kids try guessing the cup which contained the eraser. It was lots of fun. A few kids tried this game while their friends guessed. After that Qian Joe lent us his water bottle. I closed the cap very tightly and got each kid to try opening it. Woohh….most of them could which were the boys! • Actually, an octopus can learn by observation, they can recognise shapes as well as opeing a very tight jar using its muscular arms! c) Video clips • First: A giant octopus bred in a huge aquarium. It camouflaged or changed colour. Wow! • Second: female octopus taking care of her thousands of eggs. Jun Yu said they looked like bunches of flowers. • Third: The eggs hatched into baby octopuses. • Fourth: The octopus opened a very tight jar. • Fifth: The octopus battled the shark. • Sixth: The octopus attacked a submarine periscope.