The Free-Ride offspring have been using the silkworms as a springboard for discussions of math as well as biology.
We started with 16 silkworms hatched from eggs that came home last June. They were joined, a couple weeks after they hatched, by another 15 silkworms brought home from the science classroom at school.
At this point, a number of those silkworms have taken the plunge and pupated.
Counting cocoons:
As I type these words, there is one silkworm making good initial progress on a cocoon.
There are twenty cocoons that seem to be finished (including one that has two silkworms in it -- sometimes things get cozy).
Seven silkworms are still eating mulberry leaves like there's no tomorrow.
1 + 21 + 7 = 29
So much for arithmetic. But you should know the silkworms also inspired some algebra:
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Man, that is SO MUCH better than my elementary school worm-based project, in which we were supposed to construct mazes/obstacle courses out of bits of cardboard and get a mealworm to go through them (no joke). Our worm's progress was only minorly hampered when my partner accidentally cut it in half while trying to nudge it forward with a cardboard ramp.