Sloths and Magical Science 🤩🦥🌈

Nov 08, 2024

Now, for the slowest mammal on Earth ... drum roll please🥁 … sloths! 🦥

Sloths

Sloths spend most of their life upside down in a tree! You’d think this was hard work, but they actually don’t need to use their muscles much because they have claws to hook onto rainforest branches. 🌿
Sloths sleep for around 15 hours a day! 💤 If you were a sloth, what kind of tree would you want to nap in? I would want to spend time in a fruit tree 🥭
They have very low energy levels because their diet isn’t super nutritious, it’s pretty much just leaves. Make sure you eat the colours of the rainbow with lots of veggies, protein, carbohydrates and fruits to keep your energy levels high! 🍉🥙
Did you know, sloths risk their lives every time they poop?! 💩You read that right - because they move so slowly, when they are on the ground they are at risk of predators attacking them. However, this is also the time that they meet potential partners!
They can turn their heads 270 degrees - almost in a full circle like an owl! Us humans can only turn our heads around 180 degrees. 🦉
They have tiny gardens of algae on their fur! It helps them camouflage and blend in with the trees. 🌱

‘Optics’ means the scientific study of light ☀️
A thousand years ago, a brilliant scientist named Ibn Al Haytham helped us understand how light and vision work! 👓 Before him, people used to think we could see because of invisible light shooting out of our eyes (sounds like something superman would do right?!), but Ibn Al Haytham discovered that it’s because light from the sun bounces and reflects off objects into our eyes 👀.
Though he was from what is now modern day Iraq and Egypt, his books were translated and became a major influence for European scientists to learn from hundreds of years later. 🌍
Ibn Al Haytham is also the reason we understand rainbows! 🌈He investigated how how light ‘refracts’ meaning how it bends or changes direction when it passes through things heavier or more ‘dense’ than air - like water and glass. When sunlight hits raindrops, the raindrop bends or refracts the light, separating it into the colours we see in a rainbow! Same goes for shining a light through different curved glass and prisms! 💎
There’s a pretty cool science experiment at the end of this newsletter (which I think is more like magic because of how crazy it is!)

As the weather starts to get colder, this is one of my favourite cosy recipes. Its super simple and seriously delicious 😋

Ingredients

Directions

Add your milk, rice, and sugar to a pot on medium heat.
Once it starts to bubble, reduce the heat to a simmer and half cover the pan with the lid.
Stir every couple of minutes to prevent the rice sticking to the bottom.
Once the rice is cooked (around 25 minutes), add your vanilla.
Sprinkle with cinnamon and enjoy!

Screenshot and print this free colouring sheet!

Check out this amazing artwork from my beautiful young friend! 🌟

She played ‘Roll an Alien’ which you can play too from the Space Explorers newsletter 🚀🪐🌌