AHA! It's Evolution, Baby
A few months ago, Nathan and I were watching something and Miss J was sitting on my lap. All of a sudden, Nathan makes a wise observation, "Mommy, apes look a little like humans."
AHA!
Oh my goodness. The moment I have been waiting for. The moment Nathan's father has been longing for. A chance to discuss evolution.
I searched my mind rapidly to find the words to discuss evolution in terms that a 6 year old could understand. And so we did. I even took out the laptop, found some great pictures and websites and we discussed it. Nathan understood the concept and thinks it very cool that humans and apes are brethren from years gone by. He found it fascinating that all life forms evolve. He asked questions about how it could happen, how long it takes, etc.
When his father came home from work - an out of town day, so it was late, I could not wait to tell him about our conversation. He was sad to have missed it, but excited that it happened.
As N and J grow, I hope we can continue to identify these opportunities for learning and not hammer it home, but instead engage our children in a discussion that challenges all of us to learn more about our environment and ourselves.
PBN's Blog Blast "Bringing Science Back, Baby!" was the inspiration of this post. You could win one of three $100 VISA gift cards, courtesy of The Zula Patrol. Tell me how you are introducing science to your kids.
AHA!
Oh my goodness. The moment I have been waiting for. The moment Nathan's father has been longing for. A chance to discuss evolution.
I searched my mind rapidly to find the words to discuss evolution in terms that a 6 year old could understand. And so we did. I even took out the laptop, found some great pictures and websites and we discussed it. Nathan understood the concept and thinks it very cool that humans and apes are brethren from years gone by. He found it fascinating that all life forms evolve. He asked questions about how it could happen, how long it takes, etc.
When his father came home from work - an out of town day, so it was late, I could not wait to tell him about our conversation. He was sad to have missed it, but excited that it happened.
As N and J grow, I hope we can continue to identify these opportunities for learning and not hammer it home, but instead engage our children in a discussion that challenges all of us to learn more about our environment and ourselves.
PBN's Blog Blast "Bringing Science Back, Baby!" was the inspiration of this post. You could win one of three $100 VISA gift cards, courtesy of The Zula Patrol. Tell me how you are introducing science to your kids.
2 Comments:
it's so ironic you write this. Last night MPP choose his dinasaur encyclopedia as his book of choice for bedtime. It has a few theories of evolution in it. But his favorite page in the book is the one where it shows how man came from apes. It talked about how they stood up on two legs and he looked at me and asked well how did they walk before, and so we demonstrated (imagine that 7 mos pg). I'll have to look up the full title of the book. I bet N would love it!!
(I have Eddie Vedder in my head ATM -- not a bad thing.)
Sometimes the opportunity to explain things to our kids pop up and the finding out is the fun part...
They have chicks in the incubator at school, The Boy was so excited to show me, and what size they were and how big they are now.
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