I have a question. Two questions, actually.

[conuly]

1. The other day, I watched Evangeline carefully set out two cups and a bowl, fill the bowl by trekking back and forth to the bathroom with the cups, and then spend a happy half an hour scooping water back into the cups and pouring from one cup to the other.

Now, I know that this is a fine learning activity. It builds fine motor skills (and some life skills as well), it teaches an intuitive grasp of measurement and basic physics, you learn a lot by pouring water back and forth. And so I let her do it. (She cleaned up afterwards, another learning activity.)

But the question is - I know how useful this is for her development, but how the heck does she know it? Who told her? Children the world over enjoy pouring water from one cup to another, but who the heck tells them it's a good idea? HOW DO THEY KNOW THEY SHOULD DO THIS?

2. Evangeline and I talk about nutrition sometimes when we eat our lunch. I've tried to impress upon her the simple rule that we should eat a variety of colors in our daily diet. (Natural colors, thanks!) This is a rule that's easy for even very young children to grasp, and you can express it in a fairly poetic way, too.

I know that a variety of foods is good for my body. Does the same hold true for the compost? Like, if I compost a little bit of mango and a bit of eggshells and a bit of coffee grounds and a bit of wilted lettuce, is it going to make richer dirt (and therefore healthier, more nutritious fruits and vegetables) than if my compost is made primarily of, say, orange and banana peels?

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I remember playing pouring water games when small.

I found it fun in part because of the games I made up to go with the pouring. It wasn't just water that I was pouring. It was flour, sugar, eggs, milk, and all sorts of other things that go into baking. I was measuring it most carefully, but the fun part was pouring, so I mostly did that.

Sometimes I was watching to see what happened, toying with the physical limits of the water (water and air and cups and bottles) with the same experimental glee that I would later use in testing to see if I could reproduce some weird behavior in the wild in LiveJournal. I didn't know how these things would behave if I experimented with them. So, I experimented with them for the sheer joy of finding out what would happen. Scientific inquiry comes naturally, and my parents never squelched it in me. When you don't know the parameters, the world is a giant playground.

Sometimes it was just for the fun of playing with water. It sparkles when you pour it. Its weight is aesthetically pleasing. It feels good against the skin. It makes fascinating noises. You can make shapes with the stream of water when you pour it -- make it wide and flat, slender, drippy, have it arc more or less. You can lose yourself for a while, if you're not careful.

[conuly]

That's the stimmiest answer I never expected to get.