Fostering curiosity in kids (and their parents) since 2011

Posts from the ‘Questions’ category

On an average day, my daughter’s question-to-declarative sentence ratio clocks in at a healthy 5:1. In this section of the blog, I explore what happens when instead of saying “I don’t know,” I say “Let’s find out!”

Have you heard about the National Park’s free annual pass for fourth graders?

Have you heard about the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Every Kid in a Park program? In a nutshell, the program offers fourth graders (and 10-year-old home-schooled equivalents) a free annual pass to every National Park in the U.S. Between now and August 31, 2019, fourth graders can use their passes to get free admission to any park in the National Park system for themselves and a select number of family and friends.

stuffed penguin looking at a manmade fountain on the hospital grounds

How can you keep kids in the loop when you visit a sick relative without them?

My father has been having a few health issues lately, which have resulted in my flying down to Texas a couple of times to help out with this and that. My daughter, being the curious and caring sort, has had all sorts of questions about what’s going on with Grandpa. Respecting both my father’s need for privacy and my daughter’s desire for answers has been challenging at times. On my last trip, I accidentally hit upon a good solution. I thought I’d share it with you in case you also wanted to try it.

My daughter waves to Sue the T-Rex back in the days when Sue lived in the main hall of the Field Museum in Chicago.

What’s so important about fostering curiosity anyway? 

I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading and thinking about curiosity lately. One of the first articles I came across was by Daisy Yuhas of the Hechinger Report. In it, she talks about a set of studies that demonstrate that curious people are happier in their jobs, better at social interactions, and enjoy greater academic success. Reader, I had questions.

photo of a grey fish with mouth forced open showing teeth/tongue.

“Do fish have tongues?”

When @kristadb1 tweeted that she was going to take a suitcase full of cod tongues home with her from Newfoundland, I had some trouble wrapping my mind around the concept. Cod tongues? Surely that was a secret code word for steak. Fish don’t have tongues. Do they?

fresh baked brownies in a clear baking pan

“Why do you have to change baking recipes at high altitudes?”

Hi all, it’s back to school time here at Caterpickles Central, which means my annual summer hiatus from blogging about the random questions that pop up in our lives is over. It also means that it’s time to bake the annual batch of back-to-school brownies. I normally skip over high altitude baking instructions because they aren’t relevant to my life, but today, for whatever reason, they caught my eye. My brownie mix said to add extra flour and water in high altitude locations and I couldn’t help but wonder why.

Excerpt from Candy Experiments which says: Never heat a jawbreaker.

“Why can’t you heat a jawbreaker?”

In an effort to finally rid the house of leftover Easter candy, I snagged a copy of Loralee Leavitt’s Candy Experiments and began to flip through looking for a way to dispose of all those unwanted Peeps. I hadn’t gotten very far before I found the warning: “Never heat a jawbreaker.” And all I’ve been able to think about since is why. Why can’t you heat a jawbreaker? What happens?