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!”
While we were at lunch last week, The Ten-Year-Old’s mind turned to fractions, as fifth grade minds are prone to do. She had learned in school that the top number in a fraction is called a numerator, while the bottom number is the denominator, so naturally she wondered what the little line in the middle was called.
Since we’ve moved to California, I’ve been mildly obsessed with pine cones. The tree in our backyard grows some truly enormous ones, and I’ve been spending a lot of time dodging them. You know what else I’ve dodged a lot of in California? Artichokes. In dodging both pine cones and artichokes, I can’t help but notice how physically similar they are. So I started to wonder, are pine cones and artichokes related?
Last week, as I was sitting down for a bit of pre-dinner reading, I had what I thought was a bout of dizziness. Then one of my books toppled over, and I figured out I was experiencing my first earthquake. That, combined with the wildfires raging in Northern California and the news out of Puerto Rico, has me thinking about disaster preparedness.
Stopping at the Bonneville salt flats on our road trip to California naturally got the Ten-Year-Old thinking about alien planets and the beings that travel away from them. “Mommyo,” she asked when we were back on the road. “Is there an official landing pad for UFOs?”
A total solar eclipse is headed our way August 21, 2017. Here’s what you need to watch it safely.
When she was ten, my daughter founded a detective agency with a crimson dragon named Cherry Lane. Their first client was another dragon who was accused of committing armed robbery using a cow. The Ten-Year-Old has been tasked with researching the various precedents associated with the case. “Mommyo, has anyone ever committed a robbery while armed with a cow?” Turns out, cows make surprisingly good weapons.
During a recent bout of Family Togetherness While Reading Different Books Time, my ten-year-old daughter had her mind blown by a passage in Amazing Cat Facts. “Whoa, guys, it says here that Isaac Newton invented the cat door.” For once, I was dubious. So I set aside my book and surreptitiously double-checked the story on my iPhone. Did Isaac Newton really invent the cat door?
One afternoon, while we were watching old episodes of Murdoch Mysteries, The Ten-Year-Old had her mind blown by a stray comment from Constable George Crabtree. “Did you know that a cow invented the doughnut?” Crabtree asks Detective Murdoch at one point in the investigation. Curiosity trumps TV, even in the summer, so The Ten-Year-Old immediately stopped the action. “Mommyo, is that true? Did a cow really invent the doughnut?”
How did grapefruit get their name? Why do cats have three eyelids? And why are they called wisdom teeth anyway? Today I answer multiple questions briefly in the hopes of clearing the decks a bit before summer.
Budding novelists, even 10-year-old ones, have to research all sorts of questions online. In today’s post, I tell you where to find images of cars built before 1893.
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