Building the perfect nerd
I will have you know that, today, both my boys sat with rapt attention through a full 30 minutes of a Nova episode on the evolutionary origins of birds. Nerd power!
Where did they come from -- the birds, I mean? From dinosaurs, of course. Why else would my boys sit so still?
Our newfound love of all things dinosaur blossomed around Jacob's birthday, when we gave Isaac The Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs as a brother's-birthday present. It so intrigued our junior Wes Craven with its up-front discussion of Dinosaurs versus Dinner-saurs. There is even one page that shows copious amounts of blood flowing out of a Stegosaurus after suffering a bite from an Allosaurus, who is also shown crunching on the Stegosaur's exposed ribs.
When I first saw this page, I just laughed out loud. For real?? In a kids' book, you show this?!?! I showed it to Daddy and encouraged him to similarly turn his nose up at it. But to my surprise Daddy shrugged. "That's what really happened, wasn't it?" Well, um, er... yes. Yes it was. Okay, fine.
We have read this Magic School Bus book about 25 times, and we all love it to death. It teaches so much in so few pages -- about fossils, paleontologists, geologic time, warm-blooded versus cold-blooded creatures, morphologic differences between the dinosaurs, how they went extinct... I could go on. You learn not just dinosaur names, but also how they came to be called that way. Isaac was thrilled beyond belief when, after a day-long affair with coloring a picture of a Deinonychus, we caught a little sidebar in Magic School Bus that specifically mentioned how Deinonychus got it's name. Now Isaac tells anyone within earshot that "Deinonychus means 'terrible claw'".
Our dinosaur pasttime became more of an obsession during "D" week at preschool, when they talked about and played with dinosaurs. And since Daddy bought me a printer for my birthday, we color dinosaur pictures every day. Jacob always wants to color a Stegosaurus. Isaac always wants to color some kind of ferocious meat-eating dinosaur. Today, after our TV stint with winged dinosaurs, I printed out a Pteradon for Isaac to color.
"Look, Mommy, I colored it green, your favorite color. It's for you."
"Aw, thanks, Isaac!"
"Let's write your name on it. How do you spell your name?"
"'Mommy'? Well, why don't you try to write it? It starts with 'M'."
"I don't think my 'M's are that good."
"Why don't you try it anyway. See what happens."
Did you see what happened? I told him how to spell it, but he did all the writing. He would have tried for the full "Mommy", but Aly walked in the door just as he finished that last 'M'.
"Mommy?" he asked, "How do you spell Aly?"
Where did they come from -- the birds, I mean? From dinosaurs, of course. Why else would my boys sit so still?
Our newfound love of all things dinosaur blossomed around Jacob's birthday, when we gave Isaac The Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs as a brother's-birthday present. It so intrigued our junior Wes Craven with its up-front discussion of Dinosaurs versus Dinner-saurs. There is even one page that shows copious amounts of blood flowing out of a Stegosaurus after suffering a bite from an Allosaurus, who is also shown crunching on the Stegosaur's exposed ribs.
When I first saw this page, I just laughed out loud. For real?? In a kids' book, you show this?!?! I showed it to Daddy and encouraged him to similarly turn his nose up at it. But to my surprise Daddy shrugged. "That's what really happened, wasn't it?" Well, um, er... yes. Yes it was. Okay, fine.
We have read this Magic School Bus book about 25 times, and we all love it to death. It teaches so much in so few pages -- about fossils, paleontologists, geologic time, warm-blooded versus cold-blooded creatures, morphologic differences between the dinosaurs, how they went extinct... I could go on. You learn not just dinosaur names, but also how they came to be called that way. Isaac was thrilled beyond belief when, after a day-long affair with coloring a picture of a Deinonychus, we caught a little sidebar in Magic School Bus that specifically mentioned how Deinonychus got it's name. Now Isaac tells anyone within earshot that "Deinonychus means 'terrible claw'".
Our dinosaur pasttime became more of an obsession during "D" week at preschool, when they talked about and played with dinosaurs. And since Daddy bought me a printer for my birthday, we color dinosaur pictures every day. Jacob always wants to color a Stegosaurus. Isaac always wants to color some kind of ferocious meat-eating dinosaur. Today, after our TV stint with winged dinosaurs, I printed out a Pteradon for Isaac to color.
"Look, Mommy, I colored it green, your favorite color. It's for you."
"Aw, thanks, Isaac!"
"Let's write your name on it. How do you spell your name?"
"'Mommy'? Well, why don't you try to write it? It starts with 'M'."
"I don't think my 'M's are that good."
"Why don't you try it anyway. See what happens."
Did you see what happened? I told him how to spell it, but he did all the writing. He would have tried for the full "Mommy", but Aly walked in the door just as he finished that last 'M'.
"Mommy?" he asked, "How do you spell Aly?"
posted by Claire at 10:16 PM
4 Comments:
that's awesome...he's going to be one smart cookie with the genes from you two.
oh...and i like the new 'store front'. Do I spy some magnets from Jean?
Yes you do! I had so much fun making this one.
Yeah...the magnets made it to you!! I thought you deserved the meat one. :) See you guys soon.
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