Monday, October 31, 2011

Sink, Swim or Worse?

This past weekend, Nona and Grampy- my parents- came for a visit.  It was a good time of year to have them, because I don't think they've ever spent Halloween with us.  Even though they are not here for trick or treat today, they were able to be around for the girls school parties, costume parades, and harvest festival.  They were also here when the girls carved their pumpkins.  Truthfully, they were here for all the fun parts.  Tonight is going to be a blur of walking around getting candy, trying to keep the girls from eating ALL of the candy and then fighting them to go to bed because they are so hyped up on all that candy.  So much fun, Halloween! Hmm, now that I think about it, perhaps their plan was to be gone for that part all along.  Anyway, Saturday night before the pumpkins were carved, my first grade teacher mom decided to do a little science with the girls.


She took one of our pumpkins and had the girls guess the weight of it, which they were all way off on.  I'm pretty sure there is no way to buy a 35 pound pumpkin from the grocery store for $5, no matter how good my Ralph's Club discount is.  After they all made a guess, my mom weighed the pumpkin on our scale and then weighed each of the girls.  I think this made the idea of weight a bit clearer.  The next thing they did was play "sink or float".  It is just as it sounds.  She filled the sink with water and then went around the kitchen finding items to throw in the water.  The girls had to guess if each item would sink or float and see who was right.  Eventually, they worked their way up to the pumpkin.  It's a great experiment to do with kids over three.  


The girls loved it and would probably still be throwing things in the water, if my mom didn't pull the plug on the sink.  They especially loved guessing what each thing would do.  Sonya started finding things of her own to put in the water and came over with a crayon.  My mom held it up and asked each of them, 


"Sink or float?"


"Float," answered Sonya.


"Fwaot," said Georgia.


My mom turned to Lana with the crayon in her hand.  Lana looked at it, thought for a minute and said,


"Drown."


Huh.  That was a little morbid.  I didn't even know she knew the word drown or what it meant.  Perhaps it's all those Halloween specials she's been watching this time of year.  Although, I don't remember anyone drowning in, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."


Lucky for the crayon, we saved it before it met it's demise.

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