Sitting on the couch, looking out the window. JediBoy says, “It’s not much of a morning. It looks more like afternoon. You can’t even see the sun. You know, on the other side of the world, right now it’s night. If you could dig a big hole down through three layers of the Earth and come out the other side, it would be nighttime and you could go to sleep, and those people could come here where it’s morning and wake up.”
This leads to a discussion about time zones. He was aware that both Guatemala and South Africa have different times than we do, and that the other side of the world is “opposite,” but we talk more about 24 time zones and how somewhere in the world it is 9:06, or 10:06, or 3:06.
He runs to get the globe, and I show him how that works. He points out our state and Guatemala on the globe, but gets confused between the country of South Africa and the continent of Africa. We discuss continents and countries, and he starts to read the names of some countries and continents, and gets excited about finding China, and the size of Russia.
We look back at Africa, and I point out Egypt (a passion) and Mali (home to friends). We look for more continents, and he asks, “What’s at the very top?” We talk about the North Pole, the South Pole, and the differences between the arctic and the antarctic. He says, “But I thought polar bears ate penguins.”
Me: No, but they do eat seals.
He: What do seals eat?
Me: Oh, they eat fish mostly.
He: What do fish eat?
Me: Fish eat smaller fish, and sea plants.
He: What do sea plants eat? (With a grin on his face.)
Me: They get energy from sunlight and nutrients from the soil or the water.
He: But I thought they were underwater, so they couldn’t see the sun.
This leads to a water bottle and lamp demonstration of the way light can pass through water, and then a discussion of the depth of the ocean and the darkness at the bottom. And then he asks, “Can I have a yogurt now?”
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