So I feel like a smart parent today

[fflintstone]

So I feel like a smart parent today. The other day when working on chelating some rust with my son, he asked what “forged” meant. So today I got a slice of bread, pulled up the Epstein’s Wilde plant tour video and made him spread his fingers out and wave his hands in the air. Then I made him interlace his fingers and had him push them into mine. I made him watch the drop forging and after I explained how the forging pushes the grains of metal together and makes then stronger. Then we each ate a ¼ slice of fluffy bread. Then I smushed the other ¼ slices and made them quite dense. After showing him how much harder the bread was after smushing them together and how much denser and stronger it was. I gave my 7-year old a lesson in molecular metallurgy that I hope he remembers.

[rusty]

So squeezing en entire slice of wonder bread into a 1 cm cube when I was a kid wasn't as wastefull as I thought? *chuckle*

I remember the strangest things my dad taught me in 30 second science lessons, some have come in handy over the years...:)

[Papaw]

That kind of learning beats most that happens in school!
I remember having a group of Cub Scouts out in the yard one evening to teach them about ropes and pulleys.
With a rope on the bumper of a car, it took all 7 of them to pull it forward 5 feet, but with a pulley arrangement, I had the smallest one moving it all by himself.

[fflintstone]

That kind of learning beats most that happens in school!
I remember having a group of Cub Scouts out in the yard one evening to teach them about ropes and pulleys.
With a rope on the bumper of a car, it took all 7 of them to pull it forward 5 feet, but with a pulley arrangement, I had the smallest one moving it all by himself.

I will have to remember that one, although I am short of both rope and double pulleys. I am putting a flagpole on my shop and have to order some halyard line anyways.

[Nolatoolguy]

Hands on learning, real life learning. Thats the way to go!

You can sit in a classroom behind a desk and look at a book(soon to be digital) but that doesn't always work as well. To feel, do an see a example of the actual thing really helps. I think modern schools sometimes forget that.

Your son is lucky to have a father like you!

[Bill Houghton]

That's great.

Sometimes, the school stuff can work.  I remember going into my younger son's second grade class with a polarizing microscope and some rock slides.  For those who don't know, geologists slice rock very thin, glue the slice to a microscope slide, then polish it thinner and thinner until you can shine a light through it.  Polarizing microscopes shine polarized light up through the stage (on which the slide sits), and the stage can be rotated (it's marked in degrees, like a milling machine rotating table).  As you turn the stage around, you can see the crystalline structure light up.  I thought those kids would never get tired of looking through the microscope.  They'd get their look and run back and get in line again.  It was great fun explaining to them what's inside rocks.