Science: teeth and tomatoes

Last Sunday, my oldest daughter's top front tooth finally came out. It has been wiggly for at least 5 months. I had tried to pull it out a few times, but to no avail. But Sunday morning after church, as we were searching for my younger daughter's jacket in various rooms in the children's building, Rebekah suddenly exclaimed loudly. When I turned to her, she was holding out her tooth in the palm of her hand. After a moment of shock, staring at her tooth, she ran to go show it to all the teachers still in the building. Such excitement! And yes, we did find my other daughter's jacket too.

The reason I mention this in relation to science is that we just so happened to have scheduled a study of teeth for the following week for science! Really! Perfect timing. 5 months, and then the day before we start to study teeth, it falls out. She was very attentive during her science lessons, I have to say.

On another, seemingly unrelated note, I was recently drying off my son in the bathroom after his bath, when he suddenly peered into the draining bathtub and pointed, exclaiming, "Tomato!" I frowned, and then leaned over to look, since we do have some plastic tomato slices that came with our kitchen play set. I didn't remember him bringing one into bath time to play, but I never know what he might sneak in without my notice. I was hoping it wasn't a real tomato.

I saw nothing, however, but after a moment, Ryan again exclaimed, "Tomato!" and pointed right at the drain. I looked again, more closely, and then I finally figured out what he was saying. Not "tomato," but "tornado." He saw a little waterspout that had formed as the bath water drained out.

I was quite impressed. A few weeks earlier, we had studied tornadoes, and did the experiment with the 2 2-liter coke bottles, where you attach them together, and have one drain into the other, swirling the water around to start a little "tornado" motion. I couldn't get it to work too well, since our connection was leaky, but we got it to work a little, and then we all watched a more professional demonstration on YouTube. Ryan was attentive most of the time, but I didn't think he really understood that much - after all, he's only 3. I really just talked to the girls as I explained things, letting Ryan hover in the background. He didn't even have a very good view. But he apparently paid more attention than I had thought. He remembered it a week or so later, plus applied it to a totally different activity - draining the bathtub.

I guess I should include him more often in our science lessons!