Evolution

'Why do we have 5 fingers in each hand and not 3 or 4 or 6?????'
How do I explain about "Evolution " to 7 yr old child? But still explained him with my little knowledge.

'Why Zero has " no value" ? Who decided the numbers or made these numbers,Alphabets????'

'How can a baby be formed as a girl or boy inside Mommy's tummy? '
Will I be able to explain him about chromosome?

'Why do you talk about and take much care of our private parts? Why other parts are not termed as private parts?Why do we need to wear clothes and hide our private parts?' 

Need to work on or get some help to encourage him find his own answers. The reason is for sure that I may not be able to give answers after certain level.

Sydney brick show

Few months back he built some creations for the Sydney brick show.It was his first creation for a competition. He felt little bad for not winning, but he understood participating is much more fun than winning . Totally 5 photos of his creations were published.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/76269798@N06/13508602493/in/pool-sydney-brick-show-competition/

All things are made up of ??????

Back again blogging my child's questions. Sometimes kids remind us the world is so small that we forget to notice the simplest and smallest things on earth.This time he was more curious on how things are made up of?

DS: What is water made up of? What is inside the water?( looking at the glass of water)
MOM: Hydrogen.oxygen atoms. Atoms are the smallest part on this universe.
Dad: molecules and atoms blah blah.......
DS: Started looking even more deeper into the glass with confused state of mind.

After some time
DS: What is this plastic made of?
Dad: Plastic is made from materials that are got from petroleum oil.
DS: Is it from our car petrol?
Dad and mom: Not really.(we were trying to find an answer to support)
DS: But oil ????( he was in disbelief in looking at the plastic leaf and oil)

Later that night....
DS: what is paper made of?
Dad and mom: cellulose from trees and grasses.And its making.
DS: Yes in olden days they wrote in palm leaves
(was happy we could convince him)
DS: What is inside metal?
Mom: Its time for dinner lets talk in detail tomorrow. Escapeeeeeee

Need time for me to do my homework.Earlier it was physics so could answer him better, now chemistry , an area I need to work hard.

Innovative ideas

Sea fire fighter plane cum sledge fire fighter plane:(named by him)
He designed a fire fighter plane which can land on sea and as well sledge down the snowy mountain.He imagined our bed as the snowy mountain.I was in a exalted state and felt good about his idea.

Sea fire fighter plane...

Into deep thinking...

Sledge fire fighter plane entering the snow cave...

Fire fighter helicopter:

Necessity is the mother of invention:

He wanted a lego passenger plane for a long time, but its not available in market. we all compromised for cargo plane set.He liked it and did lots of imaginary plays. Later he converted the cargo plane to Air bus by removing certain parts and adding windows into it. Could see the happiness in his eyes and a triumphant smile.

Passengers entering into the plane..

The Cargo plane got converted to passenger plane...

Space shuttle carrying mars rover:

Cog wheel train and cable car set up:

British airways 4 engine plane:

Eureka Eureka

Our Junior Archimedes found that when he immersed his hands in the bucket full of water, the water level rose. He asked me why its happening? Later we explored and understood that the space occupied by hand displaced the water.He later explored with both hands, heavy objects,his legs etc.
From splashing of water he started to explore and asked why some objects sink down and others float in the tub.
We tried to explain him in simple words about density.
He explored n number of possibilities to find what kind of objects float. He understood that size, shape and weight of the object matters. He kept adding objects to find till how much weight it can float

Playing and learning:

Another day he was so excited to say me that an empty bottle on a plastic lid floats, but the water filled bottle makes the floating lid to sink. 

Empty bottle kept on the lid allows it to float..

Water filled bottle topples down the lid...

He filled water little by little to find out till what amount it floats.

Complexities of Science

Last week My  son was playing with the book 'The Alchemist ',rushing through the pages fast,in all directions and angles. Then started firing us with questions..
" why do we get air when I rush through the pages quickly?"
we explained him how the pages push the air out etc etc......
"how the wind is created from where it is coming?'
I explained him about the temperature diff,and how the wind is formed etc .. but for sure he is gonna dig more and end up with the pressure difference too.

Last week he was exploring optics...
Not sure how many of us had time to note these or explored....Most of the time we learnt how to enjoy and admire life from him.
Following are the questions he fired ...
"why is my hand looking smaller when i dip inside the water?"
"Why s your face looking triangle when i see you through this empty glass?"
" why is your face looking funny like Ravana's with 8 heads, when i see u through this water filled bottle ?"
"why do i see 2 spoons from this side of the glass tumbler, but actually 1 spoon is dipped inside water."
All the answers to his questions are related to refraction,reflection,angles,image formation etc etc.. I tried to explain him in simple terms...
Felt good about is understanding after this observation in bus while we were travelling.our bus stopped for few minutes and..
" mom look here, at this angle our bus looks smaller in those windows ?"
Yes what he noticed was correct from that angle the bus image formed on the glass panels of the shop was looking very small. To know his understanding asked him why .His answer was " its because of the light Falling into the glass,and these glasses are joined to each other like puzzle.from this angle the reflection looks smaller. " The bus started to move again....... Hope our journey of exploration continues .....

Creative Eye

Clips Airplane story:
It was a sunny day and my son was helping me in drying cloths. He was thinking deeply and asked me for some cloth clips to play with. I gave him and here is his airplane design. He used wheels of other toys and stuck it with cellophane tapes to the body of plane. Could see his pride after finishing this and was busy playing with the new plane in our backyard.

Space shuttle:

An empty kitchen tissue roll was tempting him a lot. He took it from the paper disposal bin in our home. My assumption was he might be making a telescope but the surprise was a space shuttle carrier.

He used the kinder joy chocolate cup as the entrance for the Astronauts to get inside the rocket. He used rubber bands and cellophane tapes to stick the space shuttle to the rocket body (tissue  roll). He used hot wheel cars as wheels for the rocket carrier. When i asked the rockets don't have wheels, his answer was, my rocket will have wheels, so that it can land smoothly in mars:-) . Imagination has no limitations and that is the way for  new inventions.

Nothing is useless:

Any waste item becomes a play item for my son.He recreates and enjoys making his own toys and stories. The only problem is my house is becoming junk yard.

Old toy box cover is converted to Basel Tram:

Thrown away thermocol gets converted into Sydney trailer bus.

Empty card board box turned into a car parking lot for his Airport:-). 

Want to watch a movie? Here is the Zoo movie running at our home theatre. He used CD cases,calendar and a shoe box to make this theatre.

Sneak through the entrance to glimpse at the movie screen.

Life Science

What is life all about? The question that keeps ringing in our mind quite often.For a child its even more interesting and fun to explore about.

For my son, everything and anything is an important thing in this world. Followed by why, what and how questions  to help himself understand the world around him. All we need to do is allow the free flow of his thoughts to quest his curiosity and guide him along to understand.

The first ever question he asked  when he was 4-5 yrs old stays fresh in my memory.
Q: why we are not falling down when the earth is rotating? why the rivers and ocean do not overflow or enter city while the earth is rotating?
I took some time to explain in simple words about the gravitational force.
Followed by N number of questions.... How the birds are flying? why can't a chicken fly higher? why do some birds fly higher?

Some flash backs from my diary
2012:
Food chain:
Chi :What do the lions eat?
MoM: sheep,goat,deer...
Chirag: may be wolf too... ok what does the wolf eat?
Mom: Sheep, goat..
Chi: What does the sheep eat?
Mom:Guess you know that,can you tell me?
Chi:its grass,hay and flowers, Mom tell me what do the grass and plants eat to grow?
Mom:(he is asking about food chain? and I want to see what his answer is?) Can you tell me what they eat?
Chi: may be they eat mud and water..
and he is correct...
Now he wanted me to build a real hot air balloon which can fly in the sky with his dolls inside:-( guess soon he himself will find a way for it.He keeps telling me that he need a rotor and a motor to make the helicopter fly.Guess I need to learn a lot about engineering stuffs :-)))

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Mission accomplished:

While we were talking about Neil Armstrong's demise Chirag was busy playing something seriously.He asked me for some playdohs and Lego blocks.when I asked him what he was doing? He said mom I am building space station and rocket launching.It was a good model,he tied the rocket and space shuttle together and fixed in the launching towers(Lego blocks) and his mission is to go to sun.when I said till now no one has gone to sun and it's too hot to go near.His immediate answer was "I will go and get fire for my rocket from sun."And I didnot want to stop the fire in him with the facts but said hurray.
after his mission was over (going to sun and other planets),he was dismantling the rocket into pieces and separating the spaceshuttle while flying down,when asked why he said rockets donot land on earth only space shuttle lands that too on runway.His mission accomplished:-)
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2013:

God -The ultimatum...

everyday is a new day for us with Chirag and his questions. Thanks to google but yet we pass on the ball to 'God' for some qs.
chi- can i kill or cut the lizards?
mom- no we cant kill them,it does no harm for us.
chi- can we kill mosquitos?
mom - yes, they are harming us, we might get fever.
chi- aren' t the mosquitos paavam.the lizards eat mosquitos and ants, so cant we kill lizard?
mom - lizard eat insects,they are their food. This is nature's magic and that is how 'GOD' created.....( well he is correct indeed)
...".....................
chi - are the lions,tigers,eagles etc are bad animals?
mom- not really,but we have to be careful as they are dangerous.
chi- they kill other animals and harm them,so aren't they bad.cant they eat grass?
mom- no they cant,their stomach cant digest grass... that is how these animals are created by nature 'God'
.........".....................
chi- i like to be a baby, can i go backwards and see?
mom- not really, we cant go to the past.
chi- why not?
mom- that is how the earth is created.we always go forward in life.

Chi- Why the earth can't go backwards?
..............................
chi-where are these gods living? in the sky?
mom- yes.everywhere.
chi-are they watching us?
mom- yes.
chi - they bless us when we do good and punish us when we do bad right?
..............................
one day he was busy doing prayer and was giving prasadhams at home to all of us and said
chi - thatha,paati,momy and daddy i am blessing you all.if you do wrong i will punish you.Look now i am 'GOD',so you listen to me.No rules for me now on.Got ourselves stumped.

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Empathy:

Yesterday went to bed with a sense of goodness feeling. I was having dear time with my son,talking about his liking and was asking what he wants to do when he grows up. The conversation started with pazhaya saadham (old rice fermented ) ,when he grows up he wanted to eat this a lot and wanted to be with orphans and poor kids.Recently we had been to orphanage (wanted chirag to see the other side of the world ) .He wants to feel how it would be like a poor boy and without mom & dad. He felt sad when he thinks they don't have parents at the same time he felt happy that the kids were chubby and bubbly (shows the innocence in a child ). So he wanted to be with them when he grows up. Hugged my child and kissed him to the core.Thanked god for giving me such a gift and patted myself for being a good mom .

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Pakistan and china in space:
My conversation with DS while watching News....
DS: Is india going to fight with Russia? (after watching Manmohan singh meeting Russian president )
Me: Nope. he has gone for a meeting.(small blah blah went on)
Ds: Why is Pakistan fighting?(After watching the JK fight and other terrorists news)
Me: Not all people are fighting...(some blah blah on this too)
DS:The main problem is Pakistan and china are coupled to INDIA. Let me take these two countries and put them into space. So that there is no problem.
Puzzled mom took some time to convince him that we can't generalize people.

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Fabulous Birthday
 I had a fabulous bday. Met many of my relatives in a getogether after a decade. Some of them after 20 yrs, felt so good. My son gave me a big surprise,arranged a candle light party with decorations.( idea,presntation ,execution ,supervising all by himself ) .We never celebrated like this before. He was so romantic...  . Grand parents could not control their emotion on seeing his affection towards me ( touchwood ) . He ended with a bday dance ( like ball room ) inviting me to join him rock and roll. Felt lovely while dancing with him.It was indeed a wonderful day for me.

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Great Epics :
My curious DS was so excited to see the nanganallur Anjaneya temple. The entrance queue was as long as our Hanumar tail. He was happy to see Rama,Sita,Hanuman and karudar idols.
He started to shoot me with questions like why no statue for Ravana,why cant he too be worshiped? Is he a bad man just because he kidnapped sita?what about Sukreeva and vaali why no statues for them, they too are quite important ,esp sukreeva is a good monkey why are we worshiping only Hanuman?Why all monsters and Asuras are black in color ?why not white?
I need to do an Autopsy of our epics  ....... to answer him.

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