Monday, October 22, 2012

This Wondrous Life

Let's see... there was a birthday party.  For a beloved friend.
It lasted the whole day (as usual) and there were hula hoops and Jump!ing and cupcakes and games and chasing.

And there has been music.

There has been art.

And remember this?

There has been loads of science play.
(Air matters, telephones, cleaning coins, stacking coins and inertia, pendulums, Kid Club and dry ice play, slime....)


Lemonade Stand,


baked apples and another global investigation.
This time Maddie pointed to Republic of the Congo!

This of course brought up all sorts of interesting things.... since we were becoming familiar with seasons, and northern and southern hemispheres, this time we got to ponder the equatorial areas.  No four seasons! ("Oh, that's so saaaad....", says Madd.)  Just 'wet' and 'dry'.
We learned that the temperature of Congo is between 63° and 91° all year long.
We learned that Congo has Pygmy people (3%), and learned what that means.
We learned that children go to school until they're sixteen.
That the main language is French.
That outside Brazzaville (Maddie's chosen city) is a large savannah.
We learned that Congo has hippos, forest elephants, chimpanzees, and lowland gorillas.
We talked about conservation, and how and why animals become endangered.  (Just like our own wetland frogs--people building roads and cities on top of habitats.)
I learned that chimps use different tools and in different ways in different 'villages', and that chimpanzees use medicinal plants when they're sick or injured.  That was amazing to me.  Maddie says "Bonobos (which are across the river from Chimps, and don't interact with them) will chew up medicine and put it on their babies' injuries."   Nothing new there for her.

Google map:  Brazzaville.  Home.  Friends.

We've played with electricity,
done some fine decorating,

done a lot of screaming,

and we've built a working radio.

 It's a good gig.


  1. Sounds like another wonderful week.

  2. A good gig, indeed. Love the giraffes. :)

  3. Thanks for the inspiring peek into your wondrous life. I can feel the happiness flowing :)

  4. Chimpanzees are amazing! And I've been inspired by all your science explorations.


Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts!