A feather

I was startled this morning by a large spidery bug type thing floating/falling down in front of me as I came out of the bathroom. As it turns out, it was only a feather, which, I imagine came from My Beloved's down coat.

Well, this feather turned into at least an hour of educational entertainment. Once Tornado was awake, we held the feather, touched the feather (it's soft), let the feather fall, caught the feather, and blew the feather. Not only did I have an entertained toddler on my hands, but we learned some new things too. We learned to say the word "feather". We practiced some fine motor skills as we held, picked up, and caught the feather. Then we took it up a notch.

While I was nursing Sweet Pea, I had Tornado bring me a small toy from the toy area. Once I had it I held both next to each other and asked him which one would be "fastest". "Will this one fall fastest? Or this one?... Is the elephant (that was the little toy he brought me) faster, or the feather?" He made his guess/estimate/hypothesis and we tried our experiment. I dropped both of them at the same time and you know what? He was right. The elephant fell fastest. Here we gave him an intro to forming a hypothesis (not that he'll know what that means for a long time), experimented, and learned some about "fastest" vs. "slowest". I tried to approach "heaviest" by putting both on my hand and blowing on both of them. Of course the feather left and the toy didn't, but I don't think he grasped that one.

Of course feather fun had to end, and as I imagined would happen eventually, he stuck it into one of the floor vents never to be seen again. Most unfortunate! But we move on... short attention spans you know. :)

Have you ever had feather fun? Any other ideas of things I could try next time my husband's winter coat shares it's filling with us?

Labels: As it happens..., Homeschooling my 2 Year Old, Learning for Little Ones

posted by ~Babychaser~ @ 12:11 PM