of hills and rocks and dinosaurs

Last Friday I took the girls to the West Coon Rapids Dam for a homeschool day of "Landforms and Geology." I'd actually never visited the visitor center on that side of the dam, though I've run past it many times - it's a different county, and actually much harder to get to from our house (though parking there is free, as opposed to "our side" of the dam).

K has been interested in rocks lately, so this came at a great time... though I'm kicking myself for passing up the Eyewitness Book of Rocks and Minerals when I was picking them out from 1/2 price books months and months ago... I'll have to hit 'em again when I'm at my parent's place.

(Speaking of which, I'm hoping to get a list up here of the books K is collecting and what she already has - since I have such a good thrifting fam out there keeping an eye out for things!)

K had a good time at the h.school day. In the morning they learned to read and make their own topographical map, we had a break for lunch, and in the afternoon they learned a bit about rocks.... and I must say, I do think the best way for kids to learn (and be excited) about something is to listen to someone who loves the subject talk about it.

The wonderful lady who went through the little rock program was so enthusiastic about rocks (people give her rocks for presents! she has rock collections in every room of her house!) she got the kids nice and riled up about them, too! If only society could figure out that the best way to learn something is from someone who dearly loves and lives the subject.... and I'm going to be sure to start seeking out those people when K becomes especially interested in something from here on out...
After an intro to Minnesota rocks, everyone went out to the riverbank to start their own collections. The rock lady sat down, the kids would bring their rocks to her, and she would tell them what they found and chat with them about the rock. A bit later, we trooped back up to the group's room to look at the rocks under microscopes the kids could use by themselves.

The last part of the day really impressed me: the kids were sent out to find meteorites! And they did! Each and every kid!

I wish I heard the intro/explanation for this experiment (I was "busy" with little G), but what they did was give each kid a paper cup with a magnet in it and a string attached to the top in a loop for the child to hold and let the cup hang near the ground (like a basket with a really long handle). The kids went outside, held their cup near the pavement, and slowly slowly walked around (cups as close to the ground as possible without dragging).

Eventually, we tipped the cup up to look at the bottom (without letting the magnet fall out of the cup) and found tiny tiny black flecks stuck to the cup by the magnet: meteorites!! When we had found some (K finally found 2 flecks the size of a small "o" typed here) we took them in to look under the microscope. Crazily enough, they even looked like meteorites... I guess if you've seen a giant one at a science museum (who hasn't?!), they look exactly like that but tiny tiny tiny. Kind of all bumpy and sharp and..um..."spacey"! I was a lot more impressed than K, I think.

(okay Dad, why does this work like this to find meteorites? the kids were only were supposed to look on the pavement, not in the grass/dirt/etc.)

So on the whole, rock fun was had by all.


~
I've finally had a first Talk with K.

The Talk.


(Nope, not that one.... remember this is the girl who watched her sister be born (and remembers doing so!) and knows all about eggs and their little fertilizing friends... to be honest, we haven't gotten into the specific How of all this, but whenever she's ready...)

No, a couple days ago we were out walking to the park and co-op and pretty much out of the blue K asks, "Wait, there's something I don't understand."

"What's that?"

"If dinosaurs are millions of years old, and people didn't live during the dinosaurs, and then God made people, how did that work?"

Ahhhh... how did that work? Let's work on that and let hundreds of creation scientists know what we figure out...

It's not like I wasn't ready for it, but I explained to K as well as I could on the fly, that God created the dinosaurs, and God created people, and it doesn't appear that they lived at the same time, and we don't really know how and why.

All we know is that through God's Covenant, He has promised the world looks the way it does for a reason. He doesn't "trick" us, He gives us the tools we need to study the world around us. No matter how things happened, He created the world, He created the dinosaurs that we study today to look like they lived millions of years ago, and He created people. We trust God, and that's all we really know.

Phew! But the doors to this situation are open now, and just like everything else, we're ready and willing to discuss anything and everything with her; attempting to do it in a God and Bible-centered way as possible. Of course she doesn't realize what a Big Deal this whole thing is - churches have split on less. But as she gets older we'll get to discuss what makes up a Salvation Issue, and how we can not judge that people are fallen because they believe Such-and-Such...


*sniff* ...we had the dinosaur talk... my girl is growing up! ;)