RandomGuy
12-12-2008, 10:10 AM
Every night, I tell my five year old a bedtime story that I make up off the top of my head.
As you can imagine, after a few hundred stories, one kind of runs out of cool stories about fast race cars, or other things that one would think would interest a small boy.
The other night, after sort of giving up trying to make things adventurous/cool, I simply decided to tell little Ben about Bob the Raindrop.
Bob is exactly what you think he is, a drop of water. No more, no less. Bob does everythnig that water does and, astonishingly, that both is a lot more things then we normally realize and that seem to be very interesting for Ben.
Here is an example of the kind of story about Bob the Raindrop that Ben seems to love.
"Bob was floating around in the air because he was part of a big, big cloud. The wind blew and Bob, and all the other drops in the cloud went north to where it was pretty cold.
The wind then blew Bob again, only this time a bit farther in the other direction, to the South.
The wind blew a lot of cold air with it, and suddenly 'POP!' Bob became a snowflake and started falling very very slowly onto the ground.
Bob landed and a lot of other snowflakes piled on top of him and they stayed there on the cold ground for a little while, until the weather got warmer and all the snow started to melt.
When the snow melted, all the water got together and went into a little stream. Bob looked around in the stream, and saw a little baby fish. The baby fish swam around and sucked Bob right up. Bob then was in the fish's tummy and the little fish tummy sucked Bob into the fish's blood."
You get the picture.
I have left out the parts where Ben asks "What does this word mean?" and "Why does it do that?", and "Then what happened?", which he does a LOT.
Little Bob has been in a fish, in a puddle in a rainforest, in a worm, in our teapot, in my cup of coffee, in an aquafer, in a ball of hail, turned into ethanol and used as fuel for a car, and whatever else seems to be topical.
I keep it down at his level, and gloss over some details, but enough is going on that I can tell he is listening and paying a lot of attention. I get to teach him about science, weather, chemistry, animals, plants, and all sorts of things.
Last night I told him how water goes underground into aquafers, and each drop gets a little bit of rock/minerals in it. I then showed him the inside of our teapot this morning where I boil water for my coffee, so that he could see the mineral deposits on the side of the teapot, and that Daddy wasn't making that up.
During my day, I look for Bob the Raindrop story opportunities, and find them in surprising places.
For example I looked at the frozen dinner that I will be eating for lunch (Dal Makhani, an Indian dish), and thought about what it took to get into my hands.
Tonight, Bob will be absorbed into a bean plant, and that bean will be cooked and become part of a frozen dinner that someone will eat. I get to tell him about how food is grown, prepared, shipped (throw in something about trains, of course), and how it gets to our dinner table.
Just thought I would share this little parenting tidbit.
Ben is at the age where he asks a lot of questions anyways, and these stories offer a good chance to tell him about just about anything in a way that he can relate to, and to guide and nourish that curiosity.
As you can imagine, after a few hundred stories, one kind of runs out of cool stories about fast race cars, or other things that one would think would interest a small boy.
The other night, after sort of giving up trying to make things adventurous/cool, I simply decided to tell little Ben about Bob the Raindrop.
Bob is exactly what you think he is, a drop of water. No more, no less. Bob does everythnig that water does and, astonishingly, that both is a lot more things then we normally realize and that seem to be very interesting for Ben.
Here is an example of the kind of story about Bob the Raindrop that Ben seems to love.
"Bob was floating around in the air because he was part of a big, big cloud. The wind blew and Bob, and all the other drops in the cloud went north to where it was pretty cold.
The wind then blew Bob again, only this time a bit farther in the other direction, to the South.
The wind blew a lot of cold air with it, and suddenly 'POP!' Bob became a snowflake and started falling very very slowly onto the ground.
Bob landed and a lot of other snowflakes piled on top of him and they stayed there on the cold ground for a little while, until the weather got warmer and all the snow started to melt.
When the snow melted, all the water got together and went into a little stream. Bob looked around in the stream, and saw a little baby fish. The baby fish swam around and sucked Bob right up. Bob then was in the fish's tummy and the little fish tummy sucked Bob into the fish's blood."
You get the picture.
I have left out the parts where Ben asks "What does this word mean?" and "Why does it do that?", and "Then what happened?", which he does a LOT.
Little Bob has been in a fish, in a puddle in a rainforest, in a worm, in our teapot, in my cup of coffee, in an aquafer, in a ball of hail, turned into ethanol and used as fuel for a car, and whatever else seems to be topical.
I keep it down at his level, and gloss over some details, but enough is going on that I can tell he is listening and paying a lot of attention. I get to teach him about science, weather, chemistry, animals, plants, and all sorts of things.
Last night I told him how water goes underground into aquafers, and each drop gets a little bit of rock/minerals in it. I then showed him the inside of our teapot this morning where I boil water for my coffee, so that he could see the mineral deposits on the side of the teapot, and that Daddy wasn't making that up.
During my day, I look for Bob the Raindrop story opportunities, and find them in surprising places.
For example I looked at the frozen dinner that I will be eating for lunch (Dal Makhani, an Indian dish), and thought about what it took to get into my hands.
Tonight, Bob will be absorbed into a bean plant, and that bean will be cooked and become part of a frozen dinner that someone will eat. I get to tell him about how food is grown, prepared, shipped (throw in something about trains, of course), and how it gets to our dinner table.
Just thought I would share this little parenting tidbit.
Ben is at the age where he asks a lot of questions anyways, and these stories offer a good chance to tell him about just about anything in a way that he can relate to, and to guide and nourish that curiosity.