Shadow seems to have gained at least 40% again of her body weight in the last few weeks – she looks absolutely huge! All of us, including Don, agreed that she had gained a lot. I was worried it might be a thyroid issue. So, we took her to the vet this morning to be weighed. Turned out, amazingly, that she had no significant weight gain – only 2 ounces!
The girls couldn’t understand why we all thought she had gained so much when she really hadn’t. Of course, it must be because of having tiny Kente around – by comparison, Shadow IS huge.
So, to
demonstrate how such misperceptions can occur, I did a little experiment with them that I remembered from college biology classes. (Can’t recall the name of it, though, which is driving me crazy.) I filled 3 containers with water. The first one was very hot. The other two were exactly the same – just lukewarm. I did the trick separately on each of them so as not to spoil the surprise – I had each girl put the right hand in the hot water for a while, then quickly plunge each hand into one of the remaining containers. I asked them what temperature the water was in each container. Both said that the left one was warm, and the right one was cold. Then for the fun part – I had them take their left hand and put it in the same container with the other hand – then they realized to their amazement that their right hands still felt like the water was cold, but their left hands felt warm. Both had the same reaction – a shocked, “How did you DO that???”Isn’t science fun? I just love homeschooling – it’s a wonderful feeling when you can turn a real-life event into an entire science lesson!
Bye for now…
Jeanie
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