WEighing in
(12/01/03)
Tonight the now 3-year-old noticed something he hadn't noticed before. There was a clock on one wall of the kitchen (very large to help with the visibility necessary for teenagers in the morning) and a scale on a shelf on the opposite wall. He carefully set down his fork and pointed at both... "Clock."
We looked at both and realized that a learning moment was looming. I quickly grabbed the scale from the shelf and we talked about the difference between the scale and the clock. "Look, with the scale, you can change where the arrow points," we reasoned with the child. He smiled through his spaghetti sauce face and referred to the fact that he needed more proof of difference.
So we took his dinner plate and planted it on the scale. He gasped as the arrow moved.
We took a second plate and his half-empty cup of apple juice and placed them on the scale. He smiled and gasped, very impressed by the movement he saw on the scale's face. Yet he still seemed to question our logic. He looked back at the clock as I grabbed the spaghetti pot and put it on the scale. The arrow moved quickly to a very large number and the boy moved closer to investigate.
Then we lit on the true measure of our son's lesson. "Come here, you sit on the scale." He smiled and then obliged. We hefted his 27.2 pounds onto the scale and the boy looked through his legs and giggled as the arrow shot up to a very high number (in his book). We felt that we had really taught our lesson. Then he looked at both of us and as he slowly lifted himself from the scale he looked me right in the eyes... "Mommy, you sit here," he said, pointing at the scale.
The scale went quickly back on the shelf until the boy could learn the basic differences between the clock and the scale. Lesson complete.