Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Second Grade Science



Primo is learning about "simple machines" in second grade science. Sounds, well, simple, doesn't it? It may very well be, and if that is the case, then I have some deep pockets of total ignorance in my knowledge base, because I literally can not do his science homework.

Primo was supposed to play "I Spy" and identify, in his day to day environment, examples of the following:

levers
pulleys
incline planes
fans
and other shit I can't even remember the names of

I mean, I'm not a total moron, and I know what a lever is. If you gave me a multiple choice bunch of answers, I'd probably be able to pick the correct one using the skills I learned at Kaplan SAT prep a hundred years ago. But forced to explain the identifying traits of a lever, I'm up shit's creek without a paddle. You jam it under something heavy. Or is that just leverage? You press it down and it makes something go. Its on a machine. Oh crap, kid, I don't know.

I went to a special parents' morning at Primo's class last week, where we get to see what they're working on and Primo was showing me the "simple" machines he and his group had made from Legos. The machine in question was a fan, built with two pulleys. It was operational, with a hand crank. I was, honestly. blown away.

"How did you MAKE this?" I asked, genuinely not knowing the answer, "You must have had to affix some kind of long piece through to make the fan go!"

"Its called an axle, Mommy, and a wheel," Primo explained.

These kids are GENUISES. Watch out, world, here they come.