if there’s one thing that always gets jan in trouble (with us, his parents, mostly), it’s his unbridled curiosity. on the last record on the progress report from his kinderkrippe (a daycare for 1-3 year olds), his teacher wrote that he asks about all possible, as well as impossible, questions. well, one year onwards, that hasn’t changed. his questions just got more complicated.

right now, he’s wanting to learn what everything is made of. what’s your pull-over made of, mama? the table? the bathtub? what is ceramic, papa? look, my magnet sticks to the leg of the chair; it must be made of metal.

last week, for a few days, we had some snowfall and seeing the left over ice on the ground, he asked, what’s ice made of, mama? water, i said. frozen water. was he satisfied with the answer? apparently not.

so a couple of days ago, as mama was busy on the phone, jan got busy in the kitchen, too. at less than four and a half years old, jan planned and conducted his first experiment employing the scientific method. on his own.

he set out to find out if water does turn into ice when frozen. in addition, he wanted to find out if bits of bread (don’t ask me for the rationale!) will hasten the freezing process.

he placed two cups of water, both with bread bits, inside the freezer and checked every so often to see which cup froze first. after 15 minutes, he was finally satisfied that water indeed turns into ice.

obviously, his experimental design was flawed, and he can’t derive any conclusions on the effect of bread bits on the freezing rate. but hey, he’s not even four and a half; he has ample time to learn the need for control set-ups, hehe…

i mean, really, how old were you when you made designed your own science experiment? i must have been in fourth or fifth grade.

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