Happy as a clam.... what exactly does that mean?
Yesterday we attended an HTT reunion at a local park and had a wonderful time. I brought sandwiches (with delicious smoked Gouda cheese) and Propel bottles and sat under the trees and talked with other homeschool moms while the kids ran around on the grass and waded in the Potomac River.
When we got home I discovered that Bethany had brought along a large clam from the river. She and her friend were trying to pry it open in the bathroom sink and got squirted. I told them it had an animal inside, apparently still alive, and that they ought to leave it alone. They were surprised to find out there was a living animal in the shell, and disappointed to learn that it does not make pearls. They were about to take it down to the lake to "let it go", but we got to wondering-- do clams live in lakes? Or just in oceans and salty Potomac Rivers? We had no idea, but since we've never dug clams at the lake, and have at the river, we figured it would be happier back in the river.
Bethany put water from the sink in a cereal bowl and dropped in the clam. And then I wondered, would sink water hurt it? She asked, "Is this a boy clam, or a girl?" "Do clams even have boys and girls?" "How do clams move?" "What do they eat?" "Do they have a right side up?" "Do they care if they are upside down?" "Do they have eyes?" "Do they have stomachs?"
...ummm... I have no idea. This is why we own encyclopedias.
Here we pause for a commercial break. World Book encyclopedias are wonderful! Everyone in our family enjoys reading them for hours. Their one down side is that it's really hard to look up anything-- not because of some bad alphabetic system-- but because it's so easy to get distracted by other interesting articles along the way. We now return to our regularly scheduled program.
We looked up clams and discovered that most varieties do have males and females; they have gills with which they breath, and cilia with which they gather food-- usually plankton, and stomachs where their food is mostly digested. They complete their digestion in their digestive glands, which hang off their stomachs. They move with a muscle called a foot, and they apparently do not have eyes. No mention was made of being right-side up or up-side down, but I can't imagine they would care which way they face. (Actually, they can't "face" any way-- they have no face.)
This afternoon we took the cereal bowl of water and clam back to the Potomac river and plopped the clam into the sandy water. I guess however he feels, he is, by definition, as happy as a clam. =)
Yesterday we attended an HTT reunion at a local park and had a wonderful time. I brought sandwiches (with delicious smoked Gouda cheese) and Propel bottles and sat under the trees and talked with other homeschool moms while the kids ran around on the grass and waded in the Potomac River.
When we got home I discovered that Bethany had brought along a large clam from the river. She and her friend were trying to pry it open in the bathroom sink and got squirted. I told them it had an animal inside, apparently still alive, and that they ought to leave it alone. They were surprised to find out there was a living animal in the shell, and disappointed to learn that it does not make pearls. They were about to take it down to the lake to "let it go", but we got to wondering-- do clams live in lakes? Or just in oceans and salty Potomac Rivers? We had no idea, but since we've never dug clams at the lake, and have at the river, we figured it would be happier back in the river.
Bethany put water from the sink in a cereal bowl and dropped in the clam. And then I wondered, would sink water hurt it? She asked, "Is this a boy clam, or a girl?" "Do clams even have boys and girls?" "How do clams move?" "What do they eat?" "Do they have a right side up?" "Do they care if they are upside down?" "Do they have eyes?" "Do they have stomachs?"
...ummm... I have no idea. This is why we own encyclopedias.
Here we pause for a commercial break. World Book encyclopedias are wonderful! Everyone in our family enjoys reading them for hours. Their one down side is that it's really hard to look up anything-- not because of some bad alphabetic system-- but because it's so easy to get distracted by other interesting articles along the way. We now return to our regularly scheduled program.
We looked up clams and discovered that most varieties do have males and females; they have gills with which they breath, and cilia with which they gather food-- usually plankton, and stomachs where their food is mostly digested. They complete their digestion in their digestive glands, which hang off their stomachs. They move with a muscle called a foot, and they apparently do not have eyes. No mention was made of being right-side up or up-side down, but I can't imagine they would care which way they face. (Actually, they can't "face" any way-- they have no face.)
This afternoon we took the cereal bowl of water and clam back to the Potomac river and plopped the clam into the sandy water. I guess however he feels, he is, by definition, as happy as a clam. =)
Book recommendation of the day: Q is for Quark. by David M. Schwartz, illustrated by Kim Doner. This is an Alphabet book like no other. Find out about Atoms, Black Holes, Clones, DNA, Elements, Faults, Gravity...Xylem, Y Chromosomes, and Zzzzzz (sleep and EEGs.) My kids love it, I love it, even Mike loves it. (Or at least likes it enough to listen when we read it out loud.) I'd love to do this for a book club. It's so completely out of the usual book club realm, but would provide plenty of topics for discussion! What are your thought on cloning?
posted by Rebecca =) | 3:44 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home