Experimenting with life

I love the way my youngest daughter's (she just turned 8) mind works. She likes to figure out why things happen and predict what the outcome may be.

For example, a few weeks ago she wanted to know how long she was sleeping before having to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. She put a pad, pencil and her watch in the bathroom and marked down the time that she went to bed, on the pad. When she woke up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, she recorded the time. When she woke up in the morning, she also recorded the time. Then she figured out how much time she was aleep before and after using the bathroom. She repeated her experiment several more times that week and then compared them to each other.

Last week we went food shopping and the store just got a new cash register with a large screen facing the customer, that gives a running total of what you're buying. It wasn't there the last time so it caught her attention. As the cashier started scanning our items, Jacqueline took a quick look at what we were buying, predicted it would come out to about $100 and watched the total go higher and higher. It came to $98 (and some change). :-) The cashier told Jacqueline she should get a job there when she gets older. Jacqueline looked at her and said "No, thanks...I want to be an astronaut". :-)

We've had a leaky kitchen faucet for a while, The other day Jacqueline put a 16 oz. cup under the drip because she wanted to see how many times it would fill up in a day. She got her pad and pencil and wrote a prediction of 10 times. Each time it filled up, she dumped it out and marked it on the paper with hash marks. She forgot to refill it a few times so her prediction was way off this time.

:-) I love her mind....I love that she's home and not in school and able to do these types of things.