Lead Balloon

Suppose you built a scale model of a hydrogen atom. Use an ordinary child's toy marble to represent the one proton. Ignore those pesky quantum problems and use another slightly larger marble to represent the electron. If you place the proton in the Primavera K-1 classroom, then the (approximate) position of the (sort of) orbiting electron is somewhere near the Capitol building.



The rest is emptiness.



This fact does not astonish the K-1 class. You could say it went over like a lead balloon. What's interesting here is, the startling scale model of the solar system also got a blasé reception. This must point to an underlying principle of children's intellectual development: what things they take in stride at a given age, what they are amazed by, what they want to know, what they don't care about in the least.


They love How Do You Make, and Origins Of Things.

How do you make Lego people? (I think we need to do some sort of casting. Although at least one of you has some sort of action-figure-casting kit at home apparently, and our Art Specialist lay some claim to this territory). Who was the first person on earth? (Don't pester me with the subtleties of population genetics: I just enjoy asking).
And, elegantly mixing Invention and Origin, How Was English Invented? I don't know if linguistics is on the official curriculum: I guess it is now. As is William of Normandy.