Learning on the internets

[hadassahchana[$]]

Ok, so a homeschooling mom using the internet as a resource is not ground-breaking or startling in any way. However, #2 managed to educate himself without really meaning to.

After the boys do their schoolwork, they are allowed to read news, play games etc. on the net. #2's current obsession is the ThinkGeek website, where he has become a great admirer of their t-shirts. Which he completely does not understand, but he laughs until he cries anyhow. He's driving us all nuts, in other words.

Yesterday morning, though, I think he had a developmental breakthrough which was really kind of neat.

"What does H2SO4 stand for?" he asked. I think he was hoping that it was a new and incomprehensible bit of military jargone, and he wanted to be able to annoy his older brother when he got home from PT.

I told him that it was the formula for sulphuric acid. Upon which he nearly collapsed laughing,


"That makes it even funnier than before!" he gasped.


"Makes what funnier?" I asked.


"This poem from a t shirt:

Johnny was a chemist's son,
But Johnny is no more.
What Johnny thought was H20
was H2SO4.

Ok, so if explaining what H2SO4 means made that funnier, can anyone translate 15 year old boy for me and tell me what in the heck was funny about it before I explained it?



However, and this is the cool part, he spent the rest of the afternoon googling for bits of information contained on those t shirts. Then, he began adding them to his science notebook, on a list of things he'd like to study. He made a fairly long list:

inorganic chemistry (I'll have to watch that one, since I am one of many who enjoy living in a house with a roof on top...)

physics

Albert Einstein and Che Guevera (!)

IP addresses

And the last entry on his list:

cats - which was neatly crossed out and replaced with
Schrödinger's Cat


He is now wildly enthusiastic and is looking up all sorts of interesting stuff, all based ons some really silly shirts.


And of course, not to be outdone, #4 showed up and wanted to find something to add to his notebook. His question, of course, almost made me cry:

"What is Capital One? And can I order my own credit card?"


Ok, so we haven't entirely worked all of the bugs out of this learning-through-fun thing. Give me a couple of years.

[emeleel]

You'd never heard the H2SO4 one before?

[pippadaisy[$]]

I read the list aloud to G. Much snorting is coming from the other side of the couch at the moment.

[hadassahchana[$]]

I'd heard it in a slightly different form in chemistry at university. however, by then I knew why it was funny. He still could never explain why it was funny before he knew what sulphuric acid was.

And Pippa, at last this has gotten him to want to learn something besides history. Besides history of the revolutionary period. I have bought a ton of books this year, all about that period. If he asks me if I want to play true or false, and then asks me if George Washingnton was the first president of the U.S., I will scream. As I am using a sharp weapon.

[jgibson2[$]]

And the response to that question would be: "Under the Constitution or the Articles of Confederation?"

[hadassahchana[$]]

Exactly. But his ability to find all sorts of trvia and then annoy all of us with it are breathtaking.

[pippadaisy[$]]

He's welcome to share with me anytime. I can't find my keys half the time, but know LOTS of useless information.

[hadassahchana[$]]

LOL!

[eris esoteric]

How the world of quantum physics would have changed if it was Poe in Schrödinger's Box....

[hadassahchana[$]]