Bryan: Mommy, did you know that this is called the carapace? The shell part here.
Bryan was giving me a lesson on zoology this morning as I emptied his art bag from school. He was waving his hand around what a normal person would just say the hard shell protecting the tortise. According to the Dictionary of Difficult Words on the Internet, carapace means "exo-skeleton; protective shell of tortoise." Of course, I didn't know.
Me: Who told you that?
Bryan: Ms Judy.
Me: Are you sure? I'm gonna check it later on the Internet.
Bryan: And Mommy, the other side is called plastron. The belly part. (Then he flipped the tortise around.)
Me: Hmmm... ermm, ok, I will check.
I did check. He's right. I didn't even know how to spell the words. But thank goodness, phonics helped me to get them right.
Ok, nothing impressive here since he's regurgitating what he learnt in school last week.
This doesn't show how much my son knows, rather how little Alan and I know!
Best part was this:
Alan: Wow... you know, you can tell me this again tomorrow. Because I won't remember what they are by then.
Hey, so our son is doing a little better. He still remembers his turtle after a week!
Yesterday he was trying to tell me something about the anatomy of an insect. Now I can't treat what he says lightly, can I? I might learn more than I think I would.
