Oil Spill

In our Story About A State routine one evening a couple weeks ago, Teigue decided that he wanted a story about the Gulf of Mexico. I think he asked right after the oil spill initially happened so I talked to him about it. We talked about how the oil was coming up from the bottom of the ocean and was spreading over the surface. We talked about how birds and turtles were getting stuck in the oil and the shoreline were getting covered. It helped that I had stepped on some random tar ball when we were at Cabrillo tide pools a few weeks before so he could sort of understand just how sticky and icky the oil is- and what a problem it creates. He asked loads of questions that night about it and was obviously very bothered by it- we now talk about it almost daily. The other day while Jayno was napping, Teigue once again brought it up so I decided to use a visual aid so he could understand what the oil does.

We used olive oil for the oil and basil leaves for the shoreline at first, until Teigue decided that they should be the pelicans instead. When I first told him we would be using olive oil he said, "Gross! Why do we eat oil that we use for the car?!" I then add to explain the different kinds of oil that we use- some is from plants but the oil that is coming up in the Gulf was once the skin of a dinosaur (or other long dead animal). He thought that was pretty cool.

Anyway, visual aid. After we poured the oil in and it covered the leaves, I told Teigue to take a leaf out and look at it. Then I asked him to figure out how he was going to get the oil off. Uhh...soap? This little aid was so helpful in showing my budding little environmentalist just how bad it is that the oil was in the water and what it can do. He now sort of gets it especially since we see animals at the beach all the time, he can visualize how hard to would be to clean all of them. 

Oh, did you notice his Iron Man bracelet that was a party favor from his friend Zane's birthday last week? That is a standard part of his outfit now. He still holds his arm at a weird contorted uncomfortable angle because the bracelet feels odd on his arm, but thankfully it's not a 90º angle anymore, more like a 30º.