Spider Gossamer Silk Ballooning

We just learned about the Spider Silk Glands.

Sometimes when little baby spiders are born, there are not enough small insects for all the spiders to share for food,
so they need to move to a new place where there are more things for them to eat.

It would take a very long time for them to walk far enough to find more food, so they have a special way to travel very far easily.
The baby spiders stand up on their tip toes, put their abdomen in the air, and using their spinnerets they shoot some very fine silk called gossamer out. The gossamer collects together and almost looks like a kite.
Then the spider waits for a gust of wind to come along, and because they are just tiny spiders they get picked up and blown through the air, flying until they land on something like a tree where they can set up a web and start looking for food.

This is called ballooning or kiting.

(from: wikipedia - spider silk)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Reindeer

Ascending Aorta

We've learned that the left ventricle chamber of the heart pushes the good oxygenated blood to all the parts of your body, and the big tube leaving the heart is called the aorta.

The aorta starts by going up toward your head, and then it turns and goes down towards your belly area.
The part where it is going up is called the ascending aorta.
The word ascending means going up.


(from: wikipedia - ascending aorta)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Depressor Lip Muscles

Hawaii

We just learned about the US State of Georgia.

The US state of Hawaii is way out in the Pacific ocean, and is made up of hundreds of islands.
There are eight large islands: Ni'ihau, Kaua'i, O'ahu, Moloka'i, Lāna'i, Kaho'olawe, Maui and the Island of Hawai'i.

The biggest island is called Hawai'i, just like the name of the state.
Sometimes so they don't get mixed up, people just call it The Big Island.

In the language of the native Hawaiians, they said the vowels a little differently than we normally do.
For the word Hawaii, it's pronounced Hah Wah Ee Ee.

Any time you see the apostrophe like this ' then you say the vowel separately.
Lana'i is Lah Nah Ee.

Hawaii was the 50th state added to the United States, in 1959.

The state nickname is The Aloha State, and it's motto is Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ʻĀina i ka Pono which means The Life of the Land is Perpetuated in Righteousness

(from: wikipedia - hawaii)

The flag of the state of Hawaii has the flag of the United Kingdom on it, to remember that Hawaii used to be owned by the United Kingdom. There are also eight red white and blue stripes, for the eight major islands of the state.

(from: wikipedia - flag of hawaii)

The seal of Hawaii has a shield on it, with red white and blue stripes, and a pulo'ulo'u which is a stick with a ball on the end that was used for kings and queens.
On the left is King Kamehameha I who helped bring all the islands together, and the goddess of liberty on the right.

(from: wikipedia - seal of hawaii)

There are many waterfalls all over all of the islands, like the Akaka Falls waterfall on The Big Island.

(from: wikipedia - akaka falls state park)

There are beaches with black sand on them in Hawaii, like Punalu'u Beach.

(from: wikipedia - punalu'u beach)

The islands of Hawaii were made when volcanoes erupted and the lava cooled and turned into islands.

The Big Island has five volcanoes on it, and two of them are active.
The most active one is called Kīlauea and it has been erupting since 1983.

(from: wikipedia - kīlauea)

On the island of Maui, there is a shield volcano called Haleakala.

(from: wikipedia - haleakalā)

The 44th president of the United States Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

(from: wikipedia - barack obama)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: South Korea

Last Supper - Judas' Betrayal

When Jesus was having his Last Supper with his apostles, he said that one of them would betray him.

There were a lot of people that did not like Jesus, and some of them wanted to have him killed, but they wanted someone like one of his apostles to tell them where he was.

Jesus knew that Judas would be the one who would do it, so at the last supper he told his apostles that Judas was the one who would betray him.

Judas left the supper and went to tell the people who wanted to kill Jesus where he was.

(from: wikipedia - last supper)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Jesus' Apostles - Judas Iscariot

American Gothic - Grant Wood

We just learned about the painting Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer.

Another famous piece of art is the painting American Gothic by American painter Grant Wood in 1930.

The story behind the painting is that he was driving around the town of Eldon Iowa and saw an old farmhouse that had a fancy window in it, and he thought it was a bit silly to have a fancy window on such a plain house.
So he paid his sister and his dentist to pose as a farmer and his daughter.

You can notice that the pitchfork the farmer is holding has three prongs.
The three lines just like the pitchfork also show up on the farmer's overalls, his face, and the window of the farmhouse.

People were not happy with the painting at first because they thought Grant Wood was making fun of farmers in Iowa where the painting was done.
They thought he made them look boring and grumpy.

Grant Wood said that he actually liked hard working Americans that were serious and were farmers, and that's why he did the painting.

Very soon after he made this artwork, the Great Depression happened, which was a time where people had to work very hard to even get a little bit of food, and many people lost their jobs and were very poor.

Because this painting looked like serious hard working Americans, it became very famous and people liked it a lot because they thought it was a good picture to show very serious hard working Americans.


(from: wikipedia - american gothic)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Lunar Grabens

German - Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten

We counted to five, now let's count to ten in German!
6 seis - sounds like zeks /?/
7 sieben - sounds like zeeben /?/
8 acht - sounds like acht /?/
9 neun - sounds like no-een /?/
10 zehn - sounds like tsay-n /?/


(from: wikipedia - Goethe Institute)

Do you remember how to say it in Spanish?
seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez

Do you remember how to say it in French?
six, sept, huit, neuf, dix

Occluded Front

We've learned that a Cold Front is a bunch of cold air moving along, and a Warm Front is a bunch of warm air moving along.

What if a really fast cold front catches up to a slower moving warm front?

Or a really fast warm front catches up to a slower moving cold front?

When either of those things happen, it is called an Occluded Front.
The word occluded means to close or shut.

Remember that the cold air is heavier than warm air, so whenever a cold front catches up to a warm front, it pushes under the warm front and the warm air goes up.
When the warm air catches up to a cold front, it goes up above the cold air.

Sometimes storms and even funnel clouds that could turn into tornadoes happen at occluded fronts, because the cold and hot air is all getting pushed around in different locations.

We know the picture for the cold front is blue triangles, and the picture for the warm front is half red circles.
The picture for the occluded front is purple triangles and half circles on the same line.


(from: wikipedia - occluded front)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Fissure Vent