Elinor Wonders Why
The Science of Staying Warm / The Seed of an Idea
It's a wintery Saturday morning and Elinor, Olive and Ari are getting ready to go out and play in the snow with other kids, but Olive wonders why she has to wear so many winter clothes. This catches Elinor's curiosity, so she observes that some kids have thick fur (like her) and others (like Olive) don't. At the same time, she sees that the kids with thick fur don't need coats, and the ones with without thick fur need thicker coats. They conclude that fur must help animals stay warm. Now that Olive understands, she's excited to put on her winter stuff and have fun in the snow!
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Elinor becomes fascinated by the Velcro on Ari's new watch and convinces her friends to help her find out how it works. First, they make a list of what Velcro sticks to and what it doesn't stick to, but they need more observations, so they head out onto the playground. While outside, they observe that Velcro is very similar to a burr seed that is stuck to Ari's shirt, which is no coincidence at all! That's when they learn that the invention of Velcro was based off the burr seed. Nature is full of all sorts of inventive ideas!