We have a bedtime ritual that involves me reading a story or some other book to Bella before she heads off to sleep. She has her own library of books and at Christmas we got her about dinosaurs, or at least that is what was on the front cover, the book itself contains quite a few more aspects of natural history than that.
Since Christmas day we have been reading a few pages of the book. Today we started reading through the various time periods starting off with the Pre-Cambrian. We came across the word evolution and Bella seemed a little bit confused so I tried explaining it to her.
I explained that over a very long time living things change and assuming that their environment is in constant flux and presenting new challenges, from generation to generation there are minor almost undetectable changes - for example, you (Bella) are a little bit different from Mummy and Daddy.
Without skipping a beat, Bella comes out with “Yeah, because you and Mummy can’t put your toes in your mouth”.
I’m not sure whether I should be sending her to study at a university, or enrolling her in stand-up comedy school.
[...] I think you’ll find this amusing: Explaining Evolution to a Four Year Old. [...]