When we last left off with our transportation small group, Henry was going to ask his mom and dad about hot air balloons, in order to help Sylvie figure out how they fly.
“The fire helps it float up and the wind helps it go to the different places.”-HENRY
Is that what your mom and dad told you?
“No, I just knew.”-HENRY
What did your mom and dad have to say about it?
“That was right.”-HENRY
The children also remembered that they wanted to find books that would tell them more information about rocket ships, hot air balloons, and subway trains.
“Why is this guy lying there?”-QUINN (referring to an astronaut on one of the pages in his book)
“Maybe he’s injured.”-MADELINE P.R.
He’s strapped up.
“He’s sleeping.”-QUINN
I wonder why he would be strapped up in space?
“You float.”-QUINN
“I heard a video about people who sleep and they say that they sleep in little hammocks like that.”-QUINN
“Look. Look. Look.”-QUINN (referring to another picture of a rocket ship breaking apart during blast off)
After spending some time looking through Quinn’s rocket ship book and observing the smoke and fire during take off, the group turned back to Sylvie’s hot air balloon book.
“The fire!”-MADELINE P.R.
“Why don’t they die? Why don’t they die?”-QUINN
“Why doesn’t the fire touch you?”-QUINN
The flame shoots up, not out. The people are down here. In the rocket ship, it seems to shoot down. But in the hot air balloon, it seems to shoot up.
“This one shoots down because it has to go up.”-QUINN
“The rocket ship has to shoot down because if the rocket ship doesn’t shoot down then the rocket ship doesn’t go up. Because the fire pushes the rocket ship up.”-QUINN
The group ended wondering how the hot air balloon gets down.
“Well, they have a problem they just solve it.”-MADELINE P.R.
“They pop the balloon.”-SYLVIE
“They unlight it.”-HENRY
“It will just fall straight down.”-QUINN
“If they unlight it and then pop the balloon, then it will fall straight down really fast.”-QUINN
Then what would happen?
“They die.”–ALL
So I wonder how we get the hot air balloon to go slowly down.
“Light (unlight?) a little bit of the fire at a time.”-HENRY
The important thing is not to stop questioning;
curiosity has its own reason for existing.
-Albert Einstein