Emma: Mom, are birds warm-blooded or cold-blooded?
Carina: Well, what does it mean to be cold-blooded?
Emma: You have to be in the sun all the time to stay warm.
Carina: Do you know of any birds that live in the winter? We learned about some last night.
Emma: Well, yeah, but if birds are warm-blooded, then why do they bother migrating for the winter?
Carina: Wow. That's a great question. I don't know. I think different birds do it for different reasons. My guess is food.
Emma: Food?
Carina: Yeah. I mean, I don't know for sure. But I'm guessing it's hard for them to get to food. What do birds eat?
Emma: Worms.
Carina: Right. And where do worms live?
Emma: In the ground.
Carina: Right. So I'm guessing that since the ground is covered in snow in the winter it's pretty hard to get to their food. And you know it's not just birds that migrate. People migrate too. People who live in Maine migrate down to where it's warmer for the winter all the time because there's so much snow. Ma B and Pa B do that. They don't stay in Maine in winter. They come down here where it's warm.
(after thinking a moment...)
Emma: Where is it colder? The arctic or antarctica?
Carina: Antarctica (I only knew this because we'd read it last night).
Emma: Is Maine as cold as Antarctica?
Carina: NO! Antarctica is much colder.
Emma: How cold does it get in Maine?
Carina: Eh, I'd guess 10 or 20 below zero.
Emma: Whoa! How cold is it in Antarctica?
Carina: I don't know honey. 100 below zero?
Emma: How can a number be below zero?
Carina: Oh sweetie there's a whole world of numbers below zero. They're called negative numbers.
Emma: How many numbers are there below zero?
Carina: As many as there are above zero.
(Yup. That was our conversation over breakfast! Fortunately we ran out of time before I had to start explaining variables in algebra...)
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