Level 2 exam questions (and free response section)

Edith's questions these days are ever more interesting yet ever harder to answer in a way that will make sense to someone her age. Nerdy teacher-type that I am, I love the challenge.

Some recent queries/discussion prompts:

• What are taxes, and why do people argue about them?

• I think the red guys won the election in Colorado, because if you look at the map, more of the squares are red than blue. [In fact, Dems won most Colorado elections. Ensuing discussion of population density, how elections are counted, and how maps can mislead.]

• Remember when you told me that there's that mail company that thinks it's fastest to send every single letter to Kentucky first before sending it where it's going? I'm still not sure that's right. If I want to send a letter right across the street, why would they take it all the way to Kentucky first? I think I could get it there faster by walking across the street.

Meanwhile, Tom and I did a kid hand-off yesterday evening  without time to touch base with each other, and in the hour he was at a meeting, Alice wound up accurately conveying to me all major moments in their day (with some assistance from Edith):

• Daddy phone broken. Daddy get new phone.

• [Pointing to a wreath.] Christmas! Christmas on my house, too.

• I slip ice. I bonk my head. My bum hurt.

• I go Camel class.*  [Sticks out tongue.] I sit Dylan P. Dylan P. stick tongue. [The exuberant Dylan P. does, in fact, seem to have schooled Alice in the art of sticking out one's tongue at people.]

• I want some Daddy's blub. [I was mystified and rather taken aback to hear a toddler asking for her father's blood...until Edith reminded me that Tom had had his annual physical lab work done that morning. Guess Alice didn't think the doctor should be the only one to enjoy those colorful red vials.]

*Alice refers to Mrs. Hammel's kindergarten class as "Camel class." She and Tom volunteer there every other week.