Who was the first ballerina and how do parachutes work? Try our kids’ quiz

1. Hope, 10, asks: who was the first ever female ballet dancer?

   1. Peppa Pig

   2. Anna Pavlova

   3. Dame Darcey Bussell

   4. Mademoiselle De Lafontaine

2. Robin, 5, asks: how do chickens make the hard shell for eggs?

   1. They sit on their eggs and that makes the outside of the eggs go hard and form a shell

   2. They paint their eggshells with glue

   3. Calcium carbonate forms around the egg membrane before it gets laid

   4. Chickens make their eggshell out of seashells

3. Arran, 6, asks: how high could I jump on the moon?

   1. About 10 times as high as you can jump on Earth

   2. About twice as high as you can jump on Earth

   3. About six times as high as you can jump on Earth

   4. Half as high as you can jump on Earth

4. Stanley, 7, asks: how do parachutes work?

   1. There’s less gravity high up, so they can float

   2. As the person falls, the resistance of the air against the wide canopy of the parachute slows it down

   3. Parachutes have tiny propellers that keep them floating

   4. Parachutes are magical wings lent to us by fairies

5. Emily, 10, asks: how tall is the tallest underwater mountain?

   1. 10,200 metres

   2. 120 metres

   3. 12 metres

   4. 1,200 metres

Solutions

1:D - Mademoiselle De Lafontaine was the first professional female ballet dancer. She lived in France from 1655-1738. However, the first non-professional ballet dancers were noblemen in the courts of Italy and France. Louis XIV made it super popular – he loved to dance!, 2:C - Chicken eggs make their own shell while the egg is in the chicken’s uterus. It takes about 20 hours. Calcium carbonate (also found in seashells and bones) forms around the egg in layers., 3:C - If you can jump a height of 50cm on Earth, you could jump 3 metres on the moon, which is six times as high! , 4:B - A parachute has a large surface area, like a big open umbrella. This is so it can create air resistance, which slows its fall; the force of gravity pulls the parachute down, but as it falls, strong forces produced by air resistance push against it., 5:A - There is an underwater mountain in the Pacific Ocean, in Hawaii, called the Mauna Kea. Measured from its underwater base, it is about 10,200 metres in height. That’s taller than Mount Everest, which is 8,848 metres high!

Scores

1. 5 and above.

2. 4 and above.

3. 3 and above.

4. 2 and above.

5. 0 and above.

6. 1 and above.

Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a weekly podcast answering children’s questions, out now as a book.

Does your child have a question? Submit one here