Many American adults immediately recognize this sculpture, and therefore the city where it is located. But few kids do, unless they are local kids. Thomas correctly identified this photo this afternoon as Chicago, Millennium Park, featuring Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate sculpture (nicknamed The Bean). Here are the details, delivered by his mom Kit:

Thomas said, “It’s a big city.”

I said, “What’s the most interesting thing in the photo?” After he pointed to Cloud Gate, I asked him to brainstorm descriptive words. He listed: plain old ball, cave, umbrellas beside it, don’t know what the curvy bowl thing is for, people go under it, reflection.

[He learned about reflection a couple of months ago when we walked downtown in the evening. We spent most of the walk home talking about the concept of reflective surfaces. I was so glad he remembered the word because I knew it would be key to him finding the location.]

He used his brainstormed words to search “reflection ball big city,” which was enough to find Cloud Gate. When he found a photo he said, “Let’s match the background.” We had a chance to talk about how scaffolding can change the look of a building.

He used Google maps and his favorite little man to look around Millennium Park. We also looked at this 360 map.

He never used the word “bean.”