These are the type of thing that happens when you aren't actually planning a lesson of any kind but are merely going about your daily life. Only after the event does it occur to you, "There was a lesson in there. That would have been a perfect opportunity to mention a Science parellel to the kids, if only I'd thought of it." On the other hand, second hand descriptions don't do them justice. It's really the sort of thing that has most meaning to the person experiencing them, but I suppose we can be alert and recognise when our kids are experiencing similar things to point them out. Here are a few that have happened to me.

1) The "Fight or Flight" response. The effect of adrenalin on the human body. Some time ago, before Blake was born, I was having a relaxing bubble bath with a book one late afternoon. Logan and Emma were playing in the backyard of the house we lived in then, and I could hear their happy voices as a pleasant background sound while I soaked.

Suddenly there was a humungous "BANG" followed by a scream. I remembered a heavy old panelled wardrobe we had standing against the wall of the carport. My heart leaped into my throat. I was certain that it must have fallen on one of them and it would cause a serious injury, and maybe even squash them flat as a pancake. I jumped out of the bath, snatched a towel and raced outside dripping, trying to yell, "What happened?" but my vocal chords had frozen. There were two little faces looking at me. "What are you going on about? It was just part of our game."

"But what was that horrible Bang?"

"Just the neighbours slamming down their garage door."

"OK, I'll go back to my bath."

So I did. But when I sank back into the warm water, my heart was still racing, my eardrums were thumping, I could feel blood racing through my vessels and actually felt sick in the stomach. These were just the sort of symptoms I'd been describing to Logan while we were reading about the fight-or-flight response and the impact of sudden huge doses of adrenalin on the body. Interesting, but I would have preferred not to be a human guinea pig.

2) The link between a person's brain and their taste buds.

This one happened just a few days ago. I'd made a nice batch of potato and leek soup. Shortly after that, Andrew went into the kitchen and mixed up a pan of hot custard for dessert.

After tea, I walked back into the kitchen and saw an empty saucepan on the stove with a yummy looking creamy yellow substance in it. I thought, "That's the soup. It was delicious so I'll just have the scrapings."

I put the first spoonful into my mouth expecting the potato and leek flavour, but instead, got something sweet and more rubbery than I'd expected. I cringed and threw down the spoon because my first response was, "Yuck, what is this stuff?" I instantly realised it was the custard, so picked it up to finish it off after all. My brain had expected something savoury and rejected the sweet flavour until it realised the mistake I'd made. Then it was quick to tell my tastebuds that it was alright after all.

3) The effect of something stationary when you're expecting motion.

This one happened to me just yesterday. At our local shopping centre, there is a conveyer belt sort of escalator which takes customers and their trolleys up to the top car park. Having bought a few groceries, I walked over briskly, set my foot on it, and almost toppled over. The thing wasn't moving. They'd stopped it for repairs. I'm so used to stepping straight on and being carried all the way up, it really put my whole body out of whack for a moment.

4) The effect of heating a matchbox car.

This is another one that occurred while I was in the bath some time ago. It was a winter day and the window was slightly open. As I soaked, I began to smell a very unpleasant odor like old tyres. I thought one of the neighbours must have been having a very rotten burn-off. Then Logan called out, "Mum, Emma's posted one of my cars through the grills on the heater and it's on!"

So I came out to fix everything up and found a very flat, almost liquidy red pancake of a matchbox car.

I'm glad that one ended up OK. It could have been serious. Thank heavens for smoke detectors and little boys who are on the ball.

Looking out for Accidental Science experiments is fun and I'm sure there must be many more that we've all experienced collectively. I can almost imagine setting up a little booklet if I ended up with enough. Hmmm, maybe some day...