Hawaii with Kids: Snorkeling and Tide Pooling on the Big Island

I was THRILLED that both kids took to snorkeling so quickly, so easily, and so, so happily. Just think--not only was this vacation absolutely marvelous right on its own, but it's also the vacation in which the kids discovered a new pastime and an entirely new way to see the world.

I was especially pleased for Will, because as a glasses-wearer myself, I know how wearing glasses can spoil something fun. But technology has apparently advanced since the last time I attempted to near-sightedly learn to scuba dive, and now the world contains such objects as magnifying masks! Will's grandparents were able to rent her a mask that corrected her vision underwater without glasses, and I know that must have made all the difference in the world for her.

As for me, I tried the heaviest magnification, fully planning to die snorkeling (I'm both claustrophobic and not a confident swimmer, so snorkeling just kind of sounds like certain death to me), but even that didn't correct my very heavy prescription, so the in-laws rented me a viewboard, and all the other toddlers and I were happy as clams on them, seeing everything the snorkelers could see but with our own anti-drowning buoying devices under us.

Best of all possible worlds.

But let's get back to the ocean fish otherwise known as my children!

Yes, most of my snorkeling photos are a game of Find the Snorkeler--a snorkeling person doesn't have much of a presence!

This spot is Two Step, the BEST snorkeling spot for children on the Big Island, in my opinion. We came here twice, and had a fabulous experience both times. There's open ocean snorkeling on one side, but also a shallow little bay with plenty of gorgeous creatures to spot. It's the last right before Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historic Site, and you can even see the site behind you in the photo below:

The entire family snorkeled, but I was hyperaware like an Australian shepherd the entire time, pretty much focused on knowing where the children were at all times, with glimpses of fish and sea turtles and coral and anemone in between. When Syd grew tired of snorkeling, I'd leave the water to watch her paddle around in the shallows while also supervising Will.

This kid. Happy as a clam.

Syd liked snorkeling as well as the next kid, but she got spooked here after FIVE sea turtles swam underneath her and started munching algae as if she wasn't there.

My beautiful Matt really is the fairest of them all. It was constant work to keep him from burning.

These people! The guy set up an honest-to-god DRONE to take this photo of them.

With all the snorkeling, we didn't do nearly as much tide pooling as I'd thought that we would, but we still did some, and it was always amazing. Here are the Puako Tide Pools, where you could spend an infinite amount of time, as there are miles of pools, and miles of rocks to clamber over between them:

We'd planned to snorkel at Kealakekua Bay State Historical Park, but when we got there I deemed the water way too rough for the kids. We could see the Captain Cook monument from across the bay, however, and also this pod of spinner dolphins:

Can I just say? I cannot BELIEVE we have seen dolphins in the wild! But we have! And here they are!

Another great snorkeling spot, Kahalu'u Beach Park, also happened to be less than a mile from our condo, so we went there plenty. There was a stand there where the in-laws rented my viewboard, and another stand where you could buy the Hawaii standard, shave ice.

More on shave ice later!

The snorkeling was also fairly shallow here--too shallow in some places, as you could easily get swept up onto the rocks--but the ocean was more rough than at Two Step. Gorgeous, though. Never anything but gorgeous: 

It was fitting that this was the last beach we visited on the Big Island, since it was also the first beach that we visited, just hours after we arrived. On that first visit, the kids and I were wading in the shallow area, not even really swimming, but just being AT the beach, you know? Anyway, as we wade, picking our way around the slippery lava rocks and looking for sandy places to stand on, something BIG swims past our legs.

A sea turtle. A genuine sea turtle, just out minding its own sea turtle business, eating algae off the rocks.

We followed that sea turtle around--at the prescribed safe distance, of course--for ages, until it finally swam off somewhere else. And we saw more sea turtles at almost every other beach after that, as well, including back here, on our final night before we left the Big Island for Oahu:

Magical, right?

Work Plans for the Week of October 19, 2015: World War 2 and Indiana

I'd actually decided to forgo posting my work plans for this week, our first week back after our three-week holiday, because I have so much that I'd rather say about Hawaii, but I've found that I miss referring to it! Apparently I review these posts a lot during the week to remind myself of my lesson plans and resources. I also outline specific lessons on the back of a hard copy of these work plans, and I note the supplies that I'll need on a given day in my planner, but writing out this online version of my plans, with links to my resources, also seems to be essential to my flow.

Memory work for this week consists of fraction terminology, the spelling words from chapter 2 of each kid's Wordly Wise, one page a day from their cursive workbooks, and Mandarin vocabulary for Will and ballet for Syd (Syd had to drop Mandarin for the rest of this semester, as one of her weekly Nutcracker rehearsals overlaps it). Books of the Day include some books on light aircraft for Will (she's currently on an airplane kick), the Magic School Bus book on volcanoes and Who Was Christopher Columbus? for Syd, a random children's biography of the Unsinkable Molly Brown for Will, and a few more books on volcanoes and Hawaii, as I plan to complete that unit study in the next couple of weeks, sigh.

I miss Hawaii!

And here's the rest of our week!

MONDAY: We were happy to see our fellow volunteers at our weekly shift at the local food pantry on this day! I got to tell loads of stories about our vacation in Hawaii, and the kids spent most of the shift putting address stickers on envelopes while listening to another worker tell about her time living in Africa ("Fruit bats would come to a fruit tree right outside her house! And did you know that if you see a lone hippo you should stay away from him, because he's probably an aggressive older male that's been kicked out of his group?").

The kids were not thrilled, unfortunately, to get back to Math Mammoth and cursive and other written work. Will has a handle on her fractions unit, at least, and so will eventually muscle through it, but as much as Syd loathes rounding, she loathes even more this current lesson that's asking her to round one or both factors in a multiplication problem in order to estimate an answer. I *think* it's the "guesswork" that bothers her, as she'd rather simply work the problem, but being able to estimate an answer IS important, so estimate I am making her, hour-long tantrums be damned. At least after my thorough rounding lessons she CAN round--she just doesn't want to!

On one of my homeschool group boards, another parent posted a link to an essay contest for fourth graders, on the topic of Indiana's upcoming bicentennial. The deadline is this Friday, but we've studied Indiana as a state enough that it's actually pretty do-able to bust this essay out as a review. I'm also requiring both kids to write an essay, although, of course, I'll only actually submit my fourth-grader's--mwa-ha-ha! On Monday, the children brainstormed the topic, on Tuesday, they outlined their essays, today they'll write them, tomorrow they'll revise them, and then I'll mail Syd's on Friday, exactly on the deadline!

We've been doing our World War 2 lessons in the evening, while Matt is home, to great success. I can provide a well-researched lecture on a World War 2 topic but Matt, who minored in history and for whom it's also a passion, always has more insight to add and knows all the best details to engage a child. This lesson on World War 2 propaganda went particularly well. We discussed propaganda and its purposes (to instill fear, to dehumanize the enemy, etc.), analyzed numerous examples, and then I had the children use this site to rewrite several propaganda posters. I'll talk more about this another time, and tell you all about how it eventually devolved, as everything does in this family, into a bunch of butt jokes, but for now, I'll just share with you one of Will's that's at least relevant to the war:

She's brought out the subtext of the poster quite well, don't you think?

TUESDAY: Tuesday's World War 2 lesson was meant to expand on our visit to the Pacific Aviation Museum in Hawaii. Matt discussed the evolution of aircraft in war, its uses, the different types of aircraft, and showed them how they were identified using spotter cards. We have one actual spotter card that was actually used during the war, and the activity book for Story of the World volume 4 has an entire sheet of recreations that you can use for matching and playing Memory.

Again, that took place in the evening, as we spent most of the afternoon at a homeschool group's playgroup, with me chatting happily about Hawaii and Girl Scouts and kids, and the actual kids playing in the leaves and on the playground with friends. Happy autumn days!

WEDNESDAY: This morning I only have Will here with me at the table right now, completing her page of cursive; Syd is having the worst time adjusting back to the Eastern Time Zone, poor kid. I've been waking her up around 9 am, but she's got ballet tonight, so I want her to be well-rested. 

We use these World War 2 timeline cards for our unit; today, not only will the kids be gluing the couple of 1942 dates into their notebooks, but I'll also be asking them to work together to pick out the most important dates from those we've studied so far--we've now got too many dates to ask the kids to keep memorizing them all, so they'll select the most relevant to focus on.

THURSDAY: As well as finishing their Indiana Bicentennial essays, the kids will have a lesson on the soldiers of World War 2--their differing characteristics in different countries, the branches of service, ranks, etc.--and I've got some paper dolls that show off the different uniforms that they can make.

While Will has horseback riding class, Syd and I will probably work some more on her dollhouse--the stairs apparently need stair runners made of red felt!

FRIDAY: This WAS going to be our day at home this week, but then I learned that Will has a podcast taping at the library and Syd has an extra Nutcracker rehearsal on this afternoon... oh, well! The kids will finish with their timelines through 1944 on this day--we'll have their lectures for these dates over the weekend--and hopefully we'll have time for most of the fun projects that I'd planned. We'll have a brief review of skeletal anatomy, then the kids will make this tape resist skeleton project--I plan to have them press their tape against a towel first, and hopefully that will take enough of the sticky off that it won't tear as much as it apparently did in the original project.

We never did get to the fruit decay observation that I'd wanted to do last month, but I know that Syd wants her Detective badge--just don't let me forget to take the kids to the store on Thursday and have them pick out fruit to observe!

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: On Saturday, we've got our local university's Science Fest, which is a HUGE favorite of the kids, and then there's just a string of ice skating, ballet, Mandarin, and ballet again before we can collapse back at home, play with the chickens, then eat take-out pizza and watch a movie. Lilo and Stitch, perhaps?

On Sunday, I want the family to go to the apple orchard, but they may want to just stay home all day and play with the chickens. That will be okay, too!

Hawaii with Kids: Beaches on the Big Island

BEACHES!!!!!

I mean, of course! You can see all the volcanoes and petroglyphs and ki'i that you want, but at the end of the day (and the beginning of the day, and the middle of the day, and spontaneously on the way to every single other place) you're going to find yourself at the beach.

Living in our swimsuits as we did was actually pretty great for our luggage, as we only brought as much as we could carry onto the plane (since we used two different airlines, it would have cost a whopping ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS just to check a single bag for our trip. There was nothing that I wanted to bring that badly!). And when you're already wearing your swimsuit, well, when you pass that sign for the beach, you might as well pull off and jump in the water!

Big Island beaches aren't really the kind that Hawaii is famous for (well, other than the black-sand beach and the green-sand beach, of course...); the Big Island is just too new, and therefore too rife with sharp lava rock. I don't think we'd been on the island for four hours before I got my first cut on the lava rocks, and Will walked out of the water at that same beach with a cut on her leg just streaming blood--shark bait!

Also, FYI? Lava rock cuts hurt a LOT!

At Kiholo Bay, for instance, which we visited because Will particularly wanted to see the Queen's Bath, not only were we completely unable to find the Queen's Bath (although we did see wild goats), but Will, while wading out in the remarkably rocky surf, fell, cut herself and got a sharp splinter embedded in her finger, sat down on a rock in the water to tend it, got pulled out too far by an undertow in a wave that hit her, struggled her way back to the shallows, sat down to tend her finger, got pulled out too far by a wave again, repeat ad infinitum, while her grandmother and I were standing just on the other side of the sharp rocks shrieking at her (me with a lot of swears, I fear) to come back to the goddamned beach before she fucking drowned already!

Again, my swears. I was very upset.

It was only when I began to clamber across the sharp rocks, myself, that Will deigned to "hear" us and come back to safety. Even the most stubborn kid in the universe knows that if her mother has to come and GET HER, well, the universe has never seen the trouble that will then fall upon that kid.

And that is why we used to call the kid Undertow until, by her request, we changed it to Riptide, because she says it sounds cooler.

It took one and a half weeks for that lava rock splinter to work its way out of her finger, in case you're keeping score. Along with that, add the approximately 18 hours that it took for the child to thwart my explicit instructions to "please obey me in front of your grandparents so that they think that I know how to parent you." No problem, though, as I rarely fool anyone on THAT front, sigh...

Lava rocks notwithstanding, we did, of course, find some lovely beaches on the Big Island. Later that same day, after snorkeling and tide pools and Pu'ukohola Heiau and before petroglyphs, we found ourselves at Spencer Beach Park, a beach with sand, not too many rocks, plenty of shade, and tons of local families so you know it's legit:

Even on this sandy beach, you see that there are still rocks. We didn't find a beach completely lacking rocks until Oahu.

We found other beaches where it was fun to bob in the waves and play in the surf (Matt lost soooo many pairs of sunglasses on this trip!), but when it came to simply wanting to swim, our resort's pool was always a sure thing:

Syd cannot get it through her head that she doesn't *really* need to hold her nose underwater anymore.

But what the Big Island may lack in conventional beaches, it has in abundance in regards to specialty beaches! We didn't visit the green sand beach, because it requires a hike that the grandparents weren't up for (three miles down, and then when you're done and you're all hot and exhausted, you've got to hike three miles back up!), but we did spend a morning at Punalu'u Black Sand Beach, which turned out to be by far my favorite beach on the Big Island:

Sea turtle! We saw LOTS of sea turtles in the water, but this is the only turtle that we saw chilling out on the beach. You've got to stay pretty far away from them, which is nearly impossible in the water, as you can't always see them until they're right up on you. Here on the sand, however, you can get a nice, long look through your telephoto lens:

There were turtles swimming all around in the water with us, too--you'd be bopping around in the waves, and then see a flipper or a head pop up a few feet from you.

Probably looking at a turtle.

Just look at that sand. I LOVED this beach!

Can you tell from these photos that the weather was just gorgeous? We only had a couple of rainy days during our entire trip. I'm looking at these photos right now, chilly in my sweatpants on this cold Indiana morning, and wishing that I was still there in the water. 

At Spencer Beach Park, we met a haole family who lives on the Hilo side of the island. They told us that they were soon to move back to the mainland, to Idaho, in fact, so that their children could "experience the seasons."

I've experienced the seasons, and let me tell you, I'd rather be spending every single one of them in Hawaii!

Hawaii with Kids: Exploring the Hawaiian Monarchy on the Big Island

We're baaaaaaaaack!!!

We had a fabulous time in Hawaii! Beaches! Cheap, delicious sushi! Sea turtles! Volcanoes! Both kids learned to snorkel, Will and Matt learned to surf, we hiked and swam and explored and had ourselves the best possible vacation. And this time there were NO pet catastrophes while we were away--yay!!!--and now we're just struggling to get past our jet lag and get back on the Eastern Time Zone schedule, one that is SIX HOURS later than where we've spent the last two weeks.

For instance, it's 5:30 in the morning in Hawaii right now. Yawn. The kids have just gotten up, although tomorrow they'll have to get up a LOT earlier in order to go to ice skating and ballet. They are not going to be pleased.

Instead of breaking down our vacation chronologically, which I think would be boring for you ("We did this, and then we did this, and then we did this other thing!", etc.), I'm going to highlight the themes that I emphasized. Since we went to Hawaii with kids, obviously everything was more-or-less kid-friendly, if not just plain kid-centric, and so much of what we did was based on things that I wanted to explore as a family, for the kids. When you homeschool, a vacation is really just a homeschool field trip!

One of our major areas of study in our Hawaii unit is the Hawaiian monarchy: not only is the monarchy interesting in itself, and a good opportunity to study a different form of government for my kids who haven't done a lot of British history yet, but the way that groups have historically taken over, or been taken over, has turned into a theme that we've been emphasizing lately. Will and I, especially, have been having a lot of heavy discussions about how the punitive response to Germany after World War 1 led in many ways to Germany's actions in World War 2, just as the US embargo on Japan had consequences, just as Israel's actions against Palestine have consequences, etc.

Tangent. Did I mention that it's not quite 6 am in Hawaii time? Here in Indiana, I'm sleepy!

On the Big Island in Hawaii, there are some well-preserved vestiges of the early Hawaiian monarchy. We visited two national parks dedicated to this. Pu'ukohola Heiau is a great one for exploring the early monarchy system, in which the Hawaiian islands were divided among several monarchs, and the beginning of one united monarchy under King Kamehameha I.

And of COURSE there is a Junior Ranger program!

Protip: Bring your own pencil case with pencils, colored pencils, and a pencil sharpener with you to national parks that have Junior Ranger programs. The park will usually give your kid a pencil, but sometimes it's just a golf pencil, and even though many Junior Ranger books require coloring or drawing, they don't often have crayons to lend, and even when they do, it's just the little pack of restaurant-style crayons that they have to offer. The kids can work much more contentedly, and at a higher level, when they've got a full set of good supplies.

This park tells the story of the youth who grew up to become King Kamehameha I, as well as the story of how he united the Hawaiian Islands. The highlight of the park is this heiau that Kamehameha had built and dedicated to their war god:

He summoned his cousin, a rival king, to this place, ostensibly to sign a peace treaty, but when the cousin and his party arrived, Kamehameha and his party killed them all, fulfilling a prophecy and leading to the unification of the islands.

You can't go inside the heiau unless you're a native Hawaiian doing something of religious or cultural significance, but you can walk a trail that meanders around to a view of a submerged temple dedicated to shark gods:

The black-tipped reef sharks used to be fed here daily, and still congregate here. Will and I reckon that we saw one through the binoculars!

Will also became very interested in Hawaiian weapons here--lots of koa wood and shark teeth--but the recreations in the gift shop were all hundreds of dollars, alas. A future DIY opportunity awaits!

On another day, we all went to Pu'uhonua O Honaunau, the site of royal grounds and a sanctuary for kapu-breakers:

The kapu were royal laws--some were good, some were nutty, and the breaking of any one of them was punishable by death... unless you could reach the pu'uhonua in your district. To get to this one, you had to swim across a bay to this place:

These ki'i tell you that you're on royal or sacred ground. Come into this area, or even let your shadow fall into it, and you've broken kapu:

I super want a model of one to put at the edge of my yard, but that would probably be culturally insensitive.

As former royal grounds, the national park here gives a good example of what royal life looked life. Lovely huts, a fishing pond, a place to worship, a place to play games--

Konane is a game played with black and white stones. You can jump in a straight line over your opponent. The kids fought EVERY single time they played it.

Here's an original one that was actually played by royal Hawaiian children.

 The indentations in this huge rock were maybe used for pounding poi, and maybe for evaporating salt out of seawater:

Kiddo loves her coconuts!

You're rarely going to see my children's faces on this vacation, on account of I sewed these fair-skinned babies giant bucket hats and made them wear them every time they went outside. 

We saw many, many, many of these Moorish idols while snorkeling, but of course I can't take my camera snorkeling! Here's a school that we saw in a tide pool here:

Later, on Oahu, we visited the Bishop Museum to see a larger overview of the monarchy, including a biography and artifacts from every single monarch. I'll tell you all about that another time!

As far as touring tips for your own Hawaii vacation with kids: neither site was riveting, but they both had Junior Ranger programs. If you don't have kids who are super into Junior Rangers and/or you're not making a study of the Hawaiian monarchy, only Pu'uhonua O Honaunau is probably worth a visit, and then only because it's the best example of ki'i that we saw on our entire trip, and ki'i are pretty impressive. There's also a superb and kid-friendly snorkeling site, Two Step, just before the gate to this park, and through the gate, but to the left of the actual park, there's a drive that leads to a lovely picnic spot and tidepooling area.

If you've got kids who are into wildlife spotting, or who are older, patient, and handy with the binoculars, Pu'ukohola O Honaunau is worth visiting at low tide, binoculars in hand, to look for the black-tipped reef sharks. We saw lots of wildlife on this trip, but this is the only place we saw a shark!

Finally, here are some additional activities to enrich or add context to a study of the Hawaiian monarchy. We did some of these, and some I've set aside for the next time we study Hawaii:

• Read this graphic of the Hawaiian monarchs. We have this up on our wall with our other Hawaii visual materials. 
• Watch the American Experience episode on Hawaii's last monarch. This was really dry, so I didn't make the kids finish watching it, but Matt and I did. Even we had trouble getting through it, but it was worth it for the information.
• Make a paper ki'i. I will make the kids do this, because I want them!
• Complete a shark unit. I don't think we'll do this, but a visit to Pu'ukohola O Honaunau could easily inspire an entire unit on sharks.

And if you're worried that all I'm going to show you of our trip to Hawaii is a billion museums and historical sites, don't worry--tomorrow I'm going to show you some beautiful beaches!