Hawaii with Kids: Volcanoes National Park

It's the Iceland of the Pacific, the Yellowstone of... anyplace other than Yellowstone. It's a place where you can tromp up to telephoto distance of the crater of an active volcano.

It's one of my most favorite places on this planet, Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

I LOVE earth science. I love extreme weather, I love the ocean, I love geology. I love it when our planet is spitting something at us, or something is oozing out of it towards us, or smelly air is wafting from its bowels and coming our way. Matt has gamely hung out with me within touch of flowing lava, and definitely within scalding distance of spurting geysers, and I've been really excited, the past couple of years, to do a lot of that with the kids, as well. We didn't come within touching distance of flowing lava this time (unlike the last time Matt and I were in Hawaii together, and there was lava flowing within the boundary of the park and you could hike there, this time lava was flowing on private land, out in the middle of nowhere), but we saw every single other thing you could possibly see in this park in one day, of that I am sure.

Even our entrance into the park was heralded with excitement as our very own fourth grader used this opportunity to hand in her certificate and receive a free national park pass for the entire year, thanks to the Every Kid in a Park program:

It was a Big Deal, and an especially sweet experience because it was clearly a Big Deal to the park rangers, as well. Actually, everyone was super excited *except* for poor Syd, who'd been woken from a sound sleep in the back of the car for this.

I made it up to her by taking her picture standing in the fumes from a steam vent:

Here she is when the wind's blowing the other way:

Notice how responsibly Syd is standing on the near side of the fence, the other side of which has lots of signs like this:

Here's our little Riptide standing in front of the same vent:

Sigh...

Although you can't get close to the crater, itself, even from a distance it's impressive:

We could see the fumes brown against the clouds miles before we even entered the park, and could see the fumes from the lava flow outside the park from even further away, I think.

 Of COURSE there's a Junior Ranger program here, and the kids happily worked on their books throughout the day. One of the activities in the book asks the child to create a poster detailing an important rule in the park. The children were both inspired by this, and spent quite a lot of time creating the bloodiest, most brutal posters that they could think of:

There's an axe murderer waiting for that litterbug.

 I'll tell you about our petroglyph hike in this park later, but we also spent quite a lot of time just aimlessly rambling about one of the old lava flows. It's a rocky barren, with strange hills and valleys and crests and ridges where all the things used to be that the lava burned.

It was wonderful.

I love this picture of Matt. My favorite man on my favorite lava flow--it should be the centerfold of a calendar.

We drove around the park to see other old craters--

--and a rocky arch extending out into the sea--

There was a sea turtle messing around in the surf here.

 --and catching sight of the plume from the far-away lava flow--

--but we also took time to hike a lava tube, something that I had been really, really, REALLY wanting to do!

A lava tube is an amazing thing--round and smooth, and the roots of the plants above stretch down through the roof and drip water onto you as you hike through it.

 And outside, it's a jungle:

The big show here in Volcanoes National Park is watching the sunset from the balcony of the Jagger Museum. We settled in while it was still daylight-- 

--and it occurred to me that this particular view looked familiar. We'd seen this exact view from the park's webcam, for months and months now! Hmmm... could we find that webcam?

Reader, we could!

The children turned in their Junior Ranger books, and along with the regular coolness that is a park ranger discussing their work with them and telling them even more cool facts and myths and interesting stories, something extra cool happened. He brought out a book, and explained to the children that from the very first Junior Ranger, every single child who has ever become a Junior Ranger has signed their book, with their name, where they're from, and the date. When a book is filled, they bring out a new book, and the old one is sent to the national park's archives, where it is kept forever. A hundred years from now, someone can pull out this book and see that these two kids from Indiana became Junior Rangers on this day.

So cool, right? So, so cool.

Although during the daytime, all you can see from the crater is the plume, as the sun sets, you start to notice this happening:

And then when it's dark, it looks like this:

They're terrible photos, but you get the idea: the crater GLOWS. There's magma boiling down there where you can't see it, and at night it makes the crater and the plume glow, and reflects off the clouds above it.

Soo... volcanoes, lava, jungles, caves, Junior Ranger program, petroglyphs, evening show, and a gift shop that sells the small collectible sea turtles that the children both became obsessed with during this vacation.

Just another perfect day in paradise.

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!