Salmon Stories

MORNING MUSIC: Friday morning means Musikgarten. We made the one block walk over to the studio, Kirby in tow. The kids were excited to go, and 50 minutes later upon my return, I got to see them engaged in a great musical exercise using hula hoops. By my eye, they are enjoying this class immensely. It's especially gratifying to see CJ so engaged, as his default is so often to be somewhat guarded.

SALMON FEST PREP: Since tomorrow we will be attending the Salmon Festival at nearby Fisherman's Terminal (PDF list of events), I thought today would be a great day for us to study salmon. I started by reviewing The Salmon Life Cycle from the Department of Ecology with the kids. Then I found a salmon fact sheet, lifecycle chart and quiz on EnchantedLearning.com. I told the kids before hand that there was a quiz at the end, and I think that made them pay more attention. : )

The kids love games (especially Mr. CJ), so I found some salmon games online (have I mentioned lately how much I heart the Internet?). For starters we visited the GoldSeal Kids Zone . (GoldSeal is a Canadian company that kills, er, cans, salmon.) Fun, but not particularly challenging games.

Next, we tried the Salmon Challenge, a game (by the folks right here in Metro King County) to help the players see how their decisions help or harm our environment and our salmon. It was definitely above 1st grade level material, so I helped the kids through it.
ANIMATED SALMON: I wanted to add a little video to our salmon studies so I turned, of course, to YouTube. There I found a really charming Sammy the Salmon video made by a second grader and her father. The kids were absolutely rapt while watching it. We also watched a very informative Discovery Channel video about the life cycle of a salmon in the Pacific Northwest.

SALMON STORY: Our hot topic reading for the day was First Salmon, by Roxane Beauclair Salonen (with colorful illustrations by Jim Fowler). It wove together information about the life of the salmon and the importance of the Pacific Northwest Native American First Salmon celebration with a rather poignant story about a Native American boy who missed his recently deceased Uncle Joe. As has been our normal, we read it outside, on the swing.

FISHY FIELD TRIP: In hopes of seeing some of what we learned in action, we headed (on foot - a 4-plus mile, hilly jog round trip) to the Ballard Locks this afternoon. We have been there before, but armed with their new knowledge of the salmon life cycle, it really meant a lot more to the kids this trip, and they were very excited to see a couple of coho salmon making their way upstream. Today we had learned that of the 8,000 eggs a salmon deposits in the stream bed, only 2 make it back upstream to their birthplace, so the kids were aware of just how remarkable the cohos' return was.

PROUD PENGUINS: CeeJ & Bee spent about 15 minutes today playing Club Penguin and during that timeframe, each of them received an invitation to take a test to become a Secret Agent Penguin (someone who helps keep the penguin community safe by reporting bad/dangerous/predatory behavior). They took a test (where they basically had to prove they were doing it for the right reasons) and both achieved the coveted Secret Agent Status. Needless to say, they were THRILLED.