Moon and Seas

I've long been fascinated with the moon.  It's something I can stare at for great lengths while thinking about anything, everything.  It's the earth's only natural satellite, and it serves numerous important purposes.  I do not wish my children to be so detached from the lunar cycle like the rest of our society is.  I wanted them to understand its importance in marking true months, and I wanted them to know its effect on the tides, horticulture, animal behaviors, women's cycle, and more.

There is also so much to learn about the seas and the things in it.  And during our learning of the seas, the role of the moon on the tides and on animal mating, feeding, egg-laying and -hatching came up numerous times.

These are the things that made our learning journey enjoyable:

My Fun With Words, Volume 2 (The Southwestern Company: 1974), s.v. "moon" and "sea"

Follow the Moon by Sarah Weeks is a great book about a sea turtle who is found by a little boy and is told to follow the moon rather than a disco ball so that it can get in the ocean.  I like that we have this book and read it again for this study, because saw the real thing take place at least on two different episodes of our Blue Planet series (further below).

I Took the Moon for a Walk by Carolyn Curtis is a book that Elizabeth received in one of her Citrus Lane boxes for her birthday last year.  The main idea of this story is that it seems like the moon follows us wherever we go.

We watched a few Youtube videos via our PS3 on tv on the moon and the lunar cycle, including the times in the moon's cycle that lunar and solar eclipses occur:

Lunar Cycle 

The Universe: The Phases of the Moon

2013 Moon Phases in Fast Forward - Lunar Cycle NASA Video 

A year or longer ago I photocopied "My Moon Journal" from one of our issues of Ranger Rick.   I knew I'd put it to use at some point, so I slid it into a protective sleeve (decision made after I'd already unnecessarily hole-punched it) and added it to my "Teacher's Resources" binder.  The picture below is blurry, as it's a copy of a copy and was added to the protective sleeve, as my other is wrinkled.  I made copies for each of the boys so that they could shade the circles as they saw the moon at various phases throughout the month.  Halfway through the cycle, the sheets came up missing!  I want to do it again, anyway, so they'll do it again another month, next time all the way through.

I also bought a box of Back to Nature chocolate creme sandwich cookies and arranged them in the different phases of the moon, as the kids had learned from the Youtube videos.  I repeated the phases over and over (working from the new moon and going counter clockwise).  Then I quizzed them each, having them name the phases as I pointed.  Afterward they got to each cookies!  I ate the four that were used for the project.  ;-)

Starting at the black cookie on the right and going left: new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter, waning crescent, and new moon again.

We've watched one or two different episodes two or three different times over the past few years, but we've not watched the entire series, one episode after another, of The Blue Planet for five or six years, since we first bought it.  Trusten was a baby then, and the girls have never seen them at all.  Watching these made for great family time at night for two weeks.  The first four discs total eight 45-minute episodes each, and the fifth disc contains four episodes.

It's amazing what all was captured for these videos, which are narrated by David Attenborough.  These are very educational, and the beauty and revealed mysteries are nothing short of awesome.  There is mention of the moon's role several times, but it's especially discussed in the "Tidal Seas" episode.  Many small animals race to the beach from the ocean when the tide is low to feed.  The birds also come and feed on the beach when the tide is out.  I already mentioned the turtles and how they time things according to the moon's phase.  There are so many creatures that do certain things during certain moon phases and during certain tidal phases.  Also it's amazing that when certain fish, like sardines, are in abundance, bigger fish, dolphins, and birds come to feast during certain seasons.  I believe that is brought out in "Seasonal Seas," as well as other episodes.

These discs cover all of the oceans, from warm waters to frozen ones and from coasts and coral seas to the open ocean and the deep.  It covers penguins and walruses, corals and crabs, numerous fish, dolphins, whales, sea slugs and snails, and so much more.  "The Deep" reveals terribly frightening-looking fish like the deep-sea angler and others, as well as amazing creatures with fantastic displays of bio-luminescence like never seen before.

The bonus disc has four different episodes, including at least one that covered creatures in the Amazon River, which is also very interesting.  We loved watching these together, even Elizabeth.  As many of my regular readers know she loves animals, and she would squeal and shriek with delight at times.  We'd have to remind her to calm down. I was so happy that she loved it, though.

I also brought out the things Nathan and I brought back with us from our last trip to the USVI.  We found and brought home the most stuff on that particular trip. 

 Sea urchins

Our shells and the sponge that we brought back were brought out with the sea urchins, but I'm not posting pictures of them, also some can be viewed on this past post.

We've also got several pieces of coral, including a few excellent pieces of brain coral that we keep displayed, and I let the kids handle my puffer fish that I keep on my dresser, which my parents got me from a souvenir store during a childhood trip to Mississippi and Florida.  Olivia gets so excited when she gets to hold my stuff like that.

For the first time I brought out a well-received surprise of other ocean creatures that I'd ordered from Home Science Tools a year or more ago.  Not only were these fun to see, but they were great to loupe!!  So yes, I busted out the loupes, and it was so amazing!  I thought the sand dollar and the bigger sea star were the most amazing to look at under the loupe.  I just love louping things!  The fine detail...well, it's just amazing. And these were a big hit.

I read our copy of Eric Carle's A House for Hermit Crab, which is a really fun story of how a hermit crab outgrew his home and wanted to decorate and protect his shell with other creatures, like the sea anemone, sea urchin, and others.  At the end of the book there are facts about each of the creatures talked about in the book.

Also, I realized when I was getting ready to put together this post, I realized there is a great section in one of my old My Fun with Reading books on things in the sea, which talk more about sea anemones and such and have more pictures, so I may read that to the kids within the next few days.

On the week it was Nathan's week to pick Sabbath dessert, he picked ice cream cake, and I added organic sprinkles in the shape of sea turtles (with cookie cutter) on the top.

Coincidentally, Nathan took me and Elizabeth out to eat during a week when my parents took the oldest three (I so enjoyed the break!), and we sat right by a saltwater aquarium, which was enjoyable.  Elizabeth was delighted.  She did shriek with excitement, but thankfully that happened once, and then she settled down and just enjoyed it.  She's such a funny baby.

After the kids got back we spent some fun time with Play-Doh making sea creatures.  

 My sea urchin

I went to adjust a couple "spines" and was going to take a better picture when Elizabeth grabbed at my urchin.  Oh!  Oh well...funny baby.  I just took all the spines off and gave them to her.  She put them in a shell (I took out my bowl of shells that my grandpa gave me when I was a child, so the kids could put imprints of the shells in the Play-Doh).  I used the opportunity to count out the spines to her, too.

 William's stingray, the tail falling apart by its weight as I was snapping the picture

 Liv's "sea creature," as she told Nathan.  I can't remember, but I think she'd told me at the time that it was a turtle. 

Trusten really did make a turtle, one that looked like a turtle, but he shoved his dough back together before I could take a picture, and then he made a cool snake that had a hinged mouth that he moved up and down, but he quickly disassembled it, too.  I don't know what else he made.  William also made a sea star (not pictured here).  Then the boys started making all kinds of unrelated creations.

This is my jellyfish, which when he saw the picture, Nathan thought was funny and laughed at me.  Haha...well, anyway.  As for those what-looks-like-nail marks, I don't know, as I'd made the body smooth.  I bet I messed it up when trying to fix the spots.

Last night we saw the rising waning gibbous moon, the day after the full moon, and it was dark yellow and gorgeous.  We all sat for several minutes and enjoyed the sight.  

For now I'm trying to get William to finish up his current history book and get to the halfway point in his second of three science books for this year and finish his Daily 6-Trait Writing workbook, and trying to get Trusten finished with the last bit of Explode the Code.  I didn't like how we were doing history and other stuff last summer.  I like to keep book work like that down to only math and spelling through the summer, and I'd like to do that just two days a week and still have them write in their journals but only required for twice a week, not six days minimum (they don't have to on Sabbath but are free to write a journal entry if they want).  I want our focus on outdoor activities like gardening and more plant identification.  

We are also still watching frog metamorphosis.  Our tadpole is five weeks old now.  It should be an adult leopard frog at around twelve weeks.

Until next time...

Learning on Vacation

Nathan and I were supposed to leave to go to Ecuador at the end of May to consider later moving there, but things didn't work out as planned.  Perhaps we could have simply delayed the trip several months by changing the date of our flights, and we're now wondering whether we should have done just that.  Instead, so that we wouldn't lose all that money on the non-refundable airfare, we went to St. Croix, which is the only one of the three U.S. Virgin Islands to which we had not been.  We visited both St. Thomas and St. John both times we went the previous two years. 

I met my parents halfway to transfer our oldest three to them, and Elizabeth went with us.   We learned plenty on our trip and had things to share with the kids.  They also had some learning experiences of their own while away from us.

The first day and the last day were spent flying.  We had five free days to spend there.  The first of five days we went to buy groceries, drove around, and then walked from our villa down to the beach to swim.

The second day we drove around, drove through forest, got out and took pictures of a really neat, big tree, and talked to a Rasta who was walking to look for and gather passion fruit to sell.  He opened a passion fruit for us, because we'd never had a fresh one.  Slimy but soooo good.  The seeds are even more fun to crunch than those in kiwis.  We also shared a very edifying conversation with him.  Most Rastafarians are very good persons.  We were blessed to have run into him.  He also pointed out some papaya trees that we'd have never noticed had he not pointed.  The papayas were high up in the trees.

We then ended up swimming in the pool that night (after talking to each other about how dumb it is for people to swim in pools when the ocean is right there). 

Bag of passionfruit; papaya tree; flamboyant tree we saw on drive; a pelican flying over the ocean bordering the property where we stayed (this last picture was taken a different day)

The next day we walked down to the other beach that bordered the property on which we were staying (which we had all to ourselves), which was a rocky beach, unlike the other sandy beach.  There we collected a sponge, shells, and urchin skeletons.  We then drove to the east end of the island, took pictures, then went back to the property to read in hammock and lawn chair with the ocean view, and we then swam in the pool.

Various shells, sea urchin skeletons (the white round things, though some still had spines), rocks, brain coral, and a sponge. The bottom two pictures were taken at home as I was showing the kids everything. 

The following day we went to St. John Village Botanical Garden.  I loved this!  There were so many beautiful plants.  I took a lot of pictures.  I can't share them all here.  It was a real treat, and Nathan also enjoyed it.  The only bad thing is it was pretty hot and humid that day.  We went night-swimming in the pool again at the end of this day.

Two of my favorite plants are shown at top: L is the powder puff and R is the chenille plant.  At bottom left is a...well, oh no, I don't remember, and it appears as if I've lost record.  I only took my iPhone and not my other digital camera, and it did a good job for the most part, but every time I took a picture of that flower, it appeared that way with the crazy-looking light.  It looks a bit psychedelic that way.   Then the bottom right is another one I really liked, but I never saw a name for it.  There were so, so many beautiful plants.

The Coco de Mer, which is the largest kind of seed in the plant kingdom on this earth.  It immediately gets the attention of anyone for obvious reason. This is one of those things that God (Holy Father and Salvation) must have gotten a pretty good chuckle about when they created it.

The last day we had to spend there before the flying-back day was Sabbath.  I deliberately left my prayer journal at home but took my iPad, so I typed my journal entry that morning while enjoying a mixed drink Nathan made.  We listened to two sermons that day, using the iPad.  We laid out in the sun and then later sat in the shade on the back patio while listening.  Right in front of us, a coconut dropped from a tree.  I paused the sermon so that Nathan could go fetch the coconut and open it.  He'd wanted so badly to hatchet into a fresh coconut the whole time we were there, and he got his desire.  He took the outer stuff off by chopping, and then he busted the nut open and dug the flesh out.  We both agree that it was the best coconut we'd ever eaten, though it was very small. 

We then went down to the sandy beach again to swim, and we collected rocks, shells, and plenty of brain coral so that we could give pieces away.  I wanted especially to take brain coral back to Jaden William, because he loves it so much.

There were SO many plants and animals (like crabs, lizards, and birds) that we took pictures of, but I simply cannot share them all here.

Coconut tree where the coconut fell, my drink, and Na chopping the coconut

We then walked around on the five-acre property taking pictures of ourselves with the beautiful views.

These were among pictures taken the morning portion of Sabbath.  I LOVE this baby!

To left is the neat-looking tree we got out to go see the day we talked to the Rasta man.  To right is among the many pictures we took Sabbath afternoon.

After Sabbath was over we went to a semi-fancy restaurant.  It was actually the second time.  Nathan wanted so badly to take us again.  We listened to live bands each time, and it was very enjoyable music.  Very different each time.  We ate filet mignon with a red wine demi glaće and mashed potatoes and asparagus. That was about the only fit-to-eat thing they had on the menu.  Much of the stuff was unclean/unfit, like nasty sea creatures and hog meat but all given fancy names on the menu.  The food was very good, and we followed it up by going to get homemade Greek-style ice cream made by a real Greek who actually is from Little Rock, AR which is just an hour from where we both grew up.  Nathan also learned some very interesting information from him, the real reason why things on the USVIs cost so much.  It was quite sickening, and it also shed more light on the conversation we'd had with the Rasta before.  The government controls the electricity there, and the cost is outrageous.  It's around ten times what it costs us here!  And of course we already know from being in St. Thomas how they generate the electricity--petroleum plant.  Just very heartbreaking and sickening.  And anyone who tries to change anything for the better becomes a target.

But, back to good things...

So while we were gone the kids spent time visiting their cousin Layla while going to the Little Rock Zoo and swimming in a pool my parents bought.  Jaden William also went to work with my dad as he so often does and acts as "co-manager" of the fair grounds (my dad is the manager) and impressing the trustees with his intellect.  LOL  My dad also showed him all about bee-keeping.

My dad and Jaden William suited up to see the honeybees

Jaden William with cousin Layla, Olivia, and Trusten at the LR Zoo in front of the lion habitat; Liv with goggle and life jacket in pool

I hope to post more about what we're doing this summer soon, but it's amazing I'm getting to finally post this, because our iMac is messed up.  I got the pictures ready the last time I successfully got this thing to turn on.  Nathan was able to do some work for business on it another time.  After about ten times of turning it on today I got the thing on.  You never know when it may be the last time.  I can't blog with my pictures very well with my iPad.  There's no telling when we will get the computer thing remedied, as it's pricey no matter what way you at it, and our Apple Care is up.  I'm sure the logic board is basically fried.  We didn't have it hooked to our surge protector (it's on the TV and PS3), and we forgot to unplug it before we left, and it stormed badly while we were gone.  That's life.  I'm thankful to have gotten to post this, and I hope I can post more in the near future.

Until next time...