We started this lap book the first week in February. For this session we watched copious amounts of YouTube videos about desert biomes. Lesson enrichment included crafts like mask making and sand art. And we planned to prepare some prickly pear cactus to eat, if we could have found some locally. We incorporated lessons about sand and silica and glass as well. So this module was heavy on the crafting and very hands on.
Since my kiddos were sick during this beginning of this lesson plan, we relied more heavily on videos. Even when your sick you can still watch a video. 👍🏼
Desert mask complete with saguro and barrel cacti, a jack rabbit & rattlesnake.
We also spent a fair amount of time discussing sand. What is sand made of? We learned that sand is mostly rockparticles but can also contain glass, bone, shell or coral fragments and more commonly in today’s age, plastic particles. (Of course this includes beach sand in addition to desert sand.)
So after a series of sand composition, construction use (desert sand does not work well for construction purposes) and magnetic sand experiment videos we made some sand art!
Sand artSame uniform, different day
There were lots of writing practice sheets, some math and endless desert fact sheets! Lap books are a lot of fun.
Desert Animals Ad Lib
Apparently it’s too much to ask of these northern grocery stores to stock cactus in the fresh produce dept. So we’re going to have to be satisfied with pickled nopalitos. Which the entire family approves of, to some degree.
Cover ArtInsideWhen the marker runs out of ink…Penmanship practiceLil Bit’s Lap Book
And that’s it for another fascinating study of our amazing planet’s diversity. What’s up next? Good question.
Lil Bit and Lil Mister have been working on a Rainforest Lap Book lately. We’ve watched lots of YouTube videos about rainforest facts: animals, vegetation, and conservation.
Lil Mister’s cover.Inside
They’ve colored and pasted their bits and pieces together to create an informative little folder. And today we topped it off with making rainforest gum from scratch.
Wrapping gum pieces in waxed paper.
I like having them do lap books because they can take as little or as much time as they (or I) like creating and gathering information. It’s hands on so better for their learning style. Having something that they make to eat or drink is always fun. Experiential learning, tasting their lesson.
They also learned about medicine that comes from the rainforests of the world like quinine. So they got to sip some tonic water to taste it! Not exactly their next favorite beverage.
Lil Bit’s coverInsidePages under the flapLast page under the flapBackside of the flap, the info about the gum we made.Lil Bit’s lap book is more elaborate.
Next on the list is a desert lap book. Woo hoo, more fun times. And I think we’ll get some cactus to cook and eat.
Today was busy. BOW hunter education course with Thing 1 & Mo. We’ve been studying and preparing for two weeks now. There’s a lot of info to take in.
Study manual.
Thankfully we all passed the written and field test. Woo hoo.
My qualifying target. Shot pattern being the deciding factor.
These classes aren’t offered down here on the Kenai very often, usually in Anchorage. So not having to travel in winter is great!
The classes are hosted at Snowshoe Gun Club. They have a very nice facility. We had great instructors too.
It was nice to get a good refresher course, it’s been a minute since I took a hunter safety course. This one was more in depth than I remember. Experiencing the course with my girl was nice too. She did quite well and is a pretty dang good shot. Don’t mess with her.
I’m thankful for the opportunity to take the class, thanks to Mo for suggesting it. And grateful for the shared experience. Happy that I remembered far more than I forgot from all those years ago. Hunting and firearm safety is a lot like riding a bicycle, but it’s good having a refresher!
(BOW stands for Becoming an Outdoor Woman, it’s not an archery course)
We spent Sunday morning foraging. Niki, Mo, Thing 1 & I. City Hall has some crab apple trees and an abundance of rosehips that we harvested for jelly making.
Loaded little crab apple tree.
While there we enjoyed each other’s company and solved all the world’s problems. We also enjoyed the flower beds and various different trees planted around the premises.
Dusty Miller in the Soldotna City Hall flower garden.
We found a large patch of wild roses and harvested a nice amount of rosehips. Thing 1 had a good time practicing plant identification for her Botany class.
We harvested enough crab apples for jelly, cider, sauce… You get the idea
Cut leaf weeping Birch.
Also enough to share with others. Part of the joy of wildcrafting is sharing with others.
Some ornamental foundation shrubs.More flowers at City Hall.Another bed relatively untouched by the frost.
We also had to harvest our own plants. Lil Bit planted several herbs for her Botany class last year. They did very well and we’ve enjoyed fresh basil, cilantro and parsley this summer.
Lil Bit’s parsley she grew from seed. Harvested to use in our matzo ball soup for Sukkot.
Alas, Old Man Winter is knocking at the door. Time to harvest as much as we can. Hoping for another cranberry picking soon. And a moose.
Riding the Alaska Railroad is a dream come true for many a tourist and resident alike. It stays a dream for countless others who only venture to Alaska with their mind’s eye. We get to live that dream on a daily basis. And some days are more dreamy than others.
This was just such a day.
A vivid rainbow greeted us at the depot. So close it looked like we could reach up and touch it.
Portage Train Depot is right on the highway, near the Placer river, at sea level. We loaded up onto car A, the double decker with full glass viewing panels. We had quite the vantage point. We also had a Chugach USFS ranger as our guide for the trip. He had interesting local lore, history and flora & fauna information for us.
Off-loading rafts.
Sitting on the train while they off-load rafts on the Placer River, watching my kids unaware. Talking to their friends, sharing snacks, playing games. There may or may not have been some musical chairs with these assigned seats. They are in their element. The simple pleasures of life.
…what thrills me about trains is not their size or their equipment but the fact that they are moving, that they embody a connection between unseen places.
Marianne Wiggins
We rode from Portage to Grandview past Spencer, Bartlet and Trail glaciers. From the train station we traveled through marsh and flat lands, into cottonwood forests and gained more elevation until we were in hemlock and spruce forests. It’s cloudy with a little rain every now and then. Once in a while the sun pokes it’s rays through the fog and illuminates a mountainside. Glorious.
Spencer Glacier
Just a little past Grandview Whistle Stop we topped out at 1061′ elevation where we stopped to gaze at Trail glacier. We stopped to see Snow White falls, named for its seven drops, the source of the Placer River.
Snow White Falls
We had a short stop at Grandview so we could hike up to a couple if vantage points. One to see the train and another to see a waterfall. We enjoyed the remaining flowers and berries and mushrooms growing along the trail.
Huckleberries
Trail side shrooms
The view of the train.
A pretty little flower.
A lovely waterfall.
Our trail discoveries.
We rode through 5 tunnels and over one trestle 104′ above the raging river below.
We saw snow drops, rock slides and a lake full of ice floes.
We passed over sheer rock walls, roaring rapids and glacial erratic in kettle ponds.
We learned about T-Bone Clark and Alaska Nellie and back country road houses.
The kids were amazed that the telegraph and telephone poles were still standing with some insulators in place.
Trains tap into some deep American collective memory.
Dana Frank
Best of all we got to experience some of Alaska’s rugged beauty with our friends. Memories for a lifetime.
Thing 2 has been interested in kayaking for several years now. I bought him a starter kayak about 4 years ago I think. We don’t often use it but every once in a while a kayaking opportunity arises and we must go!
We’ve been kayaking to Cain’s Head out of Seward, across Kachemak Bay out of Homer and on Arc Lake and Stormy Lake. Once again we had the opportunity to kayak to Cain’s Head with IDEA for our beginning the year field trip.
We booked a cabin for the night before at Miller’s Landing. It’s a quaint little Alaska campground. It started out as a family homestead and the campsites are named after people. There’s a Wes and a Janet among others. I don’t recommend “Matt” as he’s a muddy mess with lots of tree roots!
Our cabin was a “tree” cabin, Alder, and sleeps 4. Me, my teens and one extra: Thing 2’s buddy, since it was his birthday trip and all. Trips like this are always the best because our friends are with us.
Staying over the night before is important, a 7:30am roll call on the beach with a two and half hour drive before isn’t very fun! So overnight it was.
We managed to get to the beach on time and started out paddling at 8 am.
Our crew on the beach.
The weather wasn’t awful but it wasn’t stellar either. Overcast and light to moderate rain all day. We had a brief moment of partly cloudy skies then the rain returned. But we managed to stay mostly dry with good rain gear. There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.~ old Norwegian saying.
Five miles out to the North Beach access. A nice uneventful paddle. Lots of birds and jumping silvers. We saw a jellyfish waiting to make our landing.
All that’s left of the Army’s dock at the North Beach site.
Then a two mile hike up to Fort McGilvray. An altitude gain of 650′, a “moderate” hike on the difficulty scale.
A scenic vantage point along the trail. The Seussical trees bordering a wetland.
We saw so many berries on our way up. Thing 1 was taking photos every other step. Moss, mushrooms, flowers, berries, her boyfriend, me…. Trees and rocks and … Everything.
Me and my girl on the Fort Trail.
We made it to the top and a quick walk through the Fort and then lunch break. Thing 2 discovered that he forgot to pack his lunch in so we all shared a bit of our lunches to help him out.
While eating lunch he spotted a porcupine up in the top of a tree above us. Strange creatures porcupines. Stellar Jays we’re fussing at us the whole time. We were in their space.
Then we started our descent. The trip back is always quicker. Too quick to pick all the berries I saw. I hate walking past berries and not picking them.
Safe to say that we’re all pretty tired at this point. Five miles kayaking, 4 miles hiking. Now another 5 miles back. Oy vey
Settled into our kayaks, ready as we’ll ever be.
All the muscles fussed at us on the way back. Even those we didn’t know we had. But by 3:03 pm we were back on the beach at Miller’s Landing.
These children decided they deserved ice cream after their efforts. We headed into Seward for ice cream and coffee for the Moms. There were still some congratulatory posters and banners up for Lydia Jacoby which was cool to experience.
Looking forward to the next kayaking adventure! But maybe not so far next time? Maybe.
No work for me today so the kids and I spent some time outdoors. We took a little walk to the sawmill. Little Mister wanted to go help Dad at work. So we leashed up Panda and went for a walk. Once there, Lil Mister went to work shoveling sawdust while Panda explored these new surroundings.
Doggie supervisor, note ear protection in Lil Mister’s ears. Safety First!
Then Lil Bit and I went berry picking for more lingonberries. And a botany lesson for good measure.
The start of our berry harvest and an unusual uprooted tree stump.
Just a regular day.
Making a solar print.
We got about one cup of berries this time, they are slowing down. Might get out once more for a few more. We’ll freeze these for making cranberry nut bread for Thanksgiving dinner.
Thing 1 wanted to make some bread. So she did… lots of it.
Fresh out of the oven, butter melted over the top, and honey drizzled over… oh yeah, it smells wonderful!
We’ll have challah bread all week…
Pan #2
Pan #3
Still more to go into the oven…
Final 3 ready to bake
She’s quite the little bread baker.
The whole batch, 1 braid and 16 knots.
Baking incorporates math, science, reading & comprehension and sometimes geography and/or social studies (depending on the type of baked goods and what we are studying at the time). This bread is challah and incorporates social studies (culture and religion) as well as math and science.
Alaska on my mind... 