The home schoolers go indigenous with the Caribbean Indigenous Arts and Crafts Museum on St. Croix!

Today, we had the pleasure of going on a field trip to the Caribbean Indigenous Arts and Crafts Museum at Cane Bay! Whew, what a mouthful! This trip, although open to all ages, ended up being all elementary kids. There were three girls and three boys - what a great group they were too!

The kids arrived and were instantly captivated by Kelly the Parrot who sand Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, some opera, and cried like a baby!  She was really cute and hates to not be the center of attention.  Anyway, after talking and interacting with Kelly, they all went over to the open air picnic area and took their seats.

The children learned all sorts of fascinating things about Tainos. Tainos were the indigenous people who lived here on St. Croix from PreColumbian times up until shortly after Columbus "discovered" the Virgin Islands.  They were one of the most populous groups of Native peoples in the Caribbean. They farmed, hunted, gathered, and created beautiful works of art.  It is thought that their farming techniques were so far advanced that they only had to dedicate 2 hours a week to gardening. They produced such food stuff as pineapples, cassava(or yucca), peanuts, and sweet potatoes. They also grew cotton. Apparently when Columbus came by he noted, as did other explorers, that the island of St. Croix was heavily terraced and farmed with cotton plants.

Some of the islands in the caribbean still retain their Taino names. Some of these islands are Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti.  It is thought that St. Croix's name was AyAy which means The River. Now, why would St. Croix be named The River? There are no rivers or flowing bodies of water here! Well, way before the plantation industry got going here, St. Croix was FULL of rivers and streams and guts. With the advent of plantation farming, all the trees were either burned or cut down and it stopped raining here.  Once the rain stopped, guess what else stopped? THE RIVER!! Salt River is named just that because there was a river of water that flowed out of the hills and into the ocean. When we have tremendous rains, our guts fill and flow into the old path of our ancient river. I wonder what St.Croix would look like today if those plantation owners hadn't deforested our island - don't you?

ANYWAY back to some facts that our group thought was neato:

1. There were between 20 and 30,000 people living on St. Croix at the time of Columbus' arrival
2. A Taino woman shot one of the Spaniards with bow and arrow when Columbus' men came ashore
3. Columbus never actually set foot on St. Croix
4. Tainos had parrots
5. Tainos used blowguns
6. Spent a lot of time making very cool art
7. They wore feathered hats
8. Taino Indians were some of the first Indians to live on St. Croix
9. Many words came from the Taino Arawak language

So folks, if you get a chance to go visit Brian and his wife Jill at the  Caribbean Indigenous Arts and Crafts Museum at Cane Bay, please let us know what you think.  This is a great resource for artists, collectors, and children to learn a bit about our history here on St. Croix before the European conquest.

Readaton 2012 - Week 3 Character Development

What a theme we have this week! Character Development - we all want our children to be upstanding citizens of the world, to contribute, to put other's before them and to be happy. So, how do we teach Character Development? We can model the behavior and hope that they catch one, we can role play, or we can just talk them through situations that are hard for them as they arise.

Today we went to Mango Melee(a festival that celebrates EVERYTHING Mango) at the St. George Village Botanical Garden and at one of the booths, what did I see?

WOW! Someone else is concerned with how our children develop character. This photo shows a game that the children could play. If you look closely, there are mangos clothes pinned to the tree. The children had to unpin a mango and then pick a character trait. Once a trait was selected, your child had to tell the booth attendants one thing they would do to model that trait. C, who is going to be 3 soon grabbed a mango right away and pointed to the kindness trait. We asked him how he could be kind - of course he gave us a blank look. Sheesh! So, when rephrased it question in toddler terms, of "How can you nice to the cat?" He promptly stated to "bring him a raton(mouse)". That's my boy!  Of course after we all finished laughing, he got to pick a prize and was so super happy.  A who is 17 days away from being 9(!!!), picked self control from their list and stated that we can wait to buy something if we really don't need it.  Very proud of her for that one, and she managed to come home from Mango Melee without spending that $20 she had in her pocket.


I loved this game because the child got to pick their virtue and state what we could do. The only prompting that the adult has to do is ask the very open ended question. There are really no wrong answers, and hopefully by doing this when your child is presented with a problem that calls for character they will know what they should do.

If you don't want to create this game, you can bake cookies for your elderly neighbor, drop by a homemade card to someone who is sick, or just buy that bum on the street a sandwich. All of those are ways to model good character to your kids. Yes, it's hard and yes you will embarrass your older children when you hand food to that bum, but if you explain to them why you are doing it, they may learn compassion and see the world through different eyes and start to become the person you want them to be.

We read and enjoyed "Good Habits to Have" by Jenny and Karen Carter today too, if you haven't read it yet, give it a go. the message is simple and sweet.

Don't forget to read - join the Readathon at MeMeTales - it's been fun for us and hopefully will be just as fun for you!

Planning for next year - Preschool (YIKES!)

I love planning. I get all excited and like to browse and look at stuff for ideas for HOURS! C is going to be 3 soon - where did the time go? He gets bored easily and wants to do work like A, so I figured I needed to do more with him this coming school season. I don't expect to do worksheets, or activity pages or anything, but I think we will do unit studies in conjuction with what A is studying or whatever takes his fancy.  Of course, I have been looking at all these ideas from all these great sites and it's easy to get carried away. That being said, I created my list of goals for C today and it looks something like this:

Know:

Colors

Shapes

Counting objects to 5

Be able to sort different objects by color, size, and/or shape

Be able to sort animals according to characteristics

Draw a circle, square, triangle

Be able to complete an ABC pattern

Sing songs

Be able to do:

Lacing work

Pasting

Cutting

Coloring

Crafting

Puzzle work

Building skills

Sharing

Patience

Would be nice:

Recognize A, C, D, M, S

To change:

Less TV, more books and toys

More one on one time

More hands on fun like painting and messy work

As you can see, there is nothing in the above list that involves "seat work" - which is how it should be. I have found a site called Confessions of a Homeschooler that has some great free printables for lacing, patterning, letters, and colors. She has puzzles that correspond with each letter that I will be using just as puzzles - we will talk about the animals on those puzzles and the beginning letter sounds, but I TOTALLY don't expect him to know those sounds. I do want to expose him to that concept though so that when we start PreKinder stuff he has heard the idea before and it isn't alien.

So far I have decided that we will make a cardboard car and gas pump, sensory floor tiles(round or square cardboard tiles covered in different stuff like sponges, Bath sponges, bubble wrap, etc), lacing cards, sensory balloons, craft stick shapes, giant felt shapes, a felt button worm made from felt scraps that can be ordered by color or shape, etc.  

Some of the items that I can't make, I will have to buy.  Those include wooden puzzles, sorting trays(wood silverware trays), craft items like paint, pom poms, etc, aquarium gravel, rawhide dog bones in all shapes and conditions for dinosaur bone hunts, stampers, paint rollers, and dot dot painters, etc.  IF you live up in the great white north and want me to send you money for when you go to Goodwill and can pick me up some of those things, I'd be super excited :) Send me a message, I'll send you money :) :)

Readathon 2012 - The Lion and the Mouse

A few days ago I stumbled across a great website called MeMeTales This site has a dual purpose. It allows aspiring writers to publish their own stories(for kids) and it also brings innovative books to children in an engaging platform.  MeMeTales has both free ebooks and ebooks you can purchase.  You can have the books read aloud to your child, printed off, or if your child is reading, they can read the book without the audio.

For the summer, MeMeTales is partnering with PBSKids, Harper Collins, Orca Books, Little Pickle Press, and others to bring you some great ebooks.  There are aps for your iPhone, Kindle Fire, iPad, and computer that allow you to download the books and set your little one up with hours of reading fun.  For the month of June, if you sign up with MemeTales you get 20 free ebooks that can either be read aloud or that can be read silently. After reading or listening to each book, your child earns sticker rewards that you can print out and glue onto their certificate.

Jungle animals singing don't wake the lion

If you want to participate, here is a link that takes you to the how to participate page.

Each week has different theme with activities to go along with theme.  Week 1 is animals. This makes me super excited as C loves all things animals and the books are simple enough that both A and C can do animal based activities together and reenact some of the books.

The book we listened to today was The Lion and the Mouse by Lavanya R.N.  We listened to the book  this morning and I LOVED it. It is the traditional tale of the mouse helping the lion, but the illustrations, the slightly Indian twist to the story line, and the audio made the book really come alive. C gasped in the scary parts, laughed when the lion roared and laughed, and cheered at the end when the lion got free of the net.  He also danced to the musical part. Really, listen to this book. It's fab.

"Squeek, squeek"

I figured that I wanted him to really remember this book - it has a great message after all. We grabbed his animal toys, his holey blanket, and reenacted the story line. Of course since he is just coming on 3 years old, it wasn't exactly like the book, but the mouse made squeaky noises, the lion roared(and snored), and he freed the lion.  After which, he made the mouse pounce and wrestle the lion - but hey - it was his reenactment!

Saving the lion from the net.

I can see us playing lion and mouse for many days in the future.

Thanks MeMeTales for great books and letting my children's imaginations grow because you started this service. we are hooked and will keep reading all Summer :)

The Sea Turtle Lapbook!

LOVE the paint job, A!

In April we went to watch the Leatherback turtles nest at Sandy Point. It was an amazing experience and if you want to read about read my earlier post.  In response to that experience, A and I started working on a lapbook about Sea Turtles. At first, I thought we might just make it about Leatherbacks, but then I decided that we might as well study all of the sea turtles out there. Not in depth mind you, but at least a brief overview of each type of sea turtle and their habitats, appearance, etc.  At some point, the lapbook got completely away from us and took on a life of its own.  I had to run away screaming and A lay hiding under the bed for about a month before we took it out again. To our relief, it had calmed down(oxygen deprivation maybe?) and we finished it. That experience went to show us how we could really get into a project and how it could take over. At one point I was up until 2a.m. looking up turtle anatomy….. Craziness!

A created all the pages on her own. She came up with the game page, and learned how to make holes and set eyelets.  She painted the turtle, cut, pasted, etc.  My favorite part is when we recreated a leatherback hatchling and made it weigh an average weight of a real hatchling.  We used Math, Reading, Geography, Social Studies, and Science in this project. We created Turtle poetry, measured a real turtle, read a science book on sea turtles, basically lived and breathed sea turtles for what seemed like AGES.  I think that a few of the pages might need some captions or some written explanation on them yet, but you know what? That’s OK, it’s her work of art and her work, so even I think it’s missing something I’m going to leave it the way it as. I can hope that she looks back in years to come and enjoys reading her very own Sea Turtle Lapbook!

Each scute has a vocab word under it with it's definition.

Leatherback Turtle Watch at Sandy Point

Aerial photo of Sandy Point taken
from stcroixtourism.com

When I was a little girl, I remember going with my parents to see the Leatherback turtles come and nest on Sandy Point.  I tried to take A about 2 years ago to do the same, but the group we were with decided to leave at 10 and we didn’t get to see anything. So, in the spirit of homeschooling and experiencing the island I decided to give it a go this year. 

Let me just tell you, it was AWESOME, AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, and COOLIO!!!!

This was our group minus a few adults because
taking pictures in the dark is near impossible!

So, here’s the lowdown. Anyone can go see these amazing animals come up on shore and lay their eggs at Sandy Point as long as you have reservations and the turtles cooperate.  You need to get a hold of the Fish and Wildlife personnel to do this. If you have a large enough group (15-30 people) it’s like your own private tour, if you are a small group, they might be able to sneak you into another group.  Oh, and it’s FREE.  Of course if you want to make a donation to a great group you can pay St. Croix Environmental Association to make your reservations for you as they block off certain dates in advance.  Anyway, you need to make your reservations, confirm your date, and then on the day of gather at the Refuge entrance at 7:45 pm. Bring bug spray and PLENTY of it.  I brought drinks and snacks for my kids, but we ended up not needing anything but drinks. 

photo from simonsen.photoshelter.com

This is how it went for us. We got there, all the homeschoolers who had signed up for the field trip were there. We listened to Jennifer from the FWS talk and tell us the rules. We got back into our cars and headed into the refuge. After driving down some amazingly well paved roads, we got to our beach spot.  Then we waited – it was POURING for about 30 mins.  Eventually we got out of our cars and this is what happened according to A:

            When we got out of the cars it was wet and damp and I could smell the wet sand and the sea and it smelled wonderful. Then we went on a path to the ocean and there was a bridge that we had to pass. We went to a spot on the beach and we stayed there for an hour and a half until we got the first call on the radio and there was a leatherback sea turtle! When we got the call I was so happy that we were going to see a turtle nesting.

photo from thew2o.net

After getting the call on the radio, we packed up all our stuff and moved back to the road and booked it to the next parking area where we walked/ran to get to where the turtle was.  All this time, we were only using the light off the moon and the stars to navigate by. It was amazingly cool. We could hear the surf the whole time too because it was a rough night.  Once we got down to the beach were the turtle was, we had to walk along it until we actually found her.  The beach sand was a luminous white with ribbons of black seaweed all along it, so walking was a big difficult, but not bad.  All of a sudden, there appeared before a huge, hulking, black mountain that hardly moved at all but was quite substantial.  It was our leatherback momma.  She was in the process of laying her eggs. The researchers had started to collect her eggs as she was laying then in the area of the beach where the waves broke and could potentially have been washed out to sea if it had gotten rougher.  After being able to touch her carapace(shell), back flippers, shoulders, and even sides we got to see the researchers measure her from the front of her carapace to her back, measure her width, and put in new tags.  She did NOT like the new tag bit – can’t say I blame her. Then she disguised her nest for a bit before “the mother sea turtle clumsily slid into the black ocean.”

The kids named her Friday as we saw her on Friday the 13^th! She measured 164.5cm from the front of her carapace to the back. If you added her head into that she was at least 184 cm long if not longer.  She laid 132 eggs that night. Can you imagine doing that?!

Sadly out of those 132, probably only 1 will survive to sexual maturity and come back to nest. 

photo from youthgo.gov

If you have never been to a turtle watch before you NEED to do this. Email the Fish and Wildlife Service, call SEA, find a group, sell an arm or leg to do this. It is an AMAZING experience. It touches you in ways that you didn’t know possible. It makes an impact on kids. I REMEMBER each and every time we did as a child, I remember helping hatchlings on other beaches find their way back into the water. I remember being so amazed at these turtles size that I thought it was as big as a VW Bug when I was little.  This event only happens between April and Jule/July so if you are here during that time, it is well worth the effort to go and see these animals up close and personal.

Mangrove/Wetlands Lapbook

I have been much inspired by the recent trend towards lapbooking for homeschoolers. I think it’s a great idea to get your kids writing, drawing, creating, and recording their experiences from various subjects.  We just finished our Mangroves/Wetlands lapbook. It was a project – only because we had so many holidays and breaks during the last few weeks in trying to finish it.

Here it is:

Cover of book

Inside pages, you can see there are multiple pages in the book.

A had to cut, color, paste, write, think, define words, look at maps, etc in order to finish it. I think she did a pretty good job and I am proud of her.  We did pull pictures and drawing from the net where we could, but she also drew some things on her own.

Journaling and a flat diorama of animals in the mangroves.

More photos from her field trip

We are currently working on two others – the Middle Ages, and Sea Turtles – specifically Leatherbacks because we are doing a turtle watch this Friday.  The turtle one is going to be very artsy fartsy and it will require a helping hand from Mommy at points, but will be primarily put together by A.   I will post photos when we are done with the Sea Turtle lap book. It should be pretty cool.

Morning Find

It seems like everyday we find something new to explore.  Some days we need to go hunting for things at the beach, in the bush, in Christiansted, etc.  Other days, our find come to us.  Today was a case in point.  we opened the front door this morning and an AWFUL smell entered the house - almost like something was dying. My first thought was that the cat:

brought us a present and hid it somewhere over the weekend while trying to emulate the Easter Bunny. Then C found it, A yelled at me to come see, and I grabbed the camera.  What did we find you ask?

Tada! Here it is.......

WHAT IS THAT?!?!


It's a Clathrus ruber or a fungus in the stinkhorn family. It is also know as the latticed stinkhorn, red cage, or basket stinkhorn.  It feeds of decaying woody plant material, and is usually found alone in areas where there is mulch, leaf litter, grassy soil, etc.  The brown part is the sticky, stinky pollen.  It smells so bad to attract flies, ants, etc.  It really does smell bad, not as bad as 24 hour side of the road Caribbean road kill, but pretty close.  


Go find something and learn about it. Just remember if you see one of these guys, wear a gas mask!

The Rut

I find ourselves in a rut these days.  Know what I mean?

I have all these THINGS I want to get done, all these items on my to do list, all this info I want to pass on to A, all these fun ideas for games for C, this stuff called housework to do (not that I WANT to do it, it just needs to be done), all these fun just for me crafty projects I want to start and finish, and NOTHING, I mean NOTHING is getting done!  What's a Mom to do?

Yup, go exploring. Actually, that's what I wished I had done. Instead I spent the day going crazy.  I need to go out and grab my life by the horns and get going again.  Not today though. Not tomorrow either - we are busy running errands and doing volunteer modeling for a friend's online boutique that supports women in Guatemala.

Maybe I should just start over next week hmm?

St. Croix Environmental Hosts the Homeschoolers.

 I am not sure if The St. Croix Environmental Association (SEA), knew exactly what they were getting into we started speaking on the phone about doing a field day with the homeschoolers….. Whatever they expected, I hope that we surprised and impressed them with our kids depth and breath of knowledge.  Then again, maybe our kids were duds? Hmm, I will have to find out. 

What I do know if this…..We were on time, all the students were either wet or muddy, every single one of our students had big smiles on their faces at the end of the day, and the kids that I talked to thought it was neat and that they learned things.  I think that is a successful field trip.  SEA did a fantastic job of putting together activities for each of our age levels (K – 11), getting the kids to run around, touch, smell, and think about things that I am pretty sure most had not done before, and it was super well organized. 

I can only mention what I saw the kids doing, but the kids in K – 2^nd went on a beach scavenger hunt, talked about animals living in ponds and looked at pond scum. The 3^rd – 4^th graders waded into the wetlands, looked at what lives in the wetlands, learned about mangroves, how to tag and observe turtles when nesting, and talked about marine conservation. The 5^th – 6^th graders did a wetlands activity, bird watching, and beach exploration.  The 7^th – 12^th graders went seining along the shore for fish.

A was well prepared and was able to answer questions and ask her own intelligent questions – which made me proud but also a bit embarrassed. Especially when she asked how Turtles reproduce. I will give the presenter credit though because she didn’t bat an eye and answered her with a simple explanation of how male turtles have hooks in their flippers and actually hook the females “shoulders” which is why sometimes females have scars in that area. New factiod for us all.  A also brought me a black mangrove leaf that was covered in salt and we licked it to taste the salt. It tasted –salty.  I can’t see harvesting salt that way, but next time I’m at a beach and need salt for my sandwich I know which mangrove species to use.

 

One of the older girls thought it was cool that she got to catch baby barracuda and other fish. Since she had never held a barracuda before it was interesting. She did say that the lecture got a bit boring since it was so long.  At the end she told her mom that she wanted to go home and shower since she felt slimy. I love high school girls! She didn’t seem too upset by it though and she was smiling; although she is one of the nicest, smiliest girls I know as it is. 

If you ever get a chance to participate in one of SEA’s activities, do so. They are a great organization and they do a lot of good for our little slice of paradise.

I also want to thank VINE, the Virgin Islands Network of Environmental Educators for turning out on this field day. We look forward to doing many more things with them :) Check out their blog.

Altoona Lagoon revisted.

 Tuesday, we hauled ourselves down to Altoona Lagoon again to do some exploring.  Last week, as you can remember, we had a great time bike riding, fishing, playing around, etc. This week, my wonderful friends brought their Kayaks, and 3 inflatable Stand Up Paddle boards. Yes, you read that right, INFLATABLE SUP boards.

When the kids and I got there there was a group from See Through Kayaks starting their tour and it looked like it was ll tourists. Yeay for St. Croix, more tourists :) The kids and I beach combed while waiting for Tammy, Doug, and J to show up.   Once we all got to the launching site and got everyone ready to go we divided up the toys.  Seeing as I had the little guy with me, I grabbed a kayak, A and J grabbed SUP boards, and Tammy and Doug grabbed the other kayak and SUP board respectively.

We started up the river and it was AMAZING! It was quite - except for C complaining that he was getting wet.... he really and truly is a Crucian kid - he kept saying the water was cold. Sheesh, what will he ever do when we actually go somewhere cold that snows?

Anyway, the whole trip was amazing! I am using that word a lot aren't I? We saw a pair of West Indian Whistling ducks, that were moving too fast to get a good picture of; upside down jelly fish, pelicans, frigates, snowy white egrets, blue crabs, minnows, and an iguana. We talked about why mangroves are important, what types of mangroves we have, how mangroves propagate, and what it would have been like to be a Taino or Carib paddling through this gorgeous place and paddling from St.Croix to St. Thomas. We did decide that we wouldn't have cut it, as after 45 mins our arms were tired....

I can turn any fun filled time into school - it's quite impressive, even to me ;)  Part of the reason that we did this mini field trip is because we had a St. Croix Environmental Association sponsored field trip to the Southgate Pond Wetlands on Friday. I wanted to prep our kids a bit, and get them to see wetlands more than once in order to be better prepared for what they were going to see. Plus, at least in my opinion, seeing something twice helps it to stick.

After returning to the beginning, we played on the SUP boards, the kayaks, and C got to throw rocks and feed the fish.  A and her friend J played around on the SUP boards, and practice doing jumps off the bridge that connect the road from Gallows Bay into Altoona.  Us old folks, sat around, played on the SUP boards, and just chatted.  Since playing on the SUP board, I have become obsessed. I feel the need to own one of these wonderful boards. I can take both kids on one board, they are easy to maneuver, can be inflated and deflated easily, and are a great way to get exercise in the guise of fun times.

Anyway, if you want to do the same things that we did you have a few options.  You can take your own kayak or SUP down to Altoona and take a gander by yourselves or you can get in touch of Virgin Kayak Tours or See Through Kayak Tours. I have heard that both groups do a fantastic job and both offer alternate tours to other locations around St. Croix.

Just do it, you won't regret it.

Altoon Lagoon play date

 The other day another home schooling mom and I were talking about how we wanted our kids to get out and do MORE exercise.  Don’t get me wrong; both of our children are active. A swims 4-5 days a week, plays in the bush, participates in all the kids biking, running, swimming races, etc; but I just don’t feel that she gets out there and is active enough.  Apparently, my friend feels the same so we decided that we would get together once a week and let the kids, bike, run, or whatever as long as they were outside and DOING.  During this time, we get visit and C has a friend over to play.  We decided to meet at Altoona Lagoon because it is between both our homes, it is flat, and where they hold most of the kids’ races.

Altoona Lagoon is another one of our undiscovered St. Croix areas for many reasons.  There is a whole fishing community of old time Crucians who grew up swimming in the inlet to the lagoon, jumping off the bridges, fishing, and generally having a good time there.  It is a great place for walking, running, biking, limin’, and generally just enjoying the views of Christiansted from a different angle. Altoona Lagoon also has a GREAT playground and fun exploring beach for little ones.

Our day started early with us in the car, the trike in the trunk, and the bike(new big 26” bike) racked on the back of the red SUV. Water, and snacks were packed in the reusable shopping bag, and I had had at least 2 cups of tea by 7:30! We were set. Once at Altoona, and unloaded – I really do think we are related to Gypsys since we cannot seem to go anywhere without the entire contents of the house and the kitchen sink ---- Oh wait! It’s because I’m a Mom not related to Gyspsys!!!  ANYWAY…. A got con her bike and as soon as her friend showed up away they went. The two kids did about 10 loops, which I think translates to just about 2 miles! Then they took a break to go explore the beach, whereupon they stuck their heads together and decided that they needed to go fishing! Crazy kids!

The two kids, my wonderful mom friend and her equally wonderful hubby walked down with C to the inlet by the bridge. Once I got there, which was about 15 minutes later – I had to re-rack the bike, put stuff away, etc. I found both kids wading through the inlet, with fishing nets in hand, HUGE self satisfied grins on their faces and COMPLETELY, soaking wet.  During the course of the day, they caught Lizardfish, Coral Banded shrimp, regular shrimp, and Blue Crabs. We saw Blue Herons, a Great Snowy Egret, fishermen coming in with their catch and then it happened… the kids spotted a Lionfish! Turns out there wasn’t 1 Lionfish, but 3.  They were hiding in the Mangroves.  My friend’s hubby shucked down to his shorts and got in the water and caught 2 of the three. At first we though maybe we could eat them, but they were too little. What actually scared us was that the Lionfish were in the Mangroves, which are breeding grounds for other fish, and we all know Lionfish eat EVERYTHING so they were in the worst place possible for our native fish. Not, that having Lionfish anywhere in the Caribbean is good, but in a breeding ground it’s like an A bomb ready to go off at any moment. 

Photo by Jill Updyke.

One of the things I really liked about this day, was that both kids ended up wading around in only their shorts and never even batted an eye. They are the same age, and look exactly the same chest wise and for them it was super natural and not embarrassing to be that way. I love that our island still allows our kids to be kids and doesn’t make them aware of the opposite sex until later.  We are able to keep our children innocent of the societal pressures that other children face elsewhere in the world. 

We decided that the kids had such a good time – even C, that we are going to make this a weekly occurrence. We hope to go kayaking into the Lagoon next week. I’ll keep you updated J Sorry for the lack of personal photos but we were so busy having a good time that I didn’t think of taking pictures until the end.

I’ll leave you with a word from our kids: "Lionfish.. they taste like Chicken."

Valentine’s Day craftiness

Valentine’s Day is coming up QUICKLY!  Every year, while in school, A made cards for her classmates.  This year, I was in a quandary as to what to do for a Valentine’s Day celebration and card exchange.

The other night, while doing a late night search on homeschooled penpals for A, I stumbled across what seems to be a great group with members across the US and in other places (Australia, UK, etc).  I joined up and while searching the old postings found a Valentine’s day card exchange, so what did I do? I signed up to do the exchange with A.  Once we got our list, I thought “Holy moly! That’s a lot of kids!”  On the list were over 20 kids.  Not bad you say, but in A’s school her class size was not more than 15 and we hand make our cards.  Now, they aren’t anything fancy, just paper, markers, glitter, and a few doodads thrown together, but STILL; 20+ cards to make to mail out by Thursday!!! What was I thinking?

Finished crayons cooling.

Two nights ago, A and I whipped out a few different styles of cards. We got our inspiration from various sites on the internet.  I think the bug are the cutest.  We also decided to send out homemade crayons (I KNOW, leave well enough alone and just send the darn cards,right?) Yesterday we all(yes, even C helped) have been busy peeling old crayons, breaking them apart, placing them in mini muffin tins, and melting them.  The house smells like melted wax, has glitter ALL over, and the paper scraps are blowing in the wind…. Yes, the house is messy (and the smell is killing me), but A is happy, we have been creative, and I am pretty sure we will meet our mailing deadline of today - unless of course I decided to make something else to put in each card.....

Go make something!

Vinegar Walkers

Ever since I was a little girl, I was fascinated by Vinegar Walkers.  We used to find them on our playground at school(our playground was sand) and on the beach.  When we had a few of them saved up, we would take them to our teachers and they would pull out a flat plate, a few tablespoons of white vinegar and a hush would descend upon the gathered children as the little guys did their things.  Occasionally there would be oohs, and aahs as a few Vinegar Walkers made spectacular jerky movements across the plate.  It was a magical and thrilling moment every time it happened, and it is one that I have shared with my children many times over.  

So, what ARE Vinegar Walkers?  I had no idea exactly what they were until a few days ago.  Imagine, 30+ years of not knowing something, not knowing where to turn, and most of all, being ok with my ignorance.  Turns out that Vinegar Walkers actually have a very cool Latin name: Operculums. 

Operculum means little lids.  Apparently these semi-rounded coin shaped things with a beautiful spiral pattern on the flat side is a type of door that small mollusks or snails close when they are exposed to air.  Pretty cool, huh? Thanks Deborah for the links and info.  Without you, it might have been another 30+ years before I got that info.

For cheap thrills, go out to your local beach, find a few Operculums, head back home, grab some vinegar, and sit back and enjoy the simple joys of life. It is an experience that you and your kids will remember for a long time to come. Simple, pure fun.