My Beautiful Alaska

Confidentially, if you asked me about Alaska in about 6 months, beautiful is not the adjective I'd use.

But today...today was a different story.  The sun shone so bright it made the ocean glitter outside of our windows this morning.  I spent my morning in a church of rainbow colors, the sun shining so bright the stained glass window behind us turned our skin and hair different colors.  Luke and I took turns grabbing handfuls of color and throwing them at each other.

This afternoon we spent five hours playing, climbing, fishing and hiking and Ward Lake.  So many other people we knew had the same idea because it seems we ran into a million people we knew.  (in a town of 8,000 running into a million people might not be possible...)

Meeting a Rockstar!

Despite living in a relatively small island community, we have a surprising amount of cultural activities.  And since it IS a small community there is a lot more interaction between the local artists and the people.  Ray Troll happens to be this families' favorite local artist..truly if you picked any one for my kids to be excited about meeting it would probably be Ray Troll. 

Leaping Salmon Sharks

 

Today at one of our museums there was a "lunch with the artists" event, with a bunch of the local artists who have pieces on display at the current Reflections exhibit. (My favorite exhibit over there so far.) 

They've already had two homeschool events in the new exhibit, giving kids a chance to learn about our local salmon fishery, see some new art and try their hand at their own projects.  While we were there I saw the ad for the lunch with the artists, and that Ray Troll would be there.  My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE his work.  His bold colors and imaginative scenes make for some great (and fun!) art.  I think it really speaks to the flavor of Ketchikan...in part because his work is all over town, from our city buses to the local shops.

When Ray Troll got up to speak about his work Laurel gasped in excitement.  She hung on every word he said, posed for a picture and asked a few questions.  As a side benefit she also got to have lunch with her dad and just chill out.  (Luke was disappointed to miss it, he's actually an even bigger fan of Mr. Troll's work)

It's good to be a homeschooler.  And it's good to live in a place with a feeling of true community spirit.  

Three Trails in Three Weeks

I'm trying to get Laurel to love hiking.  I don't know if I loved hiking as a kid...I don't think we did much formal hiking.  I certainly remember exploring the woods as a kid, and as an adult I enjoy the journey and the destination of a hike.  But it's hard to convince a kid that her burning thighs are a good thing.  But despite the burning thighs and 3 mile round trip---she did pretty well. 

She was in charge of the camera for a while, which she loves.  And she had her long-missing grey bunny returned this week...so he tagged along.  But somewhere around the 2 mile mark the complaints started coming...and coming...and coming. 

Thankfully there were little distractions along the way, like this random Easter egg tree that we found about midway through the hike.

And these bones she found.  She considers found bones to be of great scientific importance, so she stopped and photographed them for a while.  She thinks it's a deer, we'll have to research that a bit.  She was able to find the skull, and two pieces of the lower jaw (teeth included), a lot of vertebrae and ribs and a mostly intact spinal column. 

Roger of course just wanted to eat her scientific discovery. 

The sun was out and the view was just gorgeous, especially the walk back on the main road.  The view of the mountains around each bend is breathtaking.  And despite being 43 degrees still, we found ourselves stripping off the hats and coats towards the end of the hike. 

Sometimes I think Alaska is a special gift, just for us.

Navigation Project and a Beautiful Hike

Our weather took an amazing turn for the better this week.  We have had sun since Sunday...that's FOUR WHOLE DAYS!  When the weather is good here, you take advantage of it.  Laurel and I have been hiking the same trail all week, partly because it's close, and partly because I wanted to show her how with hard work the trail would go from being hard to being easy. 

Success.  But it didn't come easy.  3 days equals three fights about not wanting to go, wanting to quit before we started, wanting to quit after we started...and I'm sure there were others.  We had to talk a lot about positive attitudes, postitive outcomes...but in the end, only my ugly voice would push her along.  Sigh. 

I digress.  The first day was just re-introducing ourselves to the trail.  The second day I let her take charge of leading me on the trail.  The third day we sat down and made maps to route our path to and from (and including) the trail. 

 

With maps in hand I let the kids lead the way, figuring out at every turn whether it was right or left, how to read street signs, how to look for landmarks and how to be safe.  

 

 

Getting to the trail is the hardest part (before the fun begins) and thankfully as the "leader" Laurel stepped up to the plate and tried to be a positive role model for Luke (instead of whining her way up the road like she had been).

 

 

I won't lie, hiking with kids is rarely 100% fun.  You have to coax and push and bribe and trick sometimes to get them to want to keep going. This time I was able to get them into trading off who was the leader every 3 minutes.  This allowed each to feel like the one in charge, and took us through the whole trail with no more whining. 

 And with kids sometimes you just have to stop and play, or eat or let them take charge of the camera.  It's always amazing to me how quickly a snack can boost their moods.

And when it's all said and done you get that one last amazing view of the insanely beautiful place we live. 

 Then the kids finished navigating us back to the house. All in all they did a great job getting us there and back.  They had a couple of wrong turns, but they got back on track and figured out not only how to make a map and plan a route, but how to follow the map to get there and back.  It was a fun project, a beautiful day and a fun morning with the kiddos.

DIY Kids Valentines: Whales & Sharks

We are all about sea creatures here.  We also like to make our own Valentines, it's sort of a tradition in our family.  The designs started with an idea, then a sketch...then a desire to have something you can take home (besides just the card).  Cards end up in the trash (or the woodstove) pretty quickly, so it's nice to have a keepsake that people can take and use.

These are nice because a kid of 5 or older can do it themselves.  And since it's felt, no need for fancy machines or finished edges.  The work goes pretty quickly if you cut all the felt first, then sew them up.  We spread this out over a few days, and incorporated it into our homeschooling.

 The front was made with scrapbook paper in a variety of ocean-y shades. After all the felt-creatures were sewn we had a family craft night to finish the cards.  We set out all the materials for card making---to make each other homemade Valentines---and to finish these.  The kids cut and pasted everything themselves, then we taped the creatures onto the cards.

THEN...we made our own cards.  Pop-up was the theme this year...

And what Valentines would be complete without a love-inspired meal?  We went simple this year by making heart shaped burgers.  Special does not have to mean expensive or complicated.

 

Wordless Book Review: READ IT

 

Homeschooling Fun: Building a Boobytrap

If you're anything like me, your knowledge of boobytraps consists of childhood memories of watching The Goonies and Indiana Jones. (if you're a little younger, maybe Home Alone is a better example)

Luke is particularly interested in booby traps, and likes to set them to catch all the potential robbers that might be entering our home. (it's less of a paranoia thing, and more of a creative hero thing)

I was surprised to see that a quick Amazon search for boobytraps (for kids) resulted in some disturbing returns. (everything from fake boobies to REAL boobytraps...like bombs and such...yikes)

After some basic web searches we yielded some slightly more helpful (though not THAT much) images of what is called a simple Tiger Trap. (It's one small step up from the bucket of water on the door gag)

It's basically a simple pulley system, though ours is pretty crude...consisting of tape, a tape holder, a plastic container (filled with ants from the Ants in Your Pants game) and string.

One end of the string is taped to the ceiling, then to a container (open end facing away from the tape on the ceiling), then run the string through a tube that is hooked to the ceiling, and secure the string to the door in such a way that when the door is opened the string will detach and the weight of the container will pull itself down and dump it's contents on the the offending door-walker-inner.

Get it? Simple. Realistically it took us a few tries to get this done...all of them are on video of course. Our first try was a complete failure. Our second was successful. Our third was a failure again. This is a good thing, I promise. Kids need a little failure so that they learn that success for effort and hard work feels GREAT. Don't be afraid to let your kids fail! (how else will they learn?!) AND, don't step in to fix it...let them figure it out...that is after all THE POINT!

I think we've begun down a dangerous road of one-upmanship.

The last man standing wins...(insert evil laugh here)

Isn't homeschooling THE BEST?!?!

No plastic ants were harmed in the making of this boobytrap, but my hanging wall lantern (I'm sad to say) did not survive our crazy antics.