Olympic National Park

Today we visited Olympic National Park in the state of Washington. I won't share all of the things we did today, but I wanted to share a few that I thought you mind find interesting. The very first thing we did was to eat something. They had more than one place to eat, and since we were not hungry for a big meal, we picked this place. We each had something from the "Dog Pound". The next thing we did was to go and get a map, and talk to one of the people that worked there to ask some questions. Austin put a stamp in our passport book. Our passport book has all of the National Parks and Monuments listed in it, and places to put stamps for them. We have been doing this since we began our trip, so we have quite a few by now!This was what we did next:That's right-we got to see the World's Largest Spruce Tree! As you can see on the sign, it is almost 1,000 years old. It was so tall, I could not fit the whole tree in my picture. You can see how big it is with Papa standing up next to it!And here is Austin standing on the trunk of the tree. It was so huge!We had a lot of fun seeing this amazing tree! What do you think of it?

Fun Stuff

More information about the record trees here: Record Trees

Kite Making in Washington

Today we visited a kite museum and while there, we made our own kites. This can give you some idea of how to make your own too:

Kite Flying in Oregon

Today we went to a kite shop here so we could buy two kites. We are going to be visiting a kite festival, so we wanted to learn more about kites before then. Here is the shop:

After picking out the perfect kite, we headed over to the beach to try them out. Here is how you begin when flying the kites:Then you wait for a gust of wind to lift the kite a little bit:And then you run really fast while the kite lifts into the air:Do you see how high it is in this picture? We had so much fun!
A Very Short History of the Kite:

The kite has been around since at least 2,800 years ago. The kite is believed to be invented by the famous 5th century BC Chinese philosophers Mozi and Lu Ban.


Kites can be designed with many different shapes, forms, and sizes. They can take the form of flat geometric designs, boxes and other three-dimensional forms, or modern sparless inflatable designs. Kites flown by children are often simple geometric forms (for example, the diamond). In Asia, children fly dried symmetrical leaves on sewing thread and sled-style kites made from sheets of folded writing paper.

Benjamin Franklin was known for flying a kite for an experiment. He was flying kites long before this though. In fact, young Ben once swam across a lake with a kite attached to his toe. He was curious whether it would carry him across the water, and it did.

How to Make Your Own Kite

Kite One
Kite Two
Kite Three
Kite Four

Books About Kites

The Emperor and the Kite
Curious George and the Kite

Unit Study About Kites

Study One
Study Two
Study for the book The Emperor and the Kite
Comprehensive study with tons of links
The virtual Kite Zoo
Crayola Chinese Kites

Joshua Tree National Park, CA

Show Family 2 here, reporting live from California. Today we visited a national park that is named after the Joshua Tree. One of the rangers told us that this is not actually a tree, but is related to the flower the lily.

More information:

Lesson Plans

Teaching with Historic Places
Keys Ranch: Where Time Stood Still
Learn NPS

San Diego Natural History Museum

This is Show Family 2 reporting live from San Diego CA. We are almost all the way to the Mexican border here and we are enjoying the sunny weather. One of the fun things we've done while here is to visit this museum with models of dinosaurs. Are you as fascinated by these wonderful animals as we are? We learned all sorts of interesting things about them.

We also learned more about fossils while here. You can visit some of the links below to see what we did learn here.

Unit Studies/Teaching Guides
After the Dinosaurs: When Crocodiles Ruled
The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park: The Lost World (K-8)
Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight

Puzzles
Dinosaur Word Search
Dinosaur Word Search 2
Jurassic Jumble

Games
Dinosaur Games & Activities (Experiments)
Dino and Fossil Activities


Math
Dinosaur Math
Math Learning Videos

Timeline
Geological Timeline (Printable)

Fun Facts
Paleontology FAQ

Books recommended by the Museum

Pets Rule Show at Sea World

One of the things we did while visiting San Diego, California was to visit Sea World. One of our favorite things we did there was to watch the Pets Rule show. It is a show were pets do tricks. Tricks like jump roping:
Jumping over a pole:
More jump roping:
and cheerleading:
and of course, a favorite trick-catching frisbees:
We think this show is neat because all of the pets they use are animals that have been rescued. We didn't show them here, but they also have pigs and cats in the show. What is your favorite trick out of all of the tricks here? We like the jump rope trick!

Hummingbirds

Show Family 2 here: One of the things we have done this past week, is to get bird feeders to hang outside of our RV. We were hoping to attract different birds so we could see them up close and personal.

The hummingbirds have been some of our favorite visitors:Some facts about the hummingbird:

They are the tiniest birds on the planet. They are famous for more than their beauty and size. They are the only bird that can fly backwards. When they hover in the air, their wings can beat up to 72 times per second!

Hummingbirds hearts beat amazingly fast too. The blue-throated hummingbird's heart beats at 1260 beats per minute. They can fly at a steady speed of about 29 mph.

Hummingbirds are BIG eaters. They can eat twice as much as their body weighs each and every day. That's about the same as if a kid who weighs 50 pounds ate 100 hamburgers a day.

Hummingbirds digest their food really quickly. It only takes about ten minutes for a fruit fly to pass completely through one end to the other of a hummingbird.

How long do these incredible birds live? When kept in a cage and cared for, they have been able to live as long as dogs-about nine to fourteen years.

Coloring Pages with Hummingbirds
Color Your World
Enchanted Learning
Jea
RubyThroat

Games
Online Jigsaw Puzzle

How You Can Help Hummingbirds
Operation Ruby Throat