George Washington Day 1

School has been such a struggle here this year, I must admit I have been pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to get Selena engaged. We have always had fun doing Unit Studies, but last year Selena chose to take a year off from them and just hit the books. We had a lot of fun learning through our curriculum books, but this year things again were just off. No matter what I tried to do I just could not get her engaged. Last week with Presidents Day coming upon I introduced Selena into George Washington. The light bulb turned on, and the gleam on her face was priceless. I must admit I was pretty thrilled, not only to know what she wanted now for school, but also to have the opportunity to get back to unit studies and the way I love to teach.

Today we started our official day back on track with Unit Studies and a deeper look into George Washington. Selena happily listened to the lesson, and took notes for her first journal page. I will be looking for a different format for her journal paper then the one shown above, but it was a start, and I loved to see her eagerness. We learned some very interesting information in our little study today. Now I don't think Selena will ever forget the important dates in George Washington's life, after all Selena and one of her brother's birthday falls on the same day that George Washington died, and get this her other brother was born on the same day as George Washington's Birthday. Selena also found it very interesting to learn that George Washington did not go to college but did his studies from home, this fact made homeschool seem just a little more special to her.

We read the story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree by M.L. Weems. Selena was a bit disappointed when I explained that this was not a true story, but I did point out that it did serve as a great picture of George Washington's character. She then had fun cutting out the cherries to paste on her cherry tree. We also practiced our fractions by dividing pies from a whole pie, to halves, thirds, and fourths.

As on late I have been asking Selena to step up a bit on her basic math facts. We purchased a CD with the math facts set to a nice Rap beat. She is having so much fun listening, singing and learning everyday and I look forward to adding to this collection the multiplication and division facts.

I wasn't sure at first since this was RAP, but it is a decent RAP tune, and I can see where a child can easily pick up the beat, which is catchy making it easy for a child to memorize the math facts without even realizing she is.

We will still be working in our curriculum books, and work, but I promised Selena it would be at an easy slower pace, but I feel strongly that the reading, spelling, and math that she gets from her curriculum is important and well worth keeping up.

I am linking up at All Things Beautiful. We would love to have you stop back by as we proceed forward from here.

History/Geography

This week has been very productive in history. Since Selena is performing with the other children at church for our 9/11 special service. We did a lot of practice on America The Beautiful.

It was my hope that not only would she learn the song to sing, but also learn the meaning of the song along with why we were going to have this special service on Sunday. We started by just breaking the song down in parts, and discussed the meaning.

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

Selena learned that this part speaks about the beauty found in America. We took a long look at our spacious skies both at day and at night. We looked at many pictures of all the different grain farmlands, so she could truly get a feel for  how they truly do look like waves of grain, as the winds and breezes blow over them. She reflected on Mount Rainier as the purple mountain majesty, which worked every so wonderful as it truly does raise up over the fruit orchards that she remembered from our vacation last summer.

O beautiful for pilgrim feet,

Whose stern imapassion’d stress

Athoroughfare for freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

Selena learned that the pilgrims are the people, men and women who truly were seeking for freedom. We used this along with our studies of Columbus and discussed how the people who came over from England were looking for a place where they could believe the ways they desired, and how that brought them to America. We also looked at the pioneers in our own family, and their quest for farms and a chance to raise their families.

O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife,

Who more than self their country loved,

And mercy more than life!

At this point, we truly looked and dwelled into 9/11. We looked at what happened on that day, disgusted why it happened, and who the heroes were on that day.  We talked about how every day these first responders and military men and women put their lives on the line to keep freedom ringing in our country and to keep us safe.

O Beautiful for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam,

Undimmed by human tears!

Selena learned that this section truly speaks of heaven, and how through the grace of God we all have the opportunity to someday live in this beautiful city where there will be no more tears. This brought us full circle as to how big God was, is and should be in America and in all lives.

I am linking this up at All Things Beautiful.

Geography/History

I was really hoping to fit our Geography in this week. Selena finally decided to cooperate, she really wanted to more math instead. We read in our History/Geography book about Christopher Columbus, and how everyone back then thought the world was flat. We also read how maps back then basically consisted of hand made maps of just what people seen. Selena was quite surprised that there was only one Continent on a sample map that could have been from that time era. We also talked about why they thought the world was flat. Showing Selena the following picture, to reinforce why they thought this might the case.

Selena was able to easily see how many might think you would fall off the earth if you got too far out in the ocean. She exclaimed that it truly did look like the ocean stopped at the sky.

I then took a piece of paper and made Selena do her little exercise to determine which direction was North in our house, and asked her to sit in a chair at our table facing North. She then had to draw according to North, South, East and West what was in our house. Selena understood what she was suppose to draw, but asked me to do the drawing for her while she told me about the things she seen. Then she was suppose to color it, as you will see she started coloring, but then decided she had enough and was finished. Even a star sticker to put in the place of where she was sitting was not enough to make her finish her coloring.

While this is much like what we did last year in mapping out our house, we took it one more step to get the direction compass on this one and to use it to make our map truly represent more of the layout of the rooms she could see.

I am linking up at All Things Beautiful.

Geography/History

Yesterday we learned that along time ago there were no maps, well no maps like ours. We will be addressing this more further in our studies. I truly wanted Selena to focus on our map more. We looked more closely at the directional compass on the map, as well as the key to the map. I was thrilled when I found worksheets that went with our Geography/History book and copied the first map for our study.

Selena learned that on the key in her book green stood for land and blue stood for water. She had a perfect map all colored but before I could get it scanned into the computer she spilled juice on it and threw it away. I copied another and sort of helped her get back where she was before.

We then had fun using the compass on the map to take several trips to the different places on our map. I would tell Selena where we were starting from, and she had to go in the direction I told her in. If I said go North she had to follow the direction compass on the map and go North to the first land she came to. As you can see we made several different trips around the map and explored many different places.

I am linking this up at All Things Beautiful.

Geography/History

I was thrilled when I unpacked this little book, Heritage Studies 1, which is a first grade History book. As I thumbed through it I knew the material in it was exactly what I was looking for as we move forward in our school. We skipped the first lesson since it was a repeat of last year when we discussed puddles, high and low lands, islands and such. The second lesson dealt with direction.

I began by asking Selena some simple questions and got a kick out of her answers:

1. Which direction is North? Selena, “Up?”
2. Which direction is South? Selena, “Uh I don’t know.”
3. Which direction to we see the sun come up in the mornings? Selena “Out the window?”
4. Which direction do we see the sun set in the evenings? Selena “Down?”

We then made a sun from yellow construction paper, which I displayed on the East wall of our dinning room.

I asked her to show me her right hand which she obliged, and we talked about East being on the right. West being on the left, North is where we face, and South behind us. We also looked at a map to see the directional compass.

I then taught Selena a little dance that we sat to our own tune which we will practice everyday.  First make sure your child is facing North.

With a small step and pointing one or two hands forward, shout North.

With a step back have the child point behind herself with a thumb and shout South.

Step to the side, of course Selena style is to have one hand on the hip, point with the right arm and shout East.

Then point with the left arm and shout West.

I remember doing this every morning in elementary, and so this is one little dance I want to truly share with Selena. Hope you have fun trying this with your children.

Phyllis at All Things Beautiful has so graciously stepped up and offered to take over the Geography/History meme. I know anyone who has seen all that she does with her children in Geography/History will agree with me, that she is the perfect person to host this meme. I had fun hosting it, and I encourage all of you to head over to All Things Beautiful and continue to join us over there.

Geography/History Lake Quinault Rain Forest

I had all sorts of plans to have a wonderful informative post about Lake Quinault, the Rain Forest, and it’s history for this week. While I will touch on some of it’s rich history it is not what I expected to have. With Selena not feeling well, and a full day spent at the church helping to clean some of the storage areas that I don’t think have been deep cleaned in ages, not much got done around home. Do any of you remember the little metal boxes that held our watercolor paints and brushes? We found about 60 of those stuffed in one of the storage closets at church. Now my question is, can we still find refills for them? On to my geography/history post.

Lake Quinault is nestled in the Olympic National Forest. The lake itself is owned by the Quinault Indian Tribe, the trails and grounds are maintained by the US Forestry. The Lake is in a glacial carved valley, it is very deep and well known for it’s fishing. Many people visit Lake Quinault for it’s hiking trails, some of which are for experienced hikers only, while others range from moderate to the inexperienced. Many campsites are only attainable by hiking in, and all hikers must register with the ranger station. There are some campsites down along the South shore of the lake. Many people that go to stay at the lake stay in the famous Lake Quinault Lodge.

The Quinault Indians are coastal Indians, they settled in this area for the ease of access to the ocean by water, as well as the abundance of resources the land offered. Trees for making tools, canoes, and plenty of berries, and other vegetation, what more could they ask for.

The first white man to see this area actually boated in with the Indians from the Ocean. He homesteaded there through one winter, in 1888/1889 making a living as a trapper. The second white man to homestead this area actually came from our town, Montesano. He traveled the 9 day trek over land. He quickly staked out a homestead, and settled there with his wife in August of 1889. More homesteaders were to follow.

One homesteader who chose to build on a piece of property on the North side of the lake, and this homestead still stands today as a reminder what the life of the homesteader looked like. His wife and two boys joined him the following year by boat, a three day journey up the river and across the lake.

In 1891 the first hotel was built. It was located where the current lodge sits, but was only a one story building. It was chiefly used for homesteaders to stay while waiting to move onto their claims. That hotel eventually burned, and replaced by the existing lodge.

Though our area is known for its timber industry most of the homesteaders did not settle in this area for the timber but more for its serenity, using the trees only for their homes and necessities.

The Quinault Rainforest is a temperate rainforest. The definition of  a temperate rainforest truly ranges from one country to another. Here it is a forest that receives an annual precipitation of 200 to 400 cm, has climates of 39 to 54 degrees Fahrenheit. The forest has a closed canopy of trees that excludes at least 70% of the sky. The trees and plants are composed mostly of species not dependent on fire for regeneration but by seedlings able to regenerate in shady and in natural openings. (definition from Wikipedia)

We are planning another trip up there soon. We will at that time visit the homestead, and get pictures to share, as well as the worlds largest Spruce Tree. I hope I have spurred your interest enough that you will do some research, and teach your children about the beauty that can be laying in their back yards. Look for another post down the road when we can share some more fun and exciting pictures from this area. For now I will leave you with a taste of the true beauty up there, through the water fall.

Now it is your turn what is your family learning through geography or history this week? Link your post below and we will be sure to come learn something from you.

Geography/History Tid Bits

I really wanted to get pictures of all the beauty on our travels today, but unfortunately we were running a little late getting out of here, so I did the driving. Papa tends to drive slower then I do, so when we are running a little late I know better then to ask him to drive. No, I do not speed, I have been known to at one time or another, but with cruise control I am able to just keep my speed and go!

When we hit Aberdeen, Selena looked up the river to see the two tall ships, the Lady Washington, and The Hawaiian Chieftain, who call Aberdeen their home port, with all sails up and sailing up river. Oh at that point I wanted to stop the car and get pictures, but we were on the wrong side of the Highway for that. When we came back through there was only one of the tall ships still in sight, and it was pulled into a cove, hard to get a good picture of.

This did however, open the door for a lot of questions by Selena about Pirates. Are these pirate ships? Were all sailors considered pirates? The questions went on and on, and after every question in her best pirate voice she had to say ARG! I just discovered that they are giving tours of the ships tomorrow, and hope to take Selena down, then we will get pictures and many of her questions answered. I will share more about that if we are able to get down there for a tour.

I did however, turn this around and asked Selena what were some of the other means of travel before the cars and trucks or any motorized form of transportation. She thought about it for a minute and then exclaimed covered wagon. I asked her who traveled by covered wagon, and of course she remembered The Little House on The Prairie and answered with “Laura and Mary.”

When we got home she wanted to build a covered wagon, of course I knew she wanted to build one like this one.

Since it was late, and about time for bedtime, I chose to build one she could sit in and truly enjoy. With two chairs and a blanket, we created a covered wagon that Selena thought was pretty cool.

I again asked her if she knew of anyone that traveled by wagon? She looked at me and said the pioneers. I then told her that some of her own family had traveled by wagon train from Kentucky to Promise Oregon where they homesteaded. We came to the computer and found a route most commonly used that may have been the same trail our family traveled. I will probably never really know for sure, but I am taking my best educated guess that this is the route they took.

Selena went back to enjoying her covered wagon again until time to get ready for bed. I promised we would rebuild it tomorrow for some more fun. It is so fun when just a few questions can turn a ordinary moment into a time for learning.

Just because I love to share the exciting things that Selena does: While waiting in the doctor’s office a woman acknowledged Selena’s reading ability. She said she use to be a Kindergarten teacher. Selena turned and just started telling her all about bees, from them flying into the bee hive, collecting nectar from flowers and using that to make honey. She then grabbed a bible that was on one of the tables and informed her what the first 10 books of the bible were, in order, and that last Sunday our bible story was from the book of Ruth, which is followed by 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. I wondered if she was listening in Sunday school, I guess now I know that she is.

Now it is your turn to share with us what you have studied in Geography or History in your homes this week. Link your post below.

Geography/History Presidents Day

Selena woke up on Monday all confused wondering why Papa was home. It was a great way to introduce to her President’s Day. We discussed why we have a President, and of course she knows our current President is President Obama. From there we talked about the fact that we didn’t always have a President and moved on to our First President George Washington. We looked him up here on the computer and learned a lot of interesting little facts, Selena was especially impressed with the fact that he was born in Virginia, well what we call Virginia today anyway. We also talked about Washington DC and why it is not a State. We looked at pictures of the white house along with many other buildings and monuments in Washington DC.

On Tuesday I announced that it was in fact George Washington’s Birthday, so we went right to work on looking at Virginia State. Selena wasn’t as into this study as usual, I think it is because I didn’t let her pick the State, that she wanted to study. Instead I chose the State we would look at, also Papa was home, the car was in the shop, and she learned that her Mommy had her baby brother that morning, so things were just totally off for Selena.

She didn’t fin Virginia on our US map as quickly as usual, but she kept looking on the West Coast, and it took me a bit to get her to understand we were talking about the East Coast. Once I mentioned to her that our friends live in Virginia, she then was very quick to point the State out. She calls our friends girl’s her sisters, so she quickly announced, “My Sisters live in Virginia. When are they coming home?”

We then moved on to find the location on Washington DC, again emphasizing that it is not a State. When we sat down to do our map work, Selena quickly pointed out that George Washington’s picture is on our State flag and Seal so we talked about how our State is named after George Washington. She chose a shade of orange to color her State, why I don’t know, she gave no reason. I then had her make a mark in a different shade to mark where Washington DC is located.

We didn’t get a lot of interesting facts about Virginia itself, so this will be a State we will revisit. Selena truly was loosing interest in doing much more. We did however get a picture of George Washington on our page. She now knows that George Washington was our first President, why we have President’s Day, and that he was born in Virginia.

I know I mentioned in the beginning of this that yes, we do have a Grandson now. Mom and baby are doing fine. We hadn’t planned on saying anything to Selena, but it popped out the other night and Selena jumped all over our words, so we had to take some time to explain the situation to her. He was born on February 22 at 5:00 a.m. weighing in at 7 pounds 11 ounces. That is all I know at this time. And yes, we are excited to know that we have a grandson!

We are looking forward to seeing what all of you have been studying in Geography/History this week. Link your posts up below and we will be around to see and learn with you.

Geography/History Moving West

I decided to try something a little different for Geography/History this week. We found Wagon Train by Sydelle Kramer illustrations by Deborah Kogan Ray at our library. It talks about how the pioneers traveled West. It describes the wagon, the supplies they carried, how their travels were, the difficulties they encountered, and introduces new words, which Selena was thrilled to see broke down by syllables so she could easily try to pronounce them. I didn’t really know due to it’s length if Selena would really engage in the book, but we have read it several times now. I really get a kick out of Selena’s reactions when it talks about how the pioneers found themselves with a river to cross, and how they did this task as well as when they run into a lot of mud after some heavy rains.

We decided to make our own covered wagon. I used a box, covered it with brown paper, cardboard wheels, pipe cleaners, paper clasps, and a plain off white piece of construction paper.

We used the pipe cleaners to hold the cover in place.

Selena found it fairly easy to help me put the wheels on. I had pre punched the holes in the wheels and the wagon.

Selena was so careful when putting the cover over. She examined and made sure it was just perfect before we taped it in place.

Using some of her doll furniture we filled the wagon with some items that were discussed in the book that the pioneers probably took West with them. We also placed a family in the wagon.

Selena had a lot of fun and was very proud of her covered wagon. While it is pretty destroyed now, she had a lot of fun playing with it. She did wait until Papa could see it before she played with it, she described the entire process to him. Her little story as she played with it was all about the things she learned from the Wagon Train book, it was cute to hear her talk about her pioneers as she played.

We look forward to what you are learning in Geography and History.

Geography/History

What started out as a little idea, has been growing, yes, I am talking about my Geography/History Carnival. I have been asked many questions from bloggers who are discovering this Carnival and wanting to join in. Since this is a busy week for Selena and I with appointments, and then with colds, I thought I would take a moment to answer some of these questions that I have received.

This carnival did start out as a small idea for a postcard exchange, which Selena and I enjoyed very much, both receiving and mailing postcards. It has now evolved into a weekly carnival, a place to share what we are teaching in geography and history. I know we enjoy venturing out among all the blogs who join the carnival, to see into their lessons and sometimes we learn something we didn’t even know. It has been a lot of fun!

I want to make sure that everyone knows that this is an open carnival for anyone that has a geography or history related lesson they have done with their children. This can be in the source of actual classroom activities or travel. If you have older posts that fall into geography or history, then yes, you most certainly can link them up as well. I also want to let you know my post is always up on Wednesday morning by 4:30 a.m. Pacific time.

My only request is that you let your readers know that you are linking to my carnival either by using my button found in my side bar, or you may link directly using Children Grow Children Explore Children Learn with it linked back to my blog.

I do get around and visit everyone’s post and will comment. I do ask if you should have any questions, please leave me a way to answer your question preferably via email. If you have your email hidden, feel free to email your questions to me and I will respond. My email can be found in my profile and also in my side bar.

Thank you to all who have participated, continue to participate and for showing an interest in wanting to participate, without you this carnival would not be what it is.

We should be back on track next week, with another geography or history post ourselves. In the meanwhile we look forward to seeing and reading all that you are doing in your homes.

Geography/History Guest Post

As many of you know I am very serious about seeing that Selena is educated in Geography and History. I feel it is within these subjects that we can expand a child’s world of learning for years to come. I asked Ticia from Adventures in Mommydom who use to be an elementary teacher to give us her point of view as to why these two subjects really do need our attention, and why we need to be teaching them to our children.

It is my hope that you will enjoy her post, and take to heart just what she is saying:

I’m so excited, this is my first ever guest post, and I’m very thankful to Debbie for asking me to do this.

She wanted to get the viewpoint of a former teacher on geography and history. I also am a bit of an oddity, in that I was an elementary education major with a minor in history. So, that tells you I’m a big history buff.

First, I want to say in the United States , we really give history and geography the short end of the stick. In elementary it’s hardly taught at all because they focus so much on math and reading because those are tested then. When I was teaching we allotted about 30 minutes each day for either Social Studies or science. The reality was we never really used the textbooks that we had because they weren’t all that great. They didn’t really go into all that much depth about the topics, and really just provided enough information to bore the kids over and over again.

The other thing we do to those subjects is we don’t have people who are interested in them teach the subject. Instead, they’re taught by coaches. Coaches are required to teach a couple of non-PE related classes, and they’re usually given history or geography because they’re not tested on and if the kids don’t learn what does it matter?

Well, I’ll tell you why it matters. Because you can look at history and see why you shouldn’t do things, or why you should.

Now, this is where it can also get political. But, you can look at what happens when you have a history of appeasement, and it never goes well. Before World War 2 most of Europe believed Adolf Hitler when he said he only wanted “X” and they gave it to him. Then suddenly he had conquered half of Europe . By the same token, if you have a group of terrorists who say they want you to just leave them alone, it doesn’t work to say “Okay, we’ll give you what you want,” instead they keep attacking and taking more.

Not only can you apply it to modern day political situations, but it helps explain how we are working now. Did you know that Texas didn’t have a female governor for almost 100 years? That’s because their first female governor kept within the letter of the law barely, and Texans remembered it so well they didn’t elect another one until the early 90s.

It also can give you insight into how you should act. There are so many great examples in history of the single person who stood up to what was wrong, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther, our Founding Fathers. That list could go on, but that’s what I thought of in 10 seconds. There are great inspirational stories.

So, why learn geography?

For one, because there are three important things to remember about history and real estate, “location, location, location.” Where it is effects so much of what is going on. That’s certainly true now, why are we so worried about a 100 mile piece of land called Israel ? Because it effects how the whole rest of that region goes, and that affects our oil prices.

Also, you look really stupid if you don’t have a token idea of where things are. This is how Jay Leno and the like get so many “person on the street” interviews, most people have no clue where people are. Think about the huge furor when Sarah Plain (in a comment I think was partially in jest) said “I can see Russia from my window,” and the big deal people made over that.

Now, apply it on a smaller scale and your child is interviewing at a major company and they don’t know where Portugal is. Why don’t they? Because it wasn’t taught on a test, so it wasn’t taught to them.

I freely admit I’m horrid at geography, it never hugely interested me, but I don’t want that for my kids. I want them to learn and know where things are and how cultures are different. And what makes each culture special, because they all are.

 

Geography/History #19

Selena watched an interesting episode of Dinosaur Train where they were studying an active volcano and watched as it erupted. This episode came at a great time as yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the eruption of Mt Saint Helens. We shared some pictures of Papa’s since he lived at the base of Mt Saint Helens when she erupted, and also some pictures that were taken 5 years ago when Papa and I visited up there.

I wanted to watch a documentary we have of Mt Saint Helens, but feared it would be too long and too intense for Selena. I found this small clip that is on our documentary on Google Videos, so we watched this and a couple others instead.

Some facts, this eruption could have been a lot more devastating then it was, if it wouldn’t have been for the eruption happening on a Sunday morning. If she would have waited one more day, there would have been a lot more lives lost, as the loggers would have entered the mountain to begin their daily work of logging. Instead of the 57 lives that were lost that day, there could have been hundreds of lives lost. Mt Saint Helen’s throughout history when she has blown has always blown bilateral instead of strait up like most volcanoes. Spirit Lake known for it’s beauty and recreation no longer exists. A long time resident of Spirit Lake, refused to leave his home and was never found. As he said, “My wife died up here on this mountain, this is my home, and I guess if she chooses to take me, then so be it.” He laughed and dismissed the warnings, not believing that Mt Saint Helen’s would ever erupt. A geologist who went up to camp in an attempt to film the eruption was never found, but his camera was. His last words were over a radio, “Vancouver, this is it.” Yes, they did retrieve some footage from his camera.

I lived in Spokane, on the East side of the State at the time this event took place. We received a foot of ash dumped on Spokane, closing down the entire town. At about 11:00 my brother from Kennewick called and asked if it was dark at our home yet? My mom thought he was nuts, he then went on to explain that the mountain had erupted. We ran to the window and could literally watch the ash cloud coming towards us. By noon the street lights came on, and it was as dark as night and appeared to be snowing. It wasn’t snow it was the gray particles of ash. To clean this ash up was a job. Add water it turned to cement, to sweep, it was so fine and light it just landed back where you swept it from.

From Papa’s point of view, he could hear, feel and see the eruption. The black cloud over the mountain was massive, as you can see in the video, and he could witness the lightning strikes inside the clouds from her force. They had tremors throughout the day. What was to come next, was the massive mud flow, that wiped out everything in it’s path. Papa watched as houses, cabins, animals, and trees, were swept right past him nearly knocking out an entire bridge as it moved underneath it. Some bridges did get wiped out from the massive earth slide. They had to dredge the Columbia river after this massive slide, to clear all the debris out to allow flow of the Cowlitz River.

Mount Saint Helens is still our most dangerous mountain, as she is still considered a young volcano. She continues to rebuild her dome inside the crater, but the intensity of this rebuilding has slowed. Wild life is now returning. She is definitely rebuilding her beauty on her own with no man’s interference.  The question left unanswered is “Will she blow again?” Many scientists and geologists say, “It’s not will she blow again, but when will she blow again?”

Five years ago when we were up there, she was steaming and I guess you could say burped. We could hear the tremor and yes we felt it under our feet. It was rather unsettling, and made everyone jump, but thanks to my husband’s quick wit and fast thinking he told the tourists it was just thunder, so that they did not all go running to their cars and create a huge traffic jam. Believe me, many looked as though they were taking their last breath. They were ready to run! We stood there and watched the steam rise from her crater, one of the tourists commented, “What a beautiful cloud!” She did have a small eruption this same year that was seen for miles, as far away as Seattle.

Last night when Papa called it was cute to hear Selena tell him what she learned about Volcanoes and Mt Saint Helens. She went to our white board, and though Papa couldn’t see the mountains She said, “Look here is 2 mountains. All the stuff moves up and up and up until it blows up into the clouds. And Papa, this one is Mt Saint Helens! Why? because it blew out the side!” If I would have only known she was going to do that I would have had camera ready, so these were after the phone conversation.

I know my pictures are just lovely aren’t they!

Selena pointing out the one that would represent Mt Saint Helens!

I guess she took in more then I expected. I then remembered that I had something made out of the volcanic ash.

She was being careful not to break it, that is why she is on the floor!

Geography/History #18

On Mother’s Day again we had a very beautiful day. We started our day out with a trip to the Pacific Ocean. We went to a beach called Grayland. When we got there we did observe a fishing vessel out in the ocean. So this got us to thinking that we needed to take Selena to the Lighthouse.

Selena had her very first history lesson and learned some interesting facts about the lighthouse. Standing at 107 feet tall it is the tallest lighthouse in Washington State.  Erected in 1897 it was lit by a kerosene lamp. The lens system is called a Fresnel Lens. The system used to rotate the huge lens was called a clock, which similar to a cuckoo clock, had long chains that were weighted. The lighthouse keeper’s main responsibility was to basically rewind the clock, the same way as you would an old clock by pulling down the chain then wait for it.  Another one of his responsibilities was to make sure the kerosene lamp never burned out, he would have to check through special holes to make sure the lamp flame was just right then could adjust the air flow to make sure it was burning at just the right level. This was all switched to electricity operation in the early 1900’s.

This is a picture view of the inside of the lens where the light is at. Interesting back when this was still operated by kerosene this lens actually floated in mercury. The lighthouse keepers would have to regularly drain the mercury and strain all the contaminates off, then pour it back into the donut shaped drum.

Every lighthouse shows different colored lights, and though they are similar in design are painted with different colors. Our State colors for the light is Red and White. The rotation was in 15 second intervals, in other words there would be 15 seconds of Red, and 15 seconds of White, with darkness of a couple seconds in between.

This is the side of the lens that would have been Red. The lens was covered with a large piece of Red plastic, so that the light shown Red. This lens was imported from France, and each piece was precisely placed in place so that the light could be seen exactly 25 miles out from the shore.  This lens was cleaned with Red wine! The Red wine cleaned it the best from any other type of solution they ever tried.

This lighthouse is still a functioning light house but now this entire unit has been replaced by a Satellite system, and the light is from a box mounted on the outside. One of the sad things is by going to the new navigation system the town of West Port can no longer see the working lighthouse lights. Prepare yourself, this massive lens has been replaced by this:

View of the Ocean from the top of the light house.

Selena at the top of the light house.

Selena also got a Certificate of Recognition for climbing the 135 steps to the top of the tallest lighthouse in WA State.

Believe me she deserved this! First of all she barely was tall enough, I think we fudged a bit there, as she was suppose to be 40 inches tall, and I believe she is 37 or 38 inches tall. Also this was a long climb. Coming down she got scared at first as the stairs going from the lens area, to the clock area, where by the way is where the lighthouse keeper stayed, slept, and ate during his shift, are very narrow. After we got beyond that point, she did GREAT!! She earned this certificate all the way!

Another tid bit of information we discovered here on the Internet is that the lighthouse originally sat 400 feet from high tide.

Did they move it? No, not at all, they built a Jetty System at the entrance to Grays Harbor, which protects the shoreline from the massive swells. By doing this the land has dried up and the lighthouse is now 3000 feet from the high tide. 

Selena took Papa’s light house and told me just how it works. How the lighthouse keeper went in the door, climbed the stairs, and then showed me how the light went around and around. She listened and retained a lot of the information that was told to us today. She also described the big lights in side the lighthouse.