Hawaii Lesson

Thank you for your patience while I've been arranging this blog!  I think I finally have things a little more settled and am able to grow this website into my original vision.

This week is crazy with activities!  My son has a chronic medical condition which we've been told will most likely require another surgery.  We have an appointment with the surgeon this week, as well as a whole bunch of playdates.  I'm trying to start a local homeschool playgroup in my area, as well as keep my son involved with playgroups sponsered by our church and other stay at home mom clubs.  So we're pretty swamped!

Because our schedule is nuts, we decided to switch around our homeschooling days this week.  I was thinking of doing them at the end of the week, but my son actually came to me this morning and asked if we could do school.  I was so surprised by the request I practically leaped off the couch and ran to my computer to print off some lesson material!  Luckily, I already planned my Around the World lesson for the week, and I just winged it with the Reading.

So today, we traveled to Hawaii.  I did a quick you tube search to find some good Hawaiian dance moves, both that we could watch and learn.  Check them out:

This one was cool to learn a few simple hand moves.

My son wasn't impressed so we only go through about 45 seconds before he just put his head down and stopped paying attention....but I thought it was neat!  I just never know what he'll like and what he'll find boring....

So we learned some dance moves, talked about leis, I showed him pictures online of different ocean creatures that live in the water surrounding, then we "looked" into our own ocean:

I wanted to fill a kiddie pool with water and really put some effort into making it look like an ocean floor.  Instead, I filled a plastic container with water, added some plastic toy fish, sea shells, a "sea urchin" - koosh ball, and an "oyster" - plastic easter egg. 

I considered making out own leis, but my son really wasn't into the whole Hawaii visit, so we moved on, but it would be a fun activity if your child is interested!

That was all we did for Hawaii.  It was a really short lesson, and I was a little disappointed that my son wasn't more interested in learning more, but I'm quickly learning that not all my lessons are going to be home runs.