Activities
She was especially interested in a Hula costume. I decided a ribbon skirt would be much sturdier than one made out of crepe paper. The post is here. She made the lei out of fake flowers and cut up straws, and the lei po'o (the wreath) I put together with the leftover leaves and hot glue. She has requested a little tube top like Lilo wears.
Walker took Moira and Davis to the special Hawaiian celebration at the Aquarium, and she hasn't been interested in seeing any more hula since, preferring to make up her own.
We did this Tsunami activity, with quinoa instead of sand, which meant I had fresh cooked quinoa for lunch. Score! I think we are going to have to talk about tectonic plates soon, because she has been playing earthquake lately, and she was very interested in why the waves get big.
We also opened a coconut, following along with this video. It was harder than she makes it look, but I did get it done before she finished talking about the medicinal qualities of coconuts, and then we made a smoothie with the flesh and coconut water.
Food
This was hands down Moira's favorite part of learning, and why she wants to do another island next week. I did some research and what a traditional Hawaiian breakfast is, and settled on bagels and fruit (leaving off the fish I'm pretty sure she wouldn't eat first thing in the morning. For lunch, I tried to make ham and pineapple skewers, but the fancy no sulfite ham I bought broke down when put in contact with the pineapple. She had them separately for a little and then decided she didn't like ham.
The two dinners I planned were more of a success. I'm sure this most of what we ate is pretty mainland mainstreamed, but I tried to concentrate on things that used tropical ingredients, without coconut, since I hate coconut. We had this pineapple rice.
With this chicken. The leftovers were excellent, but I wasn't home for dinner that night, so I can't vouch for it on the first night.
My sister has dinner with us every other Friday, so I planned a big dinner that night. If you follow that link, we had the Macadamia crusted chicken, fried plantains, and a vegetable only version of the stir fry noodles. We also had egg rolls and my Mom made fruit salad and a papaya dressing for the green salad. Our nightly tradition is for everyone to talk about their favorite part of the day, and this time we included our favorite parts of Hawaii.
Lastly, we had Haupia (coconut milk pudding), which even the coconut haters among us liked.
Books
While we were at the library, Moira found a book about Tinkerbell and Pixie Hollow, so she really only wants to red that right now. I did convince her to read a couple of the books I checked out featuring Hawaii.
Dog of the Sea Waves, by James Rumford, was my favorite. It had a glossary of animal and plants in the back, along with a map of the whole chain of islands. It was a story about some of the first explorers to come to Hawaii, so it also covered how the islands were formed and how life came to grow there.
Georgia in Hawaii, by Amy Novesky, which I loved and thought was beautifully illustrated, but Moira was not so interested.
Grandma Calls me Beautiful, by Barbara Joose, who wrote the well loved Mama do you Love Me? and the equally good, but less well known, Papa do you Love Me? So, you know, it's good. I don't think it's quite as good as the other two, but it is a very good introduction to traditional Hawaiian culture for little kids.
Pig Boy, by Gerald McDermott, is a cute little fable about a baby born as a pig. I swear we've read this before, but I can't remember when.
High Tide in Hawaii, by Mary Pope Osborne. Moira hasn't discovered the Magic Treehouse books, yet, although I hear it's an inevitable obsession. Funnily, she refused to let me read this, insisting that she can read it on her own. She's probably not far off, as I've caught her reading multiple words out of books to herself, and she has pointed out to my Dad when he accidentally skips words in new books. I finally started reading it out loud near her, and she seemed to like it. So far every time she's picked out a chapter book from the library, we've only read half of it before she gets bored and returns it. Although, maybe she's been secretly reading the endings to herself? Who knows.
Of course, we also watched Lilo and Stitch multiple times. Because why not?
The pins I collected to get ready for this week are here on my Learning Around the World Board. I need to collect some more ideas for the requested second week. We will likely talk more about geography, and making volcanoes is already on our calendar. Do you have any suggestions for good Hawaii themed activities?
What about the spam?
ReplyDeleteVolcanoes is a favorite activity of Sam's.
ReplyDeleteYes, thank you for not making Spam...
ReplyDeleteSounds like she had a great time with this one.