I know I’m a bit salmon crazed this time of year. Heck, even the Fall NeighbourWood Walks are all about checking out animal migration and hot salmon spawn spots. (Come on out and join us on Thursdays. Get the details HERE)
But, these upstream-swimming dudes are the cornerstone of the ecosystem and getting kids excited about them is way up on my list. My theory on kids learning about the outdoors is that if they see it, experience it and begin to understand it in a way that makes sense to them at an early age, they are stewards for life.
Since I am no salmon genius, we rely a lot on cool tools to get the tiny person (and me, for that matter) excited about them. Turns out that finding ones that are fun, informative and can grow with her are not an easy score.
Then, I connected with Nancy Field from Dog-Eared Publications and she hooked us up with Discovering Salmon by herself and Sally Machlis. We first learned about Nancy when we scored Ancient Forests from the Miracle Beach Nature House and since then have really gotten into all of the coolness at Dog-Eared. Nancy sent me a copy of Discovering Salmon as she thought we’d love it…and we did.
Discovering Salmon is one of those rare cool learning guides that lets kids take a look at salmon across North America. You get to check out details on where they live from California to B.C. to the tips of Alaska.
Its illustrations and language are definitely geared for 7 to 10-year-olds. But, we found it easily modified to match with a 4-year-old attention span and interest. Plus, it has stickers. So, it was a major score for the preschool crowd. Nancy and her crew obviously know kids, outdoor education and how to make learning about nature something fun for everyone.
Around the same time, we headed up to Telegraph Cove to check out the INCREDIBLE Bone Project at the Johnstone Straight Killer Whale Interpretive Centre (wow with a capital W) and picked up Discovering Alaska’s Salmon by Laurel Devaney and Putt Clark.
This gem also focuses on the Alaska/B.C. salmon and is so very lovely. No stickers, but I love this learning guide because of its focus on countries working together, getting kids thinking about being conservationists and a bit about First Nations history and their relationship with salmon.
We’ve had a lot of fun with its poems and testing our salmon IQ. There are also projects like creating a salmon habitat and making a food web that are great for older kids, or can be translated through cool art projects for younger ones.
Both books have brought the salmon spawn to life for us this year and can be ordered through your local independent bookseller.
But, we do have a copy of Discovering Salmon to give away today.
When you are helping your kiddos learn about nature, how do you like to help them find that connection?
One random commenter will score the book.
This contest is closed. Robin Blackburn won. Wahoo!!!
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We follow their lead!
We take them out into the ‘wild’ and just ramble. In the case of salmon, we’ve been to the hatchery, we’ve seen them jumping upstream, and we’ve seen them dead on the side of the waterways. Dead usually wins in the excitement department. This leads to books on salmon, books on life cycles, books on decomposition, books on anatomy, and then skeletons and all that fun. Our lad now has a better knowledge of functional anatomy than kids many times his age – just because we followed his interests instead of imposing ours. BTW: he believes he was probably a Coho at some stage – he loves the jutting lower jaw.
We love books. We love nature. We love books about nature. We’re EXTREMELY glad we are raising readers with curiousity. BUT. Nothing beats hands-on experience for learning in our world.
Cheers!
Hello Robin
Basically we just keep the kids outside as much as possible. Whether, we’re walking through the woods, beach combing or just hanging out, we let the kids explore, climb and get dirty. It’s pretty hard to stop curious kids from learning when they’re free to be hands on. We read alot too, so sometimes we refer back to a story or book we’ve read, but we don’t turn play time into lessons.