When my big girl gets really excited to learn about something, I love to dive right in with her. I find it thrilling to explore with her and watch the learning through her eyes. So a few weeks ago she came home all excited about salmon, I knew I wanted her to understand the life cycle of the salmon, but I also wanted her to learn about the important role of salmon in Native American culture here in the Pacific Northwest, where salmon not only serve as nourishment, but they are also honored.
Our first stop was the library (I know, how archaic of me), to see what children’s books might be available on the topic. We were quite pleased to find quite a few – both on the life cycle of the salmon, but also a few that incorporated Native American culture.
Our favorite book that spoke to the science-side was The Life Cycle of a Salmon by Bobbie Kalman and Rebecca Sjonger. It was specific enough to cover species of salmon, their entire life cycle, and closed by addressing how one can help protect salmon and their habitats. The font is probably a size 14, so we eagerly and easily read through the 32 page book in one sitting.
What was one thing I learned about the life cycle of the salmon? I learned that for salmon, the end is also the beginning.
Once salmon run and finish spawning, they are pretty much spent. They die before their eggs hatch, but hang out near the eggs to protect them. And the dead salmon decay around their eggs and add nutrients to the water that their eggs, and later the fry, can use! Isn’t that pretty amazing?!
It made me think how I as a mother also try to do everything in my power to help my girls learn and prepare themselves for their lives ahead.
Our favorite book that taught us something new about salmon in Native American culture was First Salmon by Roxane Beauclair Salonen. We learned that many Native Americans in the Puget Sound celebrate the arrival of the first salmon each summer with a small ceremony to honor the salmon.
The idea being that if you treat the first salmon with respect, he will lead his relatives to the rivers and stream.
There was some symbolism in the book which was a little over my 5 year old’s head but I loved one section where an elder said she admired and honored the salmon for their strength in facing difficult situations. It led to a conversation with my big girl about the importance of not giving up on things (or people) too easily.
Last week my big girl went on a field trip. As her Kindergarten class and their 5th grade buddy class were learning about the life cycle of the salmon…they had the opportunity to watch salmon fry turn into parr in a huge fish tank at school. Their field trip was to a nearby creek to release them. Once those parr are ready to leave the freshwater habitat, those will be considered smolts and they will follow the water current to the estuary where they will adjust to salt water for a few weeks before heading out to the Pacific Ocean. Depending on the salmon species, in a few years, they will run back to the creek to spawn.
Now there’s someone in our house, who was already eager for summer to arrive but is now even more so. Now that she understands more about salmon, she can’t wait to go visit the fish ladder at the Ballard Locks to see salmon running back home to spawn.
Have you had an opportunity to learn something new with your child recently? What was it? What was the best part for you?
This is an original post for World Moms Blog by Eva Fannon. Eva can be found on Twitter @evafannon.
Chinook salmon photo credit to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Native Salmon Art photo credit to Ross Sidlowski. Both of these pictures have a Flickr Creative Commons attribution license.
Thanks, Eva, your post is wonderful! 🙂
I’m also a mom who loves going to a library and checking out “real” books rather than just looking things up online! There’s absolutely nothing better than looking at the world through the eyes of a child and rediscovering the magic and beauty that’s all around us – if only we can slow down enough to appreciate it!
I’m also a HUGE “fan” of the wisdom that can be found in Native American Culture. We’re only now starting to understand and appreciate Mother Nature – the Native Americans were living in a sustainable way long before the idea of conservation was embraced by the rest of us!
My kids are teens now, and we’re entering a phase of discovering our “Life Purpose”. This is an ongoing process. The best part for me is that we laid the foundation for discovering things together when they were little, and this has kept the communication open for trying to discover more “esoteric” things! 🙂 I LOVE the interesting and intelligent conversations I’m enjoying with my teens now.
That is great to hear Mamma Simona – keeps me positive and looking forward to this continued discovery in learning as my girls get older 🙂
Thanks, Eva, your post is wonderful! 🙂
I’m also a mom who loves going to a library and checking out “real” books rather than just looking things up online! There’s absolutely nothing better than looking at the world through the eyes of a child and rediscovering the magic and beauty that’s all around us – if only we can slow down enough to appreciate it!
I’m also a HUGE “fan” of the wisdom that can be found in Native American Culture. We’re only now starting to understand and appreciate Mother Nature – the Native Americans were living in a sustainable way long before the idea of conservation was embraced by the rest of us!
My kids are teens now, and we’re entering a phase of discovering our “Life Purpose”. This is an ongoing process. The best part for me is that we laid the foundation for discovering things together when they were little, and this has kept the communication open for trying to discover more “esoteric” things! 🙂 I LOVE the interesting and intelligent conversations I’m enjoying with my teens now.
I love how you are leading by example and showing your children how to dig deeper for knowledge!
In preschool, when learning the letter “U” my daughter’s teacher told us that they learned that “U” was for “umbrella bird.” They weren’t sure if that was even a real bird, so I told her that my daughter would research it and report back!
We used the internet and found information about the bird, which lives in South America. It has a kind of “hat” on it’s head that resembles an umbrella. I wrote up a bunch of facts about the bird and printed out a photo of it for her to bring to class. We also found a coloring page to print out copies for everyone to color.
I think when I do something like this again, before doing the research, it would be fun to write and draw what we think the answers are. Then we can compare what we thought we’d find to what we really found.
Jen 🙂
Wow – I just learned something new Jen! I have never heard of an umbrella bird!! And I love how you brought the new knowledge back to the class – that’s great! Thanks for sharing 🙂
It was great to read about your journey of discovery, Eva. We had a documentary on the Grizzly Bear on the tele not long ago (David Attenborough, BBC) which showed the journey of salmon – the most wonderful thing for me was that the bodies of the adult salmon bring nutrients to the great forests from the ocean: in their death the forests can thrive. A truly intertwined life-cycle indeed – no wonder the North American Indians thought a lot of them. As for the learning at our house…it currently involves a lot of mud!
It is pretty amazing Karyn. At first I was thinking of “The Circle of Life” as the title for the post – since it truly is a circle, but I thought it might be too cheesy and make people start singing The Lion King song – LOL!
My son is now fascinated with boats, diving and the Titanic. When we were at the library, he found a dvd about scuba diving aimed at children and we came across a documentary that talks about the Titanic and shows the ship and degree strewn across the ocean floor. He has been fascinated by both. As such, we have done some additional research and found that there will be a ship sailing the same route as the Titanic and coming into NYC soon. I can’t wait to take him to see it when it sails into NY harbor!
That is so cool Maman Aya! I see a future WMB post coming 🙂
I’m wondering if that’s considered farmed salmon – the ones that are followed and then set free?
Hi Lady Jennie, I think it’s referred to as “Hatch and Release”. It’s a method used by some non-profit groups to try to increase salmon populations in areas where they are depleting due to the construction of dams, loss of habitat, or even over fishing.
Great post! We have enjoyed the book “Salmon Stream” by Carol Reed-Jones. A clever way to tell the life cycle of salmon with beautifully drawn, realistic illustrations. Also, I took my older boy to the Ballard Locks awhile back on a whim, and we were rewarded ten fold. A National Geograpic expedition boat just happened to be passing through, and it was the true height of the salmon spawning season. You could seem them leaping out of the ocean into the air, making their way to the locks and then on to the fish ladder. I will never forget it.
Ooh – I’ll have to check that book out – thanks Tara! I remember going to the looks at the height of a salmon run when I first moved out here, but that was before my big girl was born, so I’m excited to try and catch it this summer to see her excitement. Maybe we’ll have to plan a meet-up! 🙂