Exploring through our senses

Today we explored through our senses using a seeing glass and an audio scope. We saw shades of yellow, red and orange blooming flowers, shades of green plants and trees, blue skies and clouds, butterflies, cows and spiders. We observed the roundedness of clover in contrast with the straight edge of grass. We listened to all kinds of birds; cardinals, nene (Hawaiian geese), chickens and roosters. We heard tractors and wind in the trees. We touched hard porous lava rock, smooth green leaves, gooey aloe vera, rough and bumpy bark and prickly cactus. We smelled limes, aloe vera and passion fruit flowers.

Hanalei Bay

One of our favourite beaches to go is Hanalei Bay. This year Kodah has gotten brave in the waves and has started to do some body surfing and karate chopping the waves. Tiale is fascinated watching the waves. Often when Melahnie goes out surfing - the rest of the family goes out onto the pier for snack time.

Aina and Kodah

Once a week Aina comes to play with Kodah for four hours. Yesterday they had so much fun making orange and coconut soup (and getting in the pot themselves), playing in the spaceship and playing doctor/midwife.

Tales of Denn and Dart – two bunny friends

Dart Worries About the Sunset

Denn is driving and Dart is in the passenger seat. The two friends are driving home from the beach. Denn makes sure that Dart is happy but now Dart is worried. The day is coming to an end and they are getting close to home. This really worries Dart.

Dart yells to Denn “I don’t want the sun to set!” Dart is worried about the night coming. He worries that there are ghosts, monsters, dinosaurs and bugs. He worries that these things will bite him. He wants the sun to stay up forever. He worries about going to sleep.

“Don’t worry about the monsters – every night when there are ghosts and bugs and monsters I will wake up and scare them away and then there will be nothing” says Denn.

“Denn, I am so worried about closing my eyes” says Dart

 “Its okay, the sun sets every night. The sun sets all over the earth - that is just because the earth turns” says Denn.

Denn explains “There is a little stick that has the night inside. It opens up and all the night stars and moon come out then it closes back up in the morning time – it sucks the night back up. The sun rises and it becomes bright.”

Denn says to Dart “you need to close your eyes to make you wise and strong.”

“Go to sleep Dart and then you will see your friend again in the morning.”

Denn and Dart sleep super good.

Quotes by Kodah

My taste buds are so excited they are jumping in my heart.

The female Han Solo is pregnant.

Bye Mama, you can paddle your rocket ship out to the rebel base. Text me if you get into trouble. (As Melahnie was paddling out to the point for a surf).

The cardinals are singing hello to us.

Beach Babe

Spending an afternoon at Anini Beach. This is what Tiale likes to do.

Tiale Supervising

Tiale is supervising while Kodah and Josh harvest the coconuts.

Tiale Tummy Time

Tiale is getting stronger each day. She still isn't a major fan of tummy time but is tolerating it and smiles sometimes while doing it.

Washing, folding and drying

We have a folding, washing and drying station.

Counting

An activity we do for counting is make a list of all the food we need for a party. Then we collect it from the property and count out each item. Today we collected, lemons, oranges, ginger and papayas.

Asheeliya

Asheeliya is Adam's girlfriend and Kodah really adores her. We invited her over to hang out with Kodah - they had so much fun. One of their games was building armour out of bamboo.

What a Wonderful World

Kodah is starting to read books to Tiale. This book contains illustrations to Louis Armstrong's song, What a Wonderful World. Every page has a bird on it - so Kodah is making a joke and saying "put a bird on it." Anyone who has watched Portlandia will understand this reference.

Coconuts

We all love fresh coconuts. Today Kodah helped Papa harvest a bunch from the trees on this property. They collected the water and scooped out the meat. We have been drinking the delicious water and making all kinds of dishes with the coconut meat like coconut curry sauce, coconut icing, and shredded coconut in rice wraps.

Adam's Farm

Kodah has been asking all week to go to Adam's farm next door. This morning we got to go check it out. We passed through the pineapple field to get to where they were harvesting the turmeric. Adam had a team of WOOFers helping him. He taught Kodah how to harvest it. We went into the field dug it out of the earth then got the dirt off and separated it into four containers: the mother with all the roots, the large size, medium size and small size fingers. That morning they harvested 470 pounds in total. We took a container home of fresh turmeric.

Rainbows

This morning there was a rainbow over the field. We learned about how rainbows are formed. Kodah learned that to see a rainbow you need to have clouds, raindrops and sunshine. We talked about refraction and how the sunshine is made up of different colours of light. We named the colours we could see.

Kombucha

I have been wanting to try brewing my own Kombucha for a few years now. We all love it, especially Kodah. Each bottle from the store costs about five bucks so it is also a huge savings. Today we finally did it!! Kodah opened up the tea bags and helped to measure all the ingredients. Kodah is super excited that a new baby SCOBY is going to form. We talked about fermentation and the good probiotics for digestion in Kombucha.

For 1 gallon Kombucha

16 cups water
8 tea bags (we used green tea bags)
1 cup sugar
2 cups Kombucha starter
1 Kombucha SCOBY

Cover with a tea towel, keep out of direct sunlight, brew for 7-10 days.

Palm frond art

Today we were creative with palm tree fronds and tried to make fish and birds. Kodah helped to gather the fronds from the palms on the property and peel the leaves from the stalk. He also helped to weave the fronds to make the fish/birds.

Brownies

For Papa's birthday we made lentil and date brownies with coconut whipped cream. Kodah pitted the dates and helped to measure out the ingredients (and lick the bowl clean:). 

Brownies:

• 3 cups black lentils, cooked (or 2 15 ounce cans, drained and rinsed)
• 4 tablespoon cashew butter
• 11⁄2 cups dates
• 1⁄3 - 1⁄2 cup cacao powder (depending on how rich you want them)
• 1⁄2 cup apple sauce
• 1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
•  1 tablespoon honey 

Icing: 

• 1  can coconut cream
• 1/2 cup icing/powdered sugar 
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Denn and Dart

This morning at Kilauea Treehouse School Kodah really wanted to make pregnant bunnies. This is what we came up with using avocado pits and leaves and card stock paper. Kodah named them Denn and Dart and said that Denn is always happy and Dart is always worried. 

We talked about the adventures they go on and what makes Denn happy and what makes Dart worried:) 

It got me thinking about a good story book (the adventures of Denn and Dart) and then a product to follow it up. The Worry Bud - the kids could tell their Worry Bud all their worries and their Worry Bud would worry for them:)