The State Quarters Games

When I was a kid, I had a penny and nickel collection. I had a lot of fun looking for coins with dates to fill in the missing slots in my coin collection book. 

Then I got older and needed every nickel and dime to pay for grad school. I didn't pay attention to any coins except how they paid for my tuition, room, food, and books.

Fast forward to working, starting a family, and other hobbies. Coin collecting didn't fit in my schedule.

I didn't totally ignore our currency. I remember hearing about the state quarters, but figured that was a clever gimmick to get a lot of quarters out of circulation, and I just wasn't interested. 

However, now I've had a change of mind. It occurred to me that the state quarters would be a great way for Desert Boy to learn some geography. So we sorted through our change bowl and pulled out the state quarters.

 Oh my goodness, that writing and those images on the quarters sure are small! We pulled out a magnifying glass to get a better look.

 Of course Desert Girl wanted in on the action. Her first job was to sort the eagle quarters from all the other quarters. She did a fine job of that.

Then Desert Boy started looking at the quarters and finding where they belonged. We used our game board from Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego (a wonderful thrift store find at $1!), but any large USA map would do.

 After we had gone through our change bowl, we found that we had quarters for 24 states.

I looked up some information about the state quarters and found it fascinating. The U.S. Mint issued the 50 state quarters from 1999 to 2008, with five a year. They made varying numbers of quarters, from 416,000 for Oklahoma up to 1.59 million for Virginia. The U.S. Treasury was against the project, citing the "Disneyfication" of the currency. But it's estimated that nearly half of U.S. citizens collected the quarters, with $3 billion made in profit, due to coins taken out of circulation (Wikipedia).

The quarters were issued in the order that the states ratified the constitution, and you can see illustrations of them all on Wikipedia.

As we were going through the quarters, I noted one from Puerto Rico. What? That's not a state! It turns out that after the 50 states, quarters were issued for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Territories: Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands. We don't even think about the territories much, so these quarters (which were issued in relatively small numbers) are a little reminder of where U.S. money is going (and perhaps where you should plan a vacation if you don't want to get a passport?).

We also found some quarters with places like Mount Hood, Chickisaw, Gettysburg, and my favorite, Great Basin. These are part of the America the Beautiful quarters, which started in 2010 and issues five quarters a year, one of a beautiful place (often a national park) in each state or territory.

You can find out more about all these programs, plus access curriculums at the U.S. Mint website.

In the meantime, we raided a piggybank and found even more state quarters, so we're now up to 45. Desert Boy can't wait to find the Texas quarter. And he knows where on the map it goes.

We like to play different games with the state quarters.

1. Race to put five quarters on the map. (2 to 10 players) Each player gets five quarters, and then when the time starts, puts the quarters on the correct state as fast as possible. First player wins.

2. Locate the state in order of joining the U.S. (one or multiple players, one person to read the order).  Using information from the Wikipedia website, have the player(s) find the states in the order they ratified the Constitution, picking up the quarters as they find them. Do you know which was first? (Hint: this state quarter has Caesar Rodney on it.)

3. Locate the states in alphabetical order. (one or multiple players, one person to read the order).
Using information from the U.S. Mint website, have the player(s) find the states in alphabetical order, picking up the quarters as they find them.

4. Find how many state quarters have horses on them. Or airplanes. Or ships. Or flowers. Or birds. Or words in other languages. Or people. Or outlines of states. Or their state nicknames. Or their state mottoes. This is a great game to really look at the different quarter designs and study them.

5. Pick your favorite quarter design and explain why you like it! Everyone is a winner in this game!

If you'd like to play some more games, the U.S. Mint has a game page!

Our Newest Pet

 We have a new pet. Desert Girl is the instigator. How can I resist when she asks for a new pet?

 This time around it's a "caterpilly." Or rather, two of them (although only photographed above).

When we explained to Desert Girl that her pets had been eating our corn, she started calling them "bad caterpillies." It was pretty funny.

This "caterpilly" is a corn earworm. Fortunately quite harmless (to hold, not so great for crops). Some caterpillars can give you quite a rash just touching them.

Most likely these pets won't last too long, but I love how Desert Girl is so excited about exploring the natural world around her.

What's your favorite non-traditional pet?

Hanging out with Clementine

 

Ready for a tale of woe? (Some of it may actually be true.)

Once upon a time a little calf was born on a dark and stormy night. (A dark and stormy night makes for much better reading than a calm and boring night, even though the latter is more likely to be the case.) 

Although she did her best, the poor mama cow just couldn't make it, and her little orphan calf was on her own. She was now known as a bummer calf. (That part is true, calves that don't have a mama taking care of them are bummer calves.)

Fortunately for her, she was taken in by two friendly people, who fed her daily bottles of milk replacement and hay to help make her into a big, strong cow. They named her Clementine.

Clementine was doing well until one dark night, a big and ferocious mountain lion jumped into her pen and tried to eat her. The calf fought back, and managed to live, but the lion's big teeth had left deep gashes in her neck and shoulders. She couldn't get over her memories of that mountain lion, and with no mama to console her, she just didn't want to go on.

She was moved to a new home, where she wouldn't see reminders of the mountain lion attack. She also got to hang out with two great lambs, who helped protect her. Slowly, with the aid of antibiotics and pain killers and lots of love, Clementine improved.

And that's where we get to be part of the story. Clementine's new family was out of town for the weekend, so we were asked to help take care of her. The kids were so excited!

 They quickly learned how to bottle feed her.

 Clementine drinks very fast!

She also likes to slobber all over the front of my clothes. Above, Desert Girl is pointing at some pus from a would above Clementine's ear. Poor thing!

It was fun taking care of Clementine, and we hope she keeps improving.

The kids would love to help with Clementine again. Of course, the nearby merry-go-round is also a very good incentive!

Back to School, Rural Style

 We start school early, in mid-August. Desert Boy wanted it to start even earlier, as he really missed his friends. So when we went to back-to-school night, he could barely contain his enthusiasm. He picked out his desk, got his school supplies, and played on the playground. The parents learned about the daily schedule and dress policy. Then we went home and made sure Desert Boy was in bed by 8.

 The next morning, Desert Boy was up at 5:30, wondering why he had to wait so long to go to school and start his first day as a first grader. Good thing his dad was up that early!

Living in such a rural area, we don't have to choose between private and public, charter and magnet, one-language or bilingual schools. We have an old-fashioned one-room schoolhouse system. Grades kindergarten through second grade are taught in one town by a teacher and a teacher's aide. Grades 3-6 are in a different town in another one-room school (actually it has two classrooms and a library/computer room, but the main subjects are taught in one classroom and the other one is used as the music room/science room/cafeteria). Grades 7-12 go to a third town where several teachers teach in their specialties and the other subjects are taught via TV/Internet connections. We have a bus system that takes the kids where they need to go.

Class size is small. Last year's graduating class was about five. That's quite large. We don't have any kindergarteners this year. The first grade class has six students. The second grade class has three students, so my son is in a classroom with nine students total. The combined grades in the classrooms seems to work, mainly because we have very talented teachers. The older students help the younger students, and the younger ones see what the older ones are doing and want to do it too. (This especially applied to Desert Boy with math last year, he wanted the harder math sheets. Talk about getting his mom to smile!) Most students go on to college.

We've already told our kids that they are going to college. One morning Desert Girl surprised me by saying, "I can't wait to go to college, it's going to be so fun!" Way to go, pre-schooler, you keep thinking that way!

 Back to the first day of first grade. Desert Boy was ready to be the star of my camera. I love this photo!

 We went over to the bus stop for more photos.

 And a little comparing of who had grown more over the summer!

 But the camera got old, and the kids got tired of the photo shoot. They wanted to get to school!

 Soon it was time for the bus, and eager kids remembered the rules and stayed put until the bus doors opened and then marched in a nice line onto the bus. Good job! Desert Boy lost his backpack over the summer, so he's using a temporary one in a nice bright color that hopefully he won't lose. He has homework four days a week, so he has to learn to bring it home, do it, and take it back.

My husband wasn't such a good student, he wanted to stay out under the desert sun and go running around, so we're thrilled Desert Boy is liking school so much. We're trying to encourage him and also give him good food to fuel his body and mind. My goal this school year is to send as little processed food as possible, especially after learning how artificial food dyes have been linked to hyperactivity and how the American diet includes several times the amount of sugar we need.

Here was our day 2 lunch: left-over whole wheat spaghetti with sauce (Desert Boy picked out the zucchini from the sauce the night before, but he doesn't even know it's whole wheat spaghetti), a whole-wheat banana-chocolate chip muffin (yes, a couple ingredients in the muffin aren't the healthiest, but hopefully the banana helps balance those out!), baby carrots (he still calls long ones adult carrots), and strawberries. Yum.

Maybe part of going back to school fun are the lunches. Oh, who am I kidding? His favorite part of the day is recess!

What's your favorite back-to-school memory?

Tips for Watching the Perseid Meteor Shower with Kids

Desert Boy holding a meteorite

You've probably heard that the peak of the Perseid meteor shower is tonight. Are you ready to watch this exciting natural phenomenon? Here are some tips to make the most of it.

1. Find a Dark Spot

We are lucky out in the rural desert to have a very, very dark place to watch the meteor shower. However, we even have some stray lights around. So to make it as dark as possible, we'll try to position ourselves to use buildings to block out that extraneous light. Tip: out in the West, the moon will set around 10:00, so it will be even darker after then. (You can find your moon and sun times for your area here.) Also, use red flashlights or regular flashlights covered with red tissue paper to preserve your night vision. It can take 15-20 minutes to get your eyes accustomed to the dark!

2. Get Comfortable

I've gone for night hikes to watch meteor showers (partly to stay warm!), but perhaps the best way is to sit down or lie down. We're planning on hanging out on air mattresses in the back yard with sleeping bags and pillows. That way if the kids fall asleep early, we can still enjoy the meteor shower. 

3. Be Patient

The Perseid meteor shower is expected to have 80-100 meteors per hour. That's over one a minute. But that still leaves about 40 seconds of every minute with nothing. That can be difficult for little kids (and sometimes adults) to wait. Things that might help are to look at the constellations and listen to stories about them, to join a meteor viewing party so there are more people to talk to, or to play games about where the next meteor might be. (Hint: this is called the Perseid meteor shower because many of the meteoroids appear to originate from the constellation Perseus, which is in the northeast sky under the "W" of Casseiopeia.)

Hope you see some good meteors! (And if you happen to get lucky enough to have a meteorite land near you, send it to me!)

Definitions from The Free Dictionary:

Meteor: A bright trail or streak that appears in the sky when a meteoroid is heated to incandescence by friction with the earth's atmosphere. Also called falling star, meteor burst, shooting star.

Meteoroid: A solid body, moving in space, that is smaller than an asteroid and at least as large as a speck of dust.

Meteorite: A stony or metallic mass of matter that has fallen to the earth's surface from outer space.

Summertime Swimming

 School starts in about a week, so we've been trying to squeeze in as much summertime fun as we can. The hot temperatures have made it easy to agree to go to the swimming hole, where the kids also enjoy digging in the sand.

 Desert Girl was sporting a new swimsuit, which she called a "zucchini." She was sure that was the name of it.

 Isaac was having good success making sand castles.

 The dogs were having a great time, too.

 The fun factor ramped up when the kids made their own "jumping boards." The water depth in the swimming hole varies quite a bit, from just a couple inches to about four feet. It's actually a settling pond, where the water slows down before it heads down to the fields below via a pipe. It's quite interesting to see how the substrate changes, from rocky where the stream enters the pond, to sandy, to fine sediment that becomes very mucky. I don't like the mucky parts, especially when my foot sinks in several inches. The rest is nice, though.

 "Ready, set, go!"

Ava loved to splash!

 Then the big kids wanted to go into the deeper water. Desert Boy has learned to back float and doggy paddle better this summer, so I feel more comfortable with him around water. He still has a lot to learn though, so I'm sure to remind him of that.

 Henry is a natural swimmer, but even he gets worn out and needs time to go get his nose sandy.

It was a fun afternoon. Eventually we got cold enough in the mountain stream that we had to go home to warm up. That's a nice feeling on a hot summer afternoon!

Make Your Own Cave

Great Basin National Park has a kids program almost every day at 1:30 (and sometimes on weekends at 9:30), so we decided to go check one out. It was Make Your Own Cave day, and the kids each got to select a box and get some clay to make their cave.

 Ranger Nomi showed the kids how to make the clay into different shapes.

 Desert Girl was very excited to be participating like a big girl. Oh yeah, the glue may have been a huge incentive. She doesn't get to do glue very often because she has a way of making the glue go every where in the house, especially on the carpet.

 Her cave soon started looking really good. Some of the bigger kids added animals to their caves. Each one was unique. Best of all, it kept the kids happily entertained for about 45 minutes!

To find out about the kids programs and other programs offered, check the park website section of ranger programs.  If you click the link under Evening Campground Programs, you can find the schedule for the week. Or you can call the park at 775-234-7331.

Cedar Breaks National Monument - BioBlast

 Following our rained-out Fourth of July, I took the kids to Cedar Breaks National Monument. With a 40% chance of thunderstorms I was mostly expecting to wimp out and spend the night in Cedar City, but when we got up to Cedar Breaks, it was beautiful so we set up our tent. We nabbed one of the last pretty sites in the campground (the campground has a mixed bag of campsites, including 10 that can be reserved in advance, but all of them had been taken when I had looked a few days before).

 Then we headed to the visitor center and Point Supreme, over 10,000 feet high.

 The kids peeked between the logs to figure out what they were looking at. We had been there in 2011 and 2010, but the kids didn't remember it.

 I had binoculars, which made it extra cool.

 Actually, nothing special was needed to take in the beauty of the Pink Cliffs, also known as the Claron formation, made up of limestone rock. The stormy clouds made for some fantastic light.

 The clouds made it a little challenging to get a good view through the solar telescope, but we eventually managed.

Then it was on to do some BioBlast activities. We had timed our trip to take advantage of this new program, which was celebrating the biodiversity of birds, bats, and bugs. The kids made some shrinky-dinks, an activity which I had never seen before.

Then we went on an hour-long "Follow a Scientist" hike led by a professor from Southern Utah University.

Our first stop was right on the main trail to look at some Southern Ligusticum. Looking closely, we could see that the flowers were not alone.

On their stems were tiny aphids, which were "milking" the plant for its juice. The aphids were being closely guarded by ants, who like to partake of the sweet juice. We also spotted a ladybug, who likes to come over and eat the aphids, but is excluded by the ants from eating their milkers. Such a cool little ecosystem on just one plant!

We continued down the campground trail, flipping rocks and dead trees. We found a plethora of interesting things to survey. Professor Bill had some handy little vials so we could put the treasures in and take a closer look.

The kids were so excited about the finds. The adults were too. This walk was showing us a lot more than what we would have seen if we had done it on our own.

This little wolf spider was carrying a blue egg sac around with her.

What a fun hike!

I took a moment to enjoy some of the beautiful wildflowers, like this Colorado columbine with a fly pollinator.

I couldn't resist a quick photo as we passed a scenic overlook along the trail.

Our next stop was to the Ranger Station to meet our friend Ken, who was volunteering as an entomologist for the BioBlast. He was busy!

Desert Boy got to release this beautiful butterfly.

Then it was time to go back to our campsite and eat a quick dinner before going down to the campground amphitheatre for the next BioBlast activity: Make a Moth Catcher.

The concept was simple: put an LED flashlight in a bucket, cover it with cloth, and make a funnel-shaped opening that would let moths in but inhibit them finding their way out.

The kids loved making this. Then we took the buckets back to our campsite to find a nice spot for them for the night.

The kids and the kids from the campsite next to us had a wonderful time climbing on the pile of boulders. The family next door turned out to be from Australia, and we gradually got to know each other better. I snuck off to take a hot shower. Yes, a hot shower! Shhh, this is an amazing feature of this campground, and if more people knew there might not ever be empty campsites!

Then it started to rain, so we loaded up and went to an indoor BioBlast program about bats. The kids were really into it. By the time it finished, the rainstorm had passed and we drove to Sunset Overlook for a beautiful view.

Oh my, I felt so blessed being in such a beautiful place.

The flowers near our campsite provided a beautiful vista.

Desert Boy joined our neighbors on a bat hike while Desert Girl and I went to an owl program. We all got to bed late, and the next morning Desert Boy slept in.

Meanwhile Desert Girl and I were busy looking at the wonderful wildflowers and searching for interesting insects.

With everyone awake in our campsite and next door, it was time to work on the junior ranger booklets. And then play. And the parents really enjoyed chatting. We actually had the Australian family come visit us the next day at our house and continued our adventures (which I didn't photograph). It's so cool to have a great connection with camping buddies!

When we took the junior ranger booklets back to the visitor center, we found that more activities had been set up for both the BioBlast and Cedar Breaks' Wildflower Festival (an astute piece of marketing, if I do say so myself).

Desert Girl drew a beautiful wildflower with chalk on the walkway.

Finally it was time to become junior rangers. The kids said their pledge with Ranger Daphne.

Desert Girl's hand kept sinking lower and lower as the pledge continued. She might still be a little young for some of these junior ranger programs, but if big brother does it, she wants to too!

We had one last stop before leaving, taking our moth buckets to the Ranger Station, where we learned more about what we had collected.

The BioBlast surely was a blast, lots of fun, educational programs. It had something for all ages. I highly recommend camping at Cedar Breaks (the hot showers totally won me over, along with the scenic views), although some coworkers told me about a less-than ideal campsite they got there that left them with a very different impression. Finally, the Wildflower Festival continues through July, and the high country is worth a visit, it's a great wildflower year. Hurray for Cedar Breaks!