The lonesome Kayak

I've said before on this blog that my mom is a teacher...of 30 years and she is pretty creative.  I think I am appreciating that more since starting to home school.  I think I have a little of it in me...I hate to admit it but I may just be a little like my mom...except she talks WAY more than me...I just talk in the blog...side note...maybe my mom needs a blog!  But she isn't so computer savvy...hmmm...I probably would have been a teacher if I didn't choose nursing because I like a lot of the aspects of teaching...I just don't want to be around other people's kids that much...so I chose nursing!  I digress...

So my mom read this article in the Tallahassee Democrat about a lost Kayak and thought it might serve for a good science/geography lesson...and IT DID!

We read the article as a family which went something like this...A man and his Kayak were boating off the shores of the Cayman Islands when he got caught in a rip current and was thrown out of his boat.  He had to swim for 2 hours to get back to shore and away from the rip current.  Meanwhile his Kayak took a 6 week journey...It went north of the cayman islands, to the west of Cuba, got caught in the gulf stream, and ended up in Key Largo in the Florida Keys.  When it was found, no one knew who it belonged to.  The coast guard searched and finally the brand name of the kayak led the team of rescuers to its owner.  Apparently the brand of Kayak is only sold in two stores and when they tracked down those stores the retail owners did not recognize it but put some info out about the lost Kayak on their website.  A friend of the Kayak's owner who lives on an island off the coast of Madagascar saw the ad and called the store and said, "my friend that lives in the Cayman Islands lost his Kayak."....Mystery Solved.  The Kayak was surprisingly in great condition except for a few barnacles.  After six weeks of floating in busy waters, shipping yards, the Gulf Stream...the owner and the Kayak were reunited.  So the kids and I found the Cayman Islands and we traced on our map where the Kayak had been...John also looked up info on Rip currents and the Gulf Stream and we read and explained that info.  We also found Madagascar on the map.  Funny enough, their favorite part of the whole learning experience was learning about Rip Currents.  John printed off this cool map showing how rip currents form and what you have to do to escape them...they were really into that.  Thanks mom for a great experiment.