Exciting Developments

So, with a week left of class ....... I'm needing to put some content in with the alphabet illustrations to make it a complete book. With the help of my blog, and supportive friends and family, Phil has volunteered his time, skills and energy to help me with the narration of the book!

I'm really excited that he's going to be on board with this process, because he has some great ideas. One of which was transforming a simple alphabet book into sort of a childrens field guide to all of these animals! I love love love this idea, but it's going to take more work than the rest of this quarter will allow, so the process will continue into next quarter, but with both of our enthusiasm on the topics, I think it will be a quick amount of time well spent.

Here is some of what he's come up with, and what I'm about to share with my teacher for feedback, so we'll see where it goes by this afternoon!

This content will be for the simple version of the alphabet book

Pileated Woodpeckers find ants, their favorite food, in tree trunks. They make large rectangular holes in trees with their beak.

Each female Chinook Salmon lays thousands of eggs in gravel at river beds. Their nest is called a redd.

Hummingbirds are very small birds that are able to hover and fly forwards or backwards.

Mountain Goats can climb steep rock faces because of the rubber-like bottom of their hooves.

Jellyfish have two body types that alternate each generation. This means that jellyfish parents will look very different than their children, but the children will look just like their grandparents.

This content will be for the field guide version

Chinook Salmon (King Salmon)

Main Fact: Each female Chinook Salmon lays thousands of eggs in gravel at river beds. Their nest is called a redd.
Where in Washington? The best place to see Chinook Salmon is in one of Washington’s fish hatcheries. In Fall, adult Chinook Salmon can be found in rivers and streams that connect to Puget Sound and the Ocean. Issaquah, Washington has a festival called Salmon Days on the first full weekend of October.
Life Cycle: Salmon eggs are small and red-orange. Baby salmon called fry hatch in the rivers and streams of Washington in spring and are smaller than a dime. The fry take about a year to grow into a larger version of salmon called smolts. The smolts travel down their streams and rivers to Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean. Once the smolts reach salt-water they quickly become adult salmon. Adult Chinook salmon can be as large as a small adult human in weight and length. After about 3-4 years in salt-water, the adult salmon return to the same river or stream they were born in. The adult salmon stop eating once they enter freshwater, where they find a mate and make a redd of eggs. After the adult salmon make a redd they die.
Save the Salmon! Humans affect the number of salmon in many ways. Dams slow the flow of water and can stop the salmon from returning home. Some fishing is okay, but too much will mean not enough salmon for the future. We change the natural home of salmon when we cut down trees or build close to rivers and streams. The best place for a redd is in a clear river or stream, building and cutting down trees near a river or stream will make it too muddy for the salmon eggs.