Salmon Hatchery

Field trips are SO great! 

Today we went to the salmon hatchery. 

It was the best field trip I have ever been on.  No kidding.  It was AMAZING!  We saw spawning salmon down in the river, salmon jumping up the water falls and up the ladder, the tour guide pulled a salmon out of the hatchery and showed it to us (it was about 35 lbs!), and he even showed us the roe (salmon eggs) and the milt (salmon sperm) from the different sexes and how to tell them apart. 

It was just incredible...  Cyan kept screaming (because she could do that down next to the waterfall) "This is the best field trip EVER!"  "This is AWESOME!" as the salmon would jump, again and again.  I was lucky enough to catch one jumping on film... (Second video) 

 

Some really wonderful websites we used to get ready for the salmon run.  First I printed out this book.  Then we went through the lifecycle of a salmon on this website, first with one egg, then another.  By the time we actually went to the hatchery, the kids were saying things like "Look mama!  There is a Sockeye!  It's the red one."  and asking questions that were appropriate and informative to the rest of the kids on the tour too.