My adventures with Nellie Cashman

I just had an adventure with Nellie Cashman without leaving home. Nellie has a chapter in Women Explorers by Julie Cummins.  Nellie's  explorations
took her from Ireland to Boston and out to the American West. She worked as a cook in Nevada while she learned how to prospect for gold. Then she went to the Canadian North and staked a claim there. When she heard that men in a mining camp were starving, she and some fellow prospectors
went to their rescue. Nellie nursed the sick men back to health.  Next she  moved to Tombstone, Arizona and opened a restaurant. Although the book says Nellie Cashman's Restaurant is still open, it closed a couple of years ago. Cafe Margarita is at that site now.

 This book has chapters on other women explorers readers will enjoy learning about.

The Scooping Method For Swimming

On a recent visit to my pool, I saw a grandmother coach her small grandson. She performed a basic freestyle stroke with her arms while standing  in the pool while she kept saying "scoop, scoop." I commented to her that I liked what she was doing. "It is very good for boys," she said. "Because they perform the same movement when they play in the sandbox."
Sounds like it might be good for girls too.


Read Cork & Fuzz: the Swimming Lesson by Dori Chaconas. This easy-reader level 3 title shows what happens when Cork, a muskrat, teaches his friend, Fuzz, a possum, how to swim.

Here's a sample  as it appears on page 28: "Fuzz!" Cork yelled again. "Paddle!" Fuzz paddled. "Kick!" Cork yelled. Fuzz kicked. Paddle! Kick! Paddle! Kick!

The context of this passage is that Fuzz accidentally fell into the water and  is afraid of it. Parents of children who are afraid of water could use this passage as a discussion point.