Women explorers, a spider countess, and a firefighter

Laura’s class is studying explorers this week--they have to pick three explorers they might like to dress up as in class next week. God help us, another project… Anyhow, she wants to dress up as Columbus or Marco Polo or maybe De Soto. Not to suggest that my daughter couldn’t be a male explorer if she wanted, but I did ask her: aren’t there any women explorers in your book? Nope, apparently not. I suggested she add Sacajawea to her list since she was studying the Native American cultures in that area earlier this year. But I had to think pretty hard to come up with any women myself. See how they teach us in school? Here’s a list from Encarta: You Go Girl: 7 Women Explorers.

We got the Halloween costume question resolved in a gender appropriate way too. Laura is going to be a Spider Countess (UGH) which we can sort of modify into a witch costume, and Will is going as a firefighter. At least he's wearing Laura's old firefighter costume... Things are never simple, are they?