Arches National Park with Kids

While Arches National Park deserves a good 2-3 days to be explored properly, we only had half a day to devote to exploring it. Here's what we were able to accomplish:

Personalizing Education

We've officially completed  the first half of the year.

Although everyone homeschools on a different schedule, we tend to loosely follow the public school's calendar. (It helps me stay accountable.) 

We finished our state history and elementary health units before Thanksgiving and have been doing mostly reading, writing, and math since. 

Thanksgiving to Now

 The 3D printer continues to see a lot of use.

And Crunch Labs continues to be a favorite.

The STEM Mel science kits aren't too bad either.

We had enough snow to make a couple snow men. George the Giant and Bob. 

Once we got back from Thanksgiving break it was time to decorate for Christmas.

We decorated wooden ornaments.

And decorated cookies.

We continue with reading, writing and math. K finished the first Magic Tree House book. And, yes, he still enjoys learning math in the hammock swing. We are on to subtraction.

We have been exploring the world through Google Earth and just plain Google. Also, through food and talking to people who have lived in different countries.

J created herself a passport.

We started in Greenland. Facts K remembers about Greenland are:

1. There are no roads outside of the cities. You got to travel with helicopters, dog sleds, boats (and snowmobile).

2. It's covered in ice. So it's white.

3. It's the world's largest island. (That's not a continent)

4. It is part of North America but belongs to Denmark.

We then talked to their aunt who lived in Canada and learned a few things. Here's what A1 remembers:

There's a butter tart dessert. Most Canadians live near the American border. They speak French and English.

For the USA we are making foods from other parts of the country using the recipes from Eat 2 Explore. The first one was Eggplant Parmesan. 

Funny quote from K.

K: Have people aten this before?

Me: Yes.

K: Did the people die?

Our recipe did not say to peel the eggplant,
but if you make it, peel the eggplant.

Once again, J insisted this was not American food; that it was Italian.  Ah, when you study the melting pot of the world.

We also made Cajun blackened fish. Only we didn't blacken it all the way because I'm not too keen on burnt spices.  It was good, and something we've never had before.

Lastly, to satisfy J, we made a dessert invented in America. The chocolate chip cookie.

We made homemade ice-cream again, too, since chocolate chip cookies were originally served with ice-cream.

There is a debated story about chocolate chip cookies being invented by accident. Whether it's true or not, it led us to research some common things we have today that were invented by accident.

Here's J to share more:

Some of the most amazing things in the world were invented by accident. Take the popsicle for example. The popsicle was invented when someone put flavoring into his water. He left it with the spoon in it outside, and when he came out the next morning it was frozen. When he licked it, he could taste the flavoring. 

Sticky notes were also invented by accident. Someone was trying to make a strong glue and instead made a weak glue. He thought it was worthless. But it wasn't! Now we have sticky notes. The funny thing is Super Glue was also invented by accident! 

A few more things that were invented by accident are: penicillin, safety glass, dry cleaning, smoke detectors and synthetic dye.

Finished State History, on to Poetry

This week we finished the first part of our state's history (Grandpa's history book). We celebrated by making green Jell-O.

Little Engineers and Germany

This week we studied engineering. K built another Crunch Labs kit, and A1 explore the world of 3D printing.

Things to do in Blanding, UT with Kids

 We had so many things we wanted to see in Southeast Utah, but didn't get to it all. Bluff Fort and Nations of the Four Corners Cultural Center were two places we wanted to visit, but didn't have time to get to. Blanding also has a dinosaur museum. It is only open during the summer months, so we missed visiting that as well.  But we did get to see some other cool things.

With only half a day to explore Blanding, we first headed to see Nations Natural Bridge and the Five Kivas, also known as the Westwater Ruins. 

Hovenweep and Four Corners with Kid

I'll tell you right now, I didn't expect driving through the Navajo Reservation to bring back so many memories, but, for better or worse, this trip was a drive down memory lane.