Spring Break trip NM & AZ

I grew up in the Southwest and had never been to see the sites!  For spring break in 2014 we took a trip to check it all out!  We spent 6 days doing a loop from our home in Utah, down through Arizona, across to New Mexico and then back to Utah through Colorado.  It was amazing!

Itinerary:

Day 1 - leave home and spend the night in Cedar City

Day 2 - St. George, Zion National Park & the Grand Canyon

Day 3 - Snowflake AZ & the Petrified Forest

Day 4 - Aztec Ruins National Monument

Day 5 - Mesa Verde & the Anasazi Heritage Center

Day 6 - Arches National Park & then back home

Zion National Park is beautiful!  We love driving through.  There are so many things to do in Zion NP like hikes and playing in the river.  My boys have had scout camp outs there and had a blast!   But this trip we only had time to drive though.















In St. George we stopped to see the temple.  The weather was beautiful in March and we loved walking around the grounds and visiting the Visitor's Center.

The Grand Canyon is quite a ways off the beaten path.  It's not really on your way to... anywhere!  Because of that, we'd never been to the Grand Canyon before.  We decided that if we were ever going to get there, we'd just have to make a point to get there!  It was amazing!  We only had a few hours to spend there and wished that we'd had a few days.  We drove through and got out to look a few times but weren't able to do any of the hiking that the Grand Canyon is famous for.

We took a short detour to stop by the Snowflake AZ temple.  It sits atop a hill and over looks the whole valley.  My great grandparents are buried in the cemetery in Snowflake so we enjoyed visiting the area where my grandpa grew up.

We loved our time in the Petrified Forest National Park!  It is a small space COVERED in huge pieces of petrified wood.  Petrified wood is ancient trees that have completely transitioned into stone.









Often on this trip the kids would ask, "where are we?"  And I would answer, "The middle of no where!"  Here's a picture of "the middle of no where!"

I grew up in the small town in northwestern New Mexico of Aztec.  Aztec got it's name from the ancient ruins that are there.  When they were first discovered, they were thought to be Aztec Indian ruins.  Later it was realized that they were actually Anasazi Indian ruins, but the town's name stuck.  The Aztec Ruins National Monument is a well kept secret.  The ruins are amazing and there is a fully reconstructed Great Kiva.  If you're ever in the area, this is not to be missed!

Mesa Verde National Park in in southwest Colorado.  We had never been to Mesa Verde before and once we got there, we wished we had gone years earlier!  Mesa Verde has nearly 5,000 known archaeological sites, including 600 cliff dwellings.  The most famous is the Spruce Tree House and we loved being able to walk right up to it and in and around it.

 Close to Mesa Verde in nearby Cortez CO is the Anasazi Heritage Center.  It brought all of the things we had seen in the ruins to life as we saw how the ancient Americans really lived.  We were able to weave cloth on a loom and grind corn with grinding stones.  We were also able to see what their villages and home would have looked like.  Well worth the few hours we were able to spend there.

Back in Utah, we stopped at the Monticello temple and walked around the grounds.

Arches National Park was our final stop on our spring break trip.  I think Arches is by far our favorite national park to go to and play.  There are dozens of hikes and dozens of arches to see.  We have only taken short hikes when we have been there, but there are hikes of all distances from beginner to advanced.  Our favorite is Sand Dune Arch.  It is a very short hike inside the rocks and it opens up to a huge sand pit.  My kids could stay and play in there all day!  Even on hot days, the sand is shaded and much cooler than the outside temperature.  The little ones sit down and play in the sand while the older kids hike further in and explore more arches.  We can't wait to get back to Arches NP!

What to do for the early grades

I am very laid-back in the early years - really even up to age 12.   I focus more on character, learning right from wrong, doing chores, being kind, playing, etc and really just loving to learn.

In the book, "Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning" by Rachel & Oliver DeMille, this is called "core phase".

"Core phase is the basis of an education.  It is the basis of a family, and its generations.  It is the basis of a society's culture, politics, economy, art, law, government, etc.  It is, in short, the foundation of a person - who he or she is and what he or she can and will become. During the core phase, we lay the foundation for all learning and service in the child's life.  The 'curriculum' is simply:

• right and wrong
• good and bad
• true and false
• relationships
• family values, especially spiritual culture
• family identity, including family history and mission
• family routines and responsibility
• accountability
• the value and love or work and play

Always remember that during [this phase], children learn more by what we are and the environment and feeling that surround them than through the explicit teaching or activities we provide."  

(Leadership Education: The Phases of Learning p. 40-41) 

I remember the day that I really internalized this concept of "core phase".  We had been homeschooling for several years and I was feeling really good about myself.  We were getting in some math, exploring science and figuring out our routines.  School was going great!

One day we were sitting as the park with several other homeschool families and were talking about what our kids were learning.  My friend, with several young children, spoke up and said, "This week, we are learning how to be kind to each other.  That's all we've had time for and it has taken my constant attention."

Immediately, the thought went through my mind, "WHAT?  On top of the math, science and everything else I need to teach, I also have to teach them to be KIND to each other??!!!"  I was instantly overwhelmed!  As I look back on it now, I laugh.  It's funny.  Because of course I had been teaching my kids to be nice to each other but I wasn't really intentional about it.  In that moment I felt the entire weight of their character training settle on me.

I went home and thought and pondered and prayed long and hard about it.  My answer was to  readjust my teaching.  I knew that no matter what else I ever taught them, character training was going to be the most important. That I had to be intentional about it, not just hope that it happened in the midst of all of the other teaching.

Another thing I feel strongly about is play time.  We can very easily over schedule ourselves and our kids.  But in doing so, we loose so much valuable time for them to just play.  Unstructured free play.

I was going to link an article here on the scientific research backing up the importance of play, but there were too many.  Just Google it!  There's a ton!

What does this look like at our house?  I always have a lesson prepared to teach them.  But if they are playing nicely and quietly together - outside, with Lego's, drawing, crafting - I just let them do it.  Once they stop playing nicely and start fighting or telling me they're bored, that's when I pull them in and we do the school lesson I've prepared.  Some days they play together ALL DAY LONG!  And that's okay!  The life skills and relationship skills they learn far surpass what they would have learned it I'd pulled them away from their play to "do school".  What kind of lessons do I prepare?  Here's my article on homeschooling with multiple children.

At the end of the day, character training is something that never really ends.  It will always be part of our education. I am STILL teaching my children to be kind to each other!  But now that my older boys are adults and all of my children are older, I am seeing the fruits of the years of character training.  I can honestly say that I like them!  I like hanging out with them and talking to them and I really like the honest, hardworking, funny people they have become!

How to teach all ages of children together - Unit Studies!

I have 6 children, currently ages 21-9.  When they were little, by the time my third child was school aged, I had a 10 year old, an 8 year old and a 5 year old as well as a 3 year old and a baby.  My biggest concern was how was I ever going to teach to all of their levels?

Then I discovered unit studies!  We could all work together on the same topic and they would each do it on their own level.  Brilliant!

I print some pictures from the internet and have them draw some.

This is a page the girls did once they got older

When we started out, I would ask them what they wanted to learn about and we would do it!  I usually got answers like: fire trucks, dinosaurs, space, tractors. Then I would go to the library and check out all of the children's books I could about one topic. I would usually discard books because they had too many words. I kept it simple. And then I would go online and find a lap book or notebook pages or even just have them draw pictures about what they learned from the books we read. I would have them do copy work or writing about it too.  As the girls got older, they boys were in higher grades and needed more structure, and the little girls followed a long.  Our units at that point included history, geography and literature.  But the system was still the same - reading and then journaling.

I love having notebook pages or a lapbook to look back at.  They love looking back at what they learned and did and it reinforced the lessons all over again.

Some years we kept it simple and they chose topics, other years we used a set curriculum.  Some of our favorites are:

• Five in a Row
• KONOS

What is your favorite way to teach multiple kids all of different ages?