Today, Yanuell completed his time studying Puerto Rico. To end this portion of our world culture class, we cooked Arroz Con Grandules together. After heating up a pan with oil, Yanuell added ham which he cubed and sofrito. After stirring for a few minutes, he added Sazon, Adobo, tomato sauce, chicken broth, and bay leaves. This was brought to a boil before he added pigeon peas and rice. The rice simmered until the visible liquid was absorbed then was covered and steamed for 20 minutes on low heat. This dish came out very good. Yanuell had a little cup today and wanted to save the rest for lunch tomorrow. While this dish was simmering, Yanuell took and open book/computer oral quiz to review all the facts learned.

Charlie continued with his Medieval armour today, adding a second layer of paper mach to the helmet, gilding the sword, spray painting the hilt, and putting it all together.

Henry read two current event articles. The first was how Disney is working on making fireworks for seeing impaired people. They are using a screen with vibrations and water so people who cannot see fireworks get to still experience them. The second article was on coding in school and how kids can do lessons in school on how to code. Henry was very interested in this article so we followed a link and he practiced coding a game.

Today we reviewed. We discussed the dating of the reconstruction era and the reconstruction amendments. We watched a video on History.com to learn more about the legacy of the Civil War and the failure of reconstruction. I assigned HOMEWORK from "Readings in Social Studies" "Up From This Place". Craig is to read and answer the two questions, and we will discuss them in class on Friday.

Arianna colored a Christmas Tree today and continued decorating her Holiday book. She finished Christmas, Hannukah and Las Posadas by making a star-shaped piñata. She completed a fun actiivity, color by letter, which turned out to be an elf, while watching a portion of "Mr. Peabody and Sherman". Arianna taught me about this movie, which is an excellent one for Social Studies. I can even use it for Charlie, who studies ancient civilizations, since it is about a time machine. The great thing is that Arianna showed it to me because they travel to the past (reinforcing her knowledge of past, present, and future) and discover her favorite French Queen - Marie Antoinette. The movie makes her love of cake a very funny thing! We ordered this movie from the library.

Henry finished watching the movie "America Before Columbus". After the movie we compared and contrasted the two cultures before and after Columbus and the impact to the land and people from the introduction of new plants, animals, and diseases.

Arianna and I continued making a book of Holidays Around the World. This included reading and learning about Hannukah and Las Posados. She wrote and made text boxes, cut and glued to create a piñata, a Christmas tree, and a menorah.

Charlie and I read a Newsela article from Public Radio International about the historic influence on Star Wars' costumes. We also looked at several books about The Middle Ages and knights. Charlie got ideas about the weapons, shield and helmet he is creating. Afterwards, we worked on his sword, shield and helmet. Charlie paper mached a balloon to form the basic structure for his helmet.

Craig and I looked at The Palm Beach Post, internet news, and The N.Y. Times and discussed current events. We discussed why it is such a controversial decision for President Trump to announce that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. We also discussed Russia in the Olympics and the location of South Korea, Trump's slurred speech, and the wildfires in California.

Henry did a lesson on Pearl Harbor Day. We discused what happened on that day and why it is significant to American History. He watched a short documentary about the event.