Hatta Trip

We drove through Oman again and went to Hatta, which is in the U.A.E., but is accessed by going through Oman. We have to bring our passports and go through the border crossing. Prior to 2007 it was an open border, but they are making efforts to tighten up the borders.

We started with the intent of finding desert animals. We did see a number of animals, goats, camels, a donkey, a lizard and some bugs. We made several stops in the mountains to examine the different types of rocks and rock formations there. We took a number of pictures and Kyle could blog on a number of features of the geology of the area.

For now I had him do a post on natural resources. He just learned about the way we use natural resources in school. He uses the Harcourt series for Grade 2 and they are on the Earth Science chapter. The trip was a good opportunity to bring the text to life. I had Kyle look at how natural resources were used in buildings and walls. Most things here are made from concrete, but we saw some nice walls that were made from the rocks found in the area. We also got lucky and spotted a concrete block making "factory." It was a small company and they let us walk around to see how the blocks are made. They didn't speak English so I had to figure out the process myself, which was not difficult to deduce given the materials (the cement, rocks, water, sand and ash) were in plain sight and the machines were simple molds and mixers.


Kyle did the post (Natural Resources) two days after the trip. He worked on it by himself. Once he was finished, I had him read it aloud a few times. While reading he caught several mistakes with missing articles, capitalization and word spacing. I helped him with one mistake that he has made before. He misspells "from" as "form." The spell checker doesn't underline it and he reads right through it.

Other possible post from this trip: Desert Animals and Erosion.

We have two things to do this week. We will see Ambassador Satch, a musical portrait of Louis Armstrong, at UAE University and we will go to the Al Ain Zoo. The Al Ain Zoo has 3 new white rhinos. The children are really excited to see them, so I will take them after school one day this week.

Motivation to Post

I have gotten Kyle to make a few more post. I am giving him more freedom and more structure at the same time. For his most recent post (Al Ain Air Show), I set up a template that fits three to four pictures. I allow him to choose what he wants to write about and what pictures should be included. This might make for an illogical (in my mind) sequence at times, but giving him the choice motivates him more. We have done enough and have enough pictures for him to find something he wants to talk about and share. The structure of the pictures and the template gives him a clear goal, while choosing his own content helps to motivate him. So far I have been able to keep the content contained to "educational" topics, but I am sure the day is coming when he is going to ask to write about High School Musical or the latest pop craze. So far so good. I did promise him I would get him his own url if he continues to blog. This is another carrot, since he likes the idea of telling his friends about his website.