Journey Across America - New Jersey

This post is part of a 50 state Journey Across America. For information on the basics of this project check out this post. I wasn't planning on documenting this project until we were six states in, so the first five states are a bit lacking in original photos, but the next 45 will be full of them!

The Books:
We began by reading G is for Garden State and then Bean used the information she learned to make a notebook page for her United States scrapbook.

Only two picture books made the list this week, so if you know of more, pass them my way. For some New Jersey bedtime reading, check out Abigail Takes the Wheel and The Legend of the Cape May Diamond.

Finally, Kevin taught the kids about New Jersey using the Our United States of America: Catholic Social Studies textbook.

The Food:
The boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ is quite famous. So famous that it is THE Boardwalk in Monopoly. Fries, hotdogs, and ice cream are some of the traditional fare you can purchase from stands along the boardwalk, so the aforementioned trifecta made up our perfect New Jersey dinner.

For the fries I use red bud potatoes coated in olive oil and seasoning salt. Bake them at 425 degrees for 45 minutes, stirring them every 15 minutes, and I promise perfection. These spuds are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, sooo good.

The Activities:
New Jersey is the Garden State, so we made a rosary stone for our new Marian garden. I bought a garden stone kit for the base of the stone and a bag of glass stones for the beads at Michael's. I think my portion of the bill for our smart phone plan is made up for in the amount I save each month with digital 40% off coupons... just wanted to throw that out there.

We were all fascinated by this project. I did the rosary, the kids did the boarder. Make sure you really get the stones pushed into the concrete, we've had a couple of ours pop out. 

As I mentioned above, the streets of Monopoly are named after Atlantic City, NJ, so if your kids are old enough, patient (or maybe it's you who'd need to be patient), and can sit through a whole game of Monopoly, this is the week to play it. You can even check out this sweet interactive map of the actual streets from GraphGraph.com.

For the impatient folks, there was a rumor going around that the newest version of Monopoly would not have a jail, so as to shorten the game. Bottom line, the rumor was bunk. Sorry about that.

Next week, we are heading south to Georgia!

Be saints, it's worth it! Lisa