Quarantine: Tues. 3/24
Sun makes all the difference. The kids can play outside. The dog can hang out outside. We can go for a walk and a bike ride. The smallness of our quarantined world expands a little on these nice days.
Regular schoolwork in the morning. Typing. Math facts work for Greta. Lucia made us all grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, using our homemade bread. Making grilled cheese sandwiches is her current favorite thing to do. She calls them her "perfecto" grilled cheeses because they're not over-toasted, which is the despicable way I make them. She was so fed up with my over-toasting that she finally just decided to make them herself and she's made one or two for herself every single day of homeschool.
There was lunch and doodling with Mo Willems, and then Greta and I went into town so I could drop off two pieces of mail in a mailbox. Then I took everyone outside for a chalk activity I'd seen in one of the RESOURCES that crossed my consciousness over the past few days. Every now and then, amid the noise, I'll find an idea that I know my kids will love. Chalk mosaics, with masking tape dividing the spaces, was a huge hit. They worked on a big one and then Lucia made her initials in huge block letters and mosaic'ed those too. Greta drew some purmaid-caticorns. (For those of you who don't live with an eight-year-old, those are creatures with cat heads, mermaid tails, and unicorn horns.)
Greta, Lucia, and I took a bike ride around the block, and then the kids read and played while I filled an online grocery cart. We had leftover Dominoes for dinner, plus a kale salad for me and Andrew. After dinner we had a Zoom call with Mom and Dad and (briefly) Molly. The kids monopolized the conversation with showing off their Mo Willems-inspired Cat the Cat doodles, which they created LIVE and held up to the camera.
Tonight, I decided to Extend Our Learning by watching a relevant show about Arctic wildlife on National Geographic. Lucia's working on a persuasive essay about endangered species, specifically polar bears, and this seemed like a very homeschool-appropriate way to deepen her understanding and engagement with her schoolwork. Not too far into the show, however, a pack of arctic wolves were shown stalking and then violently killing two unfortunate arctic oxen, who were attempting to protect a baby ox, and it's possible that the creature being killed WAS the baby ox, and both girls were screaming and sobbing. As I fumbled frantically for the remote, the show then cut to a tiny baby penguin waddling away from its group, while the narrator intoned, "The baby sets out to explore....but now it's alone, far from safety," and the kids started freaking out and I had to turn off the show.
After they stopped crying, we let them watch a Liv & Maddie to clear their palates. Totally WINNING at homeschool today.
Regular schoolwork in the morning. Typing. Math facts work for Greta. Lucia made us all grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch, using our homemade bread. Making grilled cheese sandwiches is her current favorite thing to do. She calls them her "perfecto" grilled cheeses because they're not over-toasted, which is the despicable way I make them. She was so fed up with my over-toasting that she finally just decided to make them herself and she's made one or two for herself every single day of homeschool.
There was lunch and doodling with Mo Willems, and then Greta and I went into town so I could drop off two pieces of mail in a mailbox. Then I took everyone outside for a chalk activity I'd seen in one of the RESOURCES that crossed my consciousness over the past few days. Every now and then, amid the noise, I'll find an idea that I know my kids will love. Chalk mosaics, with masking tape dividing the spaces, was a huge hit. They worked on a big one and then Lucia made her initials in huge block letters and mosaic'ed those too. Greta drew some purmaid-caticorns. (For those of you who don't live with an eight-year-old, those are creatures with cat heads, mermaid tails, and unicorn horns.)
Greta, Lucia, and I took a bike ride around the block, and then the kids read and played while I filled an online grocery cart. We had leftover Dominoes for dinner, plus a kale salad for me and Andrew. After dinner we had a Zoom call with Mom and Dad and (briefly) Molly. The kids monopolized the conversation with showing off their Mo Willems-inspired Cat the Cat doodles, which they created LIVE and held up to the camera.
Tonight, I decided to Extend Our Learning by watching a relevant show about Arctic wildlife on National Geographic. Lucia's working on a persuasive essay about endangered species, specifically polar bears, and this seemed like a very homeschool-appropriate way to deepen her understanding and engagement with her schoolwork. Not too far into the show, however, a pack of arctic wolves were shown stalking and then violently killing two unfortunate arctic oxen, who were attempting to protect a baby ox, and it's possible that the creature being killed WAS the baby ox, and both girls were screaming and sobbing. As I fumbled frantically for the remote, the show then cut to a tiny baby penguin waddling away from its group, while the narrator intoned, "The baby sets out to explore....but now it's alone, far from safety," and the kids started freaking out and I had to turn off the show.
After they stopped crying, we let them watch a Liv & Maddie to clear their palates. Totally WINNING at homeschool today.
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