The whole family has a little sniffle today (thank goodness nothing more) so we kept to “home school lite” and threw in an afternoon movie. How is your adventure in home school going? Please share in the comments!

7-9: Breakfast, get dressed, free play. And help mommy clean the bathroom! Anyone else’s house extra spic and span right now?

9-10: ELA. While reading a story (A Stone Stood Still), Travis was on the lookout for five sight words from class. He got a kick out of the fact that he could use marker in the book, since it’s one from home. He also did one letter page from a school workbook and 20 minutes on his Lexia website.

10-10.30: Math. We went around the house looking for things to count, including toy balls into a bag (42!), and socks. After we counted individual socks, we paired them up.

10.30-11: Snack/free time.

11-12: We did a Scholastic science unit on spring, which included a nice read-aloud, a few quizzes, and a physical activity to get us moving. I also read Usborne’s See Inside: How Things Work about machines.

12-1: Lunch/quiet time.

1-2: Travis’s special today would have been Music. We sang his school song, and talked about some of his favorites from class, followed by a Spanish song on colors. Little sister loved joining in with instruments.

2-2.30: Skype with a friend! I’m learning that social interaction is just as key as the education to Travis’s school days. We also played a card game for “social learning”, taking turns going first on Memory.

2.30-4: Movie time! Why not on a rainy day when you have a cold.

4-5: We capped off the day with a “cooking lesson”. Travis and I love to make recipes together, and making a lovely salad was the highlight of the day.

We’re hoping for no rain tomorrow…

Friends: Day 3 of COVID-19 home schooling went well academically, but the toughest part about today is that Travis misses his friends. It breaks my heart that our playgrounds are empty, that our children cannot play together, despite the importance of it. Who says we are turning into a virtual culture? It’s clearer to me than ever that kids need other kids physically. To that end, we made sure to do a Skype with a buddy from school. Travis’s teacher also sent a video of herself reading a book. These “face-to-face” interactions were crucial, and I hope you are all finding ways to do them. At one point he just crumpled into tears, missing his buddies, and I held him for a long time. I am sending virtual strength to all, and here was our day!

7: We slept in! Home school is exhausting.

7.30-9: Breakfast, get dressed, free play.

9-10: ELA. Today we read a favorite book (Ralph Tells a Story), and when it was finished we talked about who the characters were, specifically the main character versus secondary characters. Travis loved doing his Lexia games while I played a quick game with baby sis!

10-10.30: Recess and snack.

10.30-11: Math. After playing a “Number Squeeze” game online, we made a hands-on version.

Travis had so much fun drawing monster faces, which we then taped to straws to “squeeze” our way to each number, using the concepts of greater than and less then.

11-12: While baby sister napped, Travis and I made a batch of homemade playdough. This alone was great fun, and then we used the playdough to write his name.

He wanted to make all capital letters first to avoid curves, but then got a little more confident and tackled a few lower case letters.

12-1: Lunch/free play.

1-2: His special today would have been “Library,” so we sat down for a story (I made sure Veronika had a few tactile books to go through, beside us), then listened to two episodes of the Kids Ask Authors podcast.

Finally, we modified the StoryMarch concept here; we printed pictures of six of the word prompts and lined them up in various ways. Each time the pictures were in a different order, we made up a different story about them!

2-3: Frankly, Travis was exhausted this afternoon and I barely got him to focus. So instead of energetic physical movement, we did a “Chillax” video from GoNoodle. For science, we read a book about bugs, and watched a quick video about the first day of spring.

We capped off the day with a walk outside to take advantage of the nice weather, and looked for signs of spring. Travis was so proud when he spotted buds, or flowers coming up.

After hitting the ground running yesterday, today felt a little more like a walk. Maybe because I only got 4 hours sleep, maybe because Tuesdays are only a half day in our town, so we didn’t pack in as much. But without further ado, here’s what we joyfully tackled!

6.30-8.30: Breakfast, get dressed, free play.

9-10: Circle time, ELA. After a quick moment to check in by our calendar, we jumped into ELA for the day. Travis’s class has been working on writing a story with two parts, and his centered around Anakin Skywalker of course.

We reviewed the sight words his class has learned (to the tune of “B-I-N-G-O”), then practiced writing them in shaving cream! Travis didn’t want to get his fingers messy, but a wooden skewer worked perfectly. Where was my toddler, meanwhile? Busy getting dressed.

10-10.30: Snack/recess. It was a snowy raw day, so we only briefly ventured outside before “indoor recess” and a quick bite.

10.30-11: Travis listened to two stories from Storyline Online (a great resource!), then we took some time to compare the two and discuss their differences and similarities. He finished off the half hour with about 15 minutes on Lexia.

11-11.30: Math. We played Go Fish using number cards, which is great for reading pips and numerals. To make it physical we turned it into Go Fitness Fish. Each match was assigned an activity, like yoga tree pose for matching 2s, or jumping jacks for matching 3s.

This had us laughing and super active! (It helped that my toddler was napping). We finished off with a page of How High Can a Dinosaur Count.

11.30-12.30: He was hungry early! We watched yesterday’s episode of Lunch Doodles with Mo Williams since we were too early for today’s 1 p.m. showing. Travis was so proud of his many -legged creature!

12.30-1: In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we listened to Irish music provided by the school’s Music teacher. This had both kiddos doing reels and jigs!

1-1.30: We finished with a quick lesson on American Sign Language, and a quick “science” book about the human body, but then called it quits.

Normally, he has a Tuesday acting class. To ease his disappointment that the final performance is now cancelled, we staged it at home, obligatory costume for little sister included of course.

This had him laughing and so happy, and was the highlight of the day. A round of Kids Charades kept up the acting play to round out his afternoon.

See you for another full day tomorrow!