Tuesday: week 3, day 2

Isaac cleaned the toilets today.  He wasn't thrilled with it, but in the past he's been happy to clean them.  Maybe it's because I made him clean the outside too, which is not as much fun.

Joshua's Lego challenge was to build a bird.  (We're pretending to do a unit on birds.  It involves him looking out the window and counting a lot of birds.)  Anyway, he made a hummingbird mech with a parrot controller.

Isaac: I was thinking.  There are 24 students in the class and 24 hours in the day, so Mrs. Jonker could spend an hour with each of us!

Amanda: yeah, but...what is a problem with that plan?

Isaac: We'd only get to see her for an hour.

Ben: What other problems are there?

Isaac: Some students would have to be awake at 3am

Ben: Pretend you're the teacher.  Then what is the problem?

Isaac: Um, I wouldn't have time to eat?  I could do that while teaching.

Ben: Keep going...

Isaac: or sleep

Amanda: or do anything besides teaching!

Monday: school is still happening

Well, we continued on with school today.  We made it through the day.  Hopefully some learning is going on.  Also, I think Joshua got accepted into EC next year (as expected) because I had to sign up for a screening time.  However, we haven't been officially accepted so I found the order of things a bit crazy.  Well, it's crazy times everywhere.  We also got an email that said there would be more distance learning after spring break (when the governor announces schools will be closed for longer).  I think that would be helpful, but it might be annoying too.  We'll see how it plays out I guess.

Joshua's lego challenge was to build a shark.  He built a shark mech with a shark on top of it.

We got groceries today.  Well, I guess Ben picked up groceries that I ordered today.  It turned out that we ran out of milk first.  How boring.  I was surprised some of the items that were out of stock: yogurt tubs, pizza rolls, and canned potatoes.  There were a few other things too, but they were replaced with similar items at least.

Sunday

We did church from home again.  It's a bit weird, but so is everything in life these days.  The church has a playlist from youtube for us to go through with the songs.  It works pretty well, but I wish they'd stick to songs that I know.  It's hard enough learning new songs at church, but when it is just the four of us it's awkward.  Sometimes we just watch the song because it seems to be meant for watching more than singing, but still...  Afterwards I made it to the live Q&A session.  I think it's a cool way to get people a little more engaged.  I didn't say much and did take apart a Lego set during it, but it was still good.

Beyond that, not much today.  Some cleaning.  Some pretending we're ready for next week.  Some "why do the boys keep trapping us with mountains of stuff I'm over it".

Saturday: Saturday

We started the day off with a survey: Who is the silliest person in our family?  We called several relatives...because what else do we have to do?

Isaac kept the tally and won by a landslide.  Somehow I didn't get any votes; it must mean that the rest of the family is really silly.

Yesterday Joshua and I cleaned out a cabinet.  I don't have a before picture, but I'm pretty proud of the after picture.  The plan is to put the drinks in here once the weather warms up for easy moving to the fridge.  But for now, the garage is a great refrigerator.

We had an actual rest time today.  Joshua hasn't had a nap in two weeks and it showed last night.  So everyone had to stay in their beds, although they didn't have to sleep.  (I'm not actually sure that Isaac stayed in his bed, but this rest time was mainly for Joshua.  Isaac at least stayed in his bedroom.)  Joshua fell asleep and slept quite a while; I had to wake him up.

Friday: end of the week

Isaac read and measured some resistors.  Surprise!  They were within tolernce.

This week Isaac's activity is to read in the tub.

For Joshua's spider unit he made a spider web.  We did it outside because the house is too messy.  It got left up all day so that the walkers could smile at it.  (It went across the driveway a few times.)

Here is Isaac's finished Scratch project: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/380307939.  I was pasting the link in an email to his teacher and he asked me, incredulously, how I typed it that fast.

Thursday: this and that

We had a slow start to the morning because we had a special breakfast of blueberry strudel that needed to be baked.  And by slow, I mean not-really-much-slower than normal.  Isaac wore his sleeping bag for half the day.

We're having serious mouse problems with the computer on the left; it sometimes recognizes the mouse and then it just stops.  We've tried multiple mice.  I think we might bring Isaac's desktop upstairs for now; that way he also won't bother Ben as Ben is trying to work.

Isaac is doing an alegra unit on Khan academy, but there wasn't a review for the unit he was working on so he got to use the white board.

Joshua's life skill was finishing up the muffins.

In keeping with the Lego challenge theme, Joshua altered his challenge.  It was supposed to be an ice cream truck.  It ended up being an ice cream place that shoots out ice cream.

Work time.  I gave a small exam today.  It was exceptionally boring, as I flipped through the screens and watched the students not cheat.  (Or cheat well enough that I couldn't tell.)

Isaac's life skill was making meatballs.  He dealt with touching the meat better than I expected.  We also finished up two containers of bread crumbs and started a third...Italian ones, normal ones, and Japanese ones.  I'm not sure why I have so many bread crumbs, but I'm glad to get rid of some.  Pantry cleaning for the win!

Wednesday: shenanigans

We had quite the shenanigans in our house today.

Joshua is apparently doing a unit on spiders, so I told him to go in the basement and look for spider webs.  Of course, he doesn't just go down and look, he wants to clean them too.  It's not just a clean though, it was a banish.  Basically, he was playing a game with the spider webs and not learning anything at all.  (Of course, he couldn't find any so I had to go help him.  Perhaps what he was learning is where to look for spider webs, another important skill?)

During recess the kids were playing their new favorite game of delivering stuff to the door so they could be thieves later and steal it back.  I decided I needed a guard dog.  Of course, with no dogs around I used the next best thing...a guard kitty.  (The video isn't great.)



Soon after that I get a note from my guard kitty asking for his friend.  Now Tornado doesn't like the carrier, so at first a circled 'no'.  But Horizon "really, really" wanted him, so I forced him in.

I pretty much lost track of what was going on after that.  The thieves came into the house and stole THE WHOLE BAG of cat food.  The thieves decided the best way to get the cats back into the house was to stroller them down the hill to the back slider door.  Luckily, the thieves also decided to clean up after themselves.

We continued Joshua's spider theme with his Lego challenge by asking him to build a spider.  He continued changing the spider theme to suit his desires.  May I present the spider mech (i.e., robot), controlled by a spider.  It does at least have eight legs.

Isaac's life skill was to weight the loose lego.  Ben and I have been curious as to how much we have, so now seems like a good time to do it.  (It's not necessarily the weighing of the lego that's the life skill, but keeping track of what he's done and the results.)

It was nice enough to go on a walk around the lake this afternoon.  It was busy!!  I don't think I've ever seen that many people out walking at once.  But we all did a great job social distancing.  We were only 6ft away from someone a few times when we were going in opposite directions on the sidewalk, otherwise we were closer to 15ft.

Ben finished work right after Joshua and I got back, so Joshua (and Isaac) brought Ben on a walk around the lake.  Joshua takes his job of making sure we get exercise very seriously.

Tuesday: back to school for me

Hmm, I didn't get as many pictures of 'school' today.  It must be getting normal.  I did make the kids do the not-so-fun things first and I think it helped.  Oh!  We didn't have any tears today (except for a small injury, which doesn't count.)  I was going to have a special breakfast for them, but Isaac made bran muffins yesterday.  I guess we'll have special breakfast later.

I do have a picture of a dog house Joshua made for his Lego challenge.  Both boys got through more of their activities today...I'm not really sure why.  Life skills may have been shorter and recess may have been shorter, and when you add up a few other shorter things you can get through most of the items on the list I guess.

But I'm sure you're really all wondering how back-to-school went for me.  Well, it ended up going quite well, I think.  I'm obviously not 100% sure because I can't see faces or watch body language, but I covered all the material I wanted to.  At the end of the week last week I decided that I actually wanted to use Zoom instead of Google Meet.  I felt a little nervous about this decision, because most of the campus is going with Google Meet.  However, only one person can present at a time to Google Meet and I wanted to be able to flip through screens.  Zoom is far from ideal, but it worked fine.  I did cast to Google Meet too and one person chose that option, but most students went with Zoom.  Everyone from my second class even showed up, which I was slightly surprised about.  (Most students from the first class showed up, but I didn't get a final count.)

My children did a good job too.  I talked to them a few times, Ben helped them out a few times, but it wasn't excessive.  The worst part was that Joshua went to the bathroom and forgot to flush and I couldn't flush for him because I was using a headset.  I closed the door and that worked.  (Phew.)  The cats did a pretty good job of not interrupting me too.  Horizon even sat on my lap for a bit, which was a definite perk! 

I posted the lectures on-line.  I briefly listened to one to make sure the sound was working and I didn't sound as bad as I was expecting.  (Everyone always sounds terrible to themselves, right?)  Phew.

Monday: back to school

Well, we went back to school today.  Ben worked from home today.  A new normal.

Let's see.  Isaac made bran muffins for his life skill.  He wanted to do it all weekend but I put him off.  I used a buttermilk powder instead of fresh buttermilk and it didn't expand with baking soda as much as it normally does.  Hopefully they'll taste ok for breakfast.

Joshua's life skill was making tater tot casserole.  He didn't like it, but Ben and I thought it was delicious.

Joshua started making a glue quilt for art.  He didn't seem to enjoy it as much as I was expecting...but he took a break and will continue it next art session.

It snowed out last night.  How nice of God to give us some new toys for the day!  The boys built a snow mountain...Joshua lawn-mowered the snow to the mountain.

Isaac wrote about the time Giraffe got lost and was found at Aunt Allison's house.  I could tell he wasn't into it.  I'm moving some of these 'have to do' items to the beginning of the day when everyone is in slightly better spirits.  (Speaking of which, the tears came today because apparently Joshua didn't think he could write an 'a'.  I've been rather surprised at how often he gets moody because he thinks he can't do something.)

Sensory this week is water balls.  They were a hit today.

Isaac's project for the week is Scratch programming.  He did it every free moment until dinner, after which we said he needed a break.

Tornado was found on Joshua's bed, but didn't stay there long.

a long time

This is my 4000th blog post!

🎈 🎈 🎈

Sunday: what will be first?

I've been insanely curious...what are we going to run out of that will cause us to get groceries?  I stocked up the a week ago Friday, but there tends to be that one item that you run out of the night you go grocery shopping.  (Sometimes you can live without it for a week, sometimes you can't.) 

We still haven't found it.  There are several items on the grocery list right now, although not as many as I was expecting it being over a week since the last grocery trip.  We're going through the snacks quickly, but I also think we could get rather creative with the snacks.  It might be granola bars, although I asked Ben to bring his stash home from work and I don't know if he did or not yet.  We don't have a lot of cream cheese, but I'm the only one that eats that and can *probably* find something else to eat.

With Ben home for lunches we'll be going through lunch food faster too. 

I've been trying to empty out the freezer of some of the old stuff for quite a while, so hopefully this will help that initiative.

Hmm, hmm.  It's a mystery.

It's the weekend!

So...the problem with the weekend during this social distancing time is that it is surprisingly like all the other days of the week.  The boys did play together quite well this morning though, so I guess there was at least a little bit of 'no school' that worked for them.

In other news, I've worn pajama pants for over a week now and see no reason to stop...at least not until it gets warm out.

I've warned the boys that spring break may be partially canceled.   There's nothing new to do, so we'd all just end up bored at home without structure.  That being said, I'm hoping to have two days of 'as much screen time as you want' so that there is at least a little break in there.

Day 5: field trip

I know, I know.  A field trip!  We went to the karate school and used their obstacle course.  It's one of Isaac's favorite things to do and Joshua was super excited to get to do it too.  (We stayed well away from the owners.  They had cleaned the obstacle pieces before we came and we cleaned them well before leaving.)

Isaac's life skill was laundry.  I only had him collect, sort, and start the first load.  It seemed like enough.

Joshua's life skill was to make take-n-break cookies.  Dealing with the oven was a big deal.

The afternoon was a bit rough.  Isaac didn't like/didn't want/didn't I don't know to do his stuff.  It wasn't that he wasn't going to do it, but he kept wanting to switch to something else.  I said no, he was in the middle of it.  We did stop on the earlier side though, after getting the reading/writing/math done.  I wish there was an easier way to tell if the kids are close to their breaking point without actually getting to tears.  Maybe I'll have to make a 'button' that they can give me and as long as it isn't overused adjust accordingly.  We'll see.

Unfortunately, we still don't get our special 'no tears yesterday' breakfast.  I'm not sure weekends count.  The boys also don't know there is a treat, so that might not be helping.

After prayer time tonight Joshua asked, "Why doesn't God just take the virus away?"  What a great question!  So we talked about it for a little bit.  Then Isaac asked, "How did God start?  What was there before God?"  So we talked about that.  Deep thoughts from these kids!

Day 4

Joshua drew Gerald and Piggie.

There was learning on the computers.

Isaac's life skill was to change the sheets on his bed and our bed.  His bed went ok, our bed might have been a bit much.

Joshua counted to 20 without forgetting 13 several times!  Yesterday we made these Lego numbers to use...I wanted something more substantial than paper.

Isaac's challenge was to do his reading in a cozy spot.

This was his cozy spot from the front.

Isaac also made two more stop motion videos.


We still had a few tears today because Joshua didn't know what to do during rest time.

Wednesday: day 3

Today went pretty well, although we haven't managed to have a tear-less day yet.

Also, I start wondering about boredom levels when Isaac starts doing his chores BEFORE I get out of bed for the day.  I'm not sure whether to be proud of him for taking the initiative or really scared that he's bored out of his mind.

Isaac started the day out with science.  We're doing a unit on circuits.  And by unit, I mean whatever seems to be an appropriate amount for the day.  Yesterday he identified series vs parallel resistors, today we calculated and measured series resistors, and tomorrow we're going to identify the resistors based on their bands.

Joshua started out with art.  I told him to look out the window and draw whatever he saw.  The yellow is the sunrise.  The green thing in a circle is the dead plant.  He also saw a bird but didn't feel confident enough to draw it, so just wrote it.

One reason today went well is that the boys spent more time outside than normal.  I really let them stay outside as long as they want, but that just hasn't been very long.  Today there was a game that involved yelling at the front door (because they only get one doorbell ring a day) and leaving a 'package'.  I'd loudly say some absurd thing and bring it inside.  So then Isaac, a thief, came inside to steal my stuff!  So I locked assorted doors and unlocked other doors and they found the spare key and Isaac managed to unlock a door and apparently it was the one of the best games ever.

Isaac's working on a project to make a stop-motion video and really getting into it.  (That's what his tears were from...the app is not the most user friendly.)  I'm trying to get him to do most of it by himself, so we briefly talked about his first one and then he made another one:


At lunch time I tend to ask the boys how it's going - what is good, what could be better, what they don't like.  Joshua's been pretty easy to please after we made sure to keep him warm enough outside.  Actually, Isaac's been pretty easy to please too, although he has more suggestions.  They're usually pretty good and minor suggestions, so several have been put into effect.

Tuesday: day 2

Today went better than yesterday in regards to schooling.  I had a few more items ironed out, so there wasn't as much pausing.  There were a few times when they both needed my help, but they were also quite understanding.  I also felt like I got a few of my things done.  Not many, but that isn't all that abnormal.

Isaac made quite a bit of dinner today (chicken bacon ranch sliders) for his life skill.  He did at least a little of everything until the very end, by which time he had moved on to the next activity.  He fried the bacon, thawed the chicken broth, trimmed the chicken, and put it all together.  Horizon helped.  Joshua learned how to fold his laundry.  I expect that is a chore that I won't be taking back any time soon.

Joshua and I continued to work on Elsa's castle.

Piano lessons started today.  Joshua was telling Ben about his day this evening and said, "I learned to play the piano."  Well...he at least started.  His motor skills are (obviously) not the same as Isaac's, so Isaac did four pages of the book and I stopped Joshua at two. 

Isaac had me time his three laps to the cal-de-sac and back.  I was impressed with his consistency.  He said he had to push himself during the last one and he did come back in rather out of breath.  We had several other running times throughout the day.  (We?  I should say they.)  These kids just run and run and run.  It's too bad that I don't enjoy it.

Monday: social isolation day 3, homeschooling day 1

Well, we survived the day.  The day went fine.

Here are the things that didn't go so well:
1. I wasn't quite as prepared as I 'needed' to be.  There were several, "uh, I need to you wait ten minutes while I try to figure this out."
2. Joshua missed having as much Mom time as normal and mentioned it several times.
3. Getting anything else done around the house.
4. Sending Joshua outside without the correct cold weather gear.
5. Trying to teach life skills while doing other work.

Here are the things that went fine:
1. Working on stuff for Hope while directing the boys.  It was only an hour, and they had several questions during that time, but it was doable.  I was slightly distracted from everything, but it worked.
2. Most of the 'subjects' for both boys.  They would be better with improvement but let's not be too hasty.

Art

Morning work

stop motion

Spanish (Duolingo)

Sensory (oobleck)

3. Time management for the whole day.  The boys did their chores before dinner because they were bored and were hoping for more screen time after dinner.  It worked out for them a little bit.  Joshua had to refill all of our emergency/freezer water and made some kind of game from it.

Here are the things that went well:
1. The schedule.  Oh, that worked so well.  Isaac had cut his items out before I woke up.  They loved going to look at seeing what they were supposed to do next.  Tomorrow's schedule has already been arranged.

Here are the other notes:
1. Isaac's life skill was cleaning the fish tank.  He did not enjoy it and wanted to know why he had to learn it because he might never have a fish.   Joshua's life skill was sorting the laundry into pilles for different people.
2. Both boys got out new Lego sets and it was a good break while still being part of the schedule.  Isaac is using one to make a stop motion video and Joshua and I are doing one during 'mom's choice.'
3. We followed the normal routine of screen time/rest time after lunch and then finished the few items we had left.  I thought it worked well.
4. For gym Isaac had to run to the end of the cauld-e-sac twice.  I thought this would take him about fifteen minutes.  Instead it took him about five.  I didn't watch him, but I'll assume he was going to the right place.  Tomorrow I'll up it to three times because it obviously wasn't hard enough.