Sunday: life skills

Today's life skill was pushing a stroller.  It was also "let's not play the line game again."  Joshua was really too short to make it work well, but he tried really hard.

I've also started something new with my freezer meals.  I'm labeling them on the side instead of the top.  While not a radical change, it makes it much easier to tell what I have in the freezer!

Oh!  Last night they stayed up until 2am.  Around 1am Joshua lost it a little bit, but their plan was to watch a show in bed.  I heard them talking a little bit around 2am, so he must not have fallen asleep.   Both boys did well today even though they were short on sleep.

Saturday: lock-in

A few days ago Isaac had the brilliant idea of having a lock-in.  He was really looking forward to the one at church and everything was canceled about a week before.  It also means unlimited screen time, something he is always angling for.

At the same time, really?  A lock-in?  Does it not seem as though we're already locked in this house?

He had to come up with a few activities besides just screen time.  He and Joshua also got a Lego set, a bowl of candy, and they did tin foil boats.

It's now 10:30pm and tin foil boats are done and they spent some time on the Lego sets.  It wasn't a ton, so I'm sure they have more to do.  I expect Isaac might last quite a while yet, but I'd be interested in knowing when Joshua falls asleep...although they probably won't check the time.  Joshua was supposed to take a nap this afternoon but I'm not sure that he actually did, because he was awake when I got up from my nap.

We also went on a short walk today.  It was slightly drizzling, so we brought the umbrellas.  It gave the boys something new and we didn't have to play the "if you step on a crack you lose a point" game.

Friday: in pictures and videos

Joshua's Lego challenge came from the librarian's daughter: a chicken, a dinosaur airplane, and a robot that only mashes potatoes.  I really liked how he interpreted the chicken in the second video; it isn't an alive chicken but a pile of chicken pieces to eat.

I wish I had made a goal of using ALL the things in the kitchen.  Isaac made a cake (I only helped with the egg whites and putting in the cake in the oven), I made fried rice and peanut chicken.  We used a 9x13, pan, instapot, rice maker, blender, garlic press, all the teaspoons, and the large bowl.

It wasn't clean to start, but note the empty shelves.

Joshua keeps pulling out this game for his game time.  It isn't too bad, but isn't my favorite either.  We don't follow the rules at all, and the mazes have gotten better.  We do (usually) have rules that have evolved though, so that has helped me.

Tornado was helping Isaac with his homework.

Isaac was so excited to frost his cake.  He made a lot of zig-zags.

Thursday: Legos

For his Lego challenge this morning Joshua made a mobile library.  It was a challenge set forth by one of our librarians, who loved the result.

This morning Isaac had a meeting with his class and the theme was 'hat or mask.'  This apparently didn't suit him very well so he wore a chair on his head.

In the afternoon Joshua decided we were going to have a party!  But he didn't want me to have to cook for it, so he made a bunch of robots that are dealing with the food.

Also, Isaac is planning a lock-in for himself and Joshua.  This strikes me as a bit ironic, since we're pretty locked in the house anyway, but I think he's using it as an excuse for more screen time.  The activities he's planned are tin foil boats, a new Lego set, bowls of candy, and extra screen time.  I figure if Ben and I get a free night from it is sounds like an excellent idea.

Wednesday: ladders, ELA, ice castles, and karate

The boys played on the ladder a little bit today, but the cats took their turn learning how to climb up and down ladders.


Joshua has been working on a Lego surprise for me for several days and finally finished it today.  He made an ice castle (for the family).  It's really quite large and he did a great job with it!

ELA went so much better today.  I think Isaac was in a better mood and I had him talk though the written portions instead of write them.  Of course, he still did some writing in other places.  (Below was some math homework.  I'm not sure it's completely math, more like science, but it went well too and didn't take too long.)

Joshua had to bring a stuffed animal to karate.  He chose Grey Bear, and I was inwardly so glad that he chose Grey Bear instead of Pokeball.

Tuesday: ladder, ELA, moats

Let's start with ELA (English Language Arts) and get the bad part of the day out of the way.  I don't know what Isaac's problem is, but he pretends to be incapable of doing the worksheets.  Today he had to read a story and write five questions that he could also answer.  It took him ten minutes to write one.  We even talked about it before hand.  Then I came in there for something else and was like, "you can write a what question about any sentence!" and even that took another five minutes before he got one he liked.  Now, I know I'm not an English major or a teacher.  I know we're in some weird times and that in school he probably would have gotten more advice before doing the assignment.  But he isn't that poor of a student that he can't write five questions! 

Anyway, I emailed his teacher.  She said that this is pretty normal for him (which scared me a little bit), but she's also never made a huge deal about it.  We discussed a few options.  Isaac and I will be talking about some options tomorrow.  While I don't feel as though we need to do every single worksheet, I do feel as though he should be able to do some of them when asked to do so.  Stay tuned.  (This was only the second day of distance learning and our school has been very relaxed!  I'm starting to understand what some of the parents are talking about now.)

Moving on.  I graded "most" of the day.  And by "most" I mean I kept sitting down, grading a few parts of an assignment, and then getting up to do something else.  Grading isn't fun to begin with, and progress was so slow.  Luckily, one of my graders is willing to help me with the final exams so that is a relief.

Moving on again, to the fun parts of the day.  The cats enjoyed the ladder.  Joshua played with it a bit and Isaac just a little bit, so it'll be coming down tomorrow.

Today's lego challenge was a river with dams, like you see at science museums.  It kept Joshua occupied pretty well.  I let Isaac do it for his science part of the day, since in involved testing and fixing and retesting.  Much better than a worksheet.

Joshua also made a crazy complicated card/maze/game for Pat.  I made a video of the solution since there's no way she'll be able to figure it out herself.  It involves portals and keys and a puzzle and a good dose of five year old logic.

Monday: ladder

Joshua's lego challenge today was a zoo.  You can see the giant flamingo, dragon, spider, and ladybug.  There are also two...somethings and a parrot hidden in a box.

Joshua worked hard on a card for Scarlet today.  Ben is working on putting all of our dragons together.

Today's gym activity was to climb a ladder, get an easter egg from the top, put it in a bucket, climb down the ladder, lower the bucket down, and do whatever was in the egg.  Isaac enjoyed it until he had to sing a song.  Joshua did all 19 eggs and it kept him nice and busy.  I gave them a ladder safety course at the beginning and they both remembered the key points rather well.

Aunt C stopped by briefly.  (We stay far apart.)  Except that she seems to be Horizon's favorite person; he came rushing up to her shortly after he heard her voice.

Isaac wrote something weird for writing time.  But he wrote and that's half the battle right now.  I especially like how he sounded out fyu for phew.