Homeschool now in progress

Routine - glorious routine!

Today marked our first day of having an actual school schedule and it went super well. I took some of the learning resources shared by teachers and coupled them with other materials I found online. It took some effort to draft up a solid lesson plan, but I'm content that the kids have a good mix of topics and work to keep them going. Add on three recesses, snacks and lunch, and it makes the days pass quickly. The kids were quite happy today and less bickering overall.

Going forward, the goal is to create a new weekly lesson plan every weekend. This should tide us over until the school board starts to implement more formal e-learning plans. With any luck, I'll avoid situations like this one ; )

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Pandemie-Tanzparty

Sometimes something seems like a good idea, until you actually try it. Today's "boredom buster" was - learn a new language. Each family member picked a language and wrote it down on a piece of paper. I then threw the papers from our upper hallway down to the first floor - the first paper to land would dictate the language. German was the clear winner. Today, on my lunch break, I sat down with the kids for some Duo Lingo time. It only lasted about 15 minutes before they decided German was too challenging. My littlest ran off to do something else and my son soon discovered that it was much more fun to type ridiculous phrases into Google translate and play the audio. What was meant to be an educational experience, soon descended into total nonsense. We did walk away with a few choice phrases such as, "I farted," and "The toilet is full". But my personal favourite would have to be, "Pandemic dance party." Not sure any of these phrases will ...

The strangest picnic

How do you keep the most social of children happy in a situation that warrants isolation? I think it's a challenge that many of us parents will struggle with over the coming weeks or months. For me, it's a matter of trying to reinvent the activities that they are accustomed to, maintaining a sense of familiarity, but working within new restraints. It's making the very best of a strange situation. Today's "boredom buster" was an idea I threw in the bucket - a country drive and a car picnic. It only took an hour, but it was the perfect activity to break up our day and was easy enough to incorporate into hubby's work schedule. We drove down to some nature trails along the Ottawa River, parked the car in front of a turtle pond, opened the tailgate, and piled into the trunk for lunch. I have to admit, it was a bit chillier than planned, but the kids were thrilled when hubby closed the trunk on the kids and I to warm us up as we ate. Who knew being sea...

Art therapy

By the end of this pandemic, I'm convinced we will be decent artists! Today the kids and I participated in our second drawing class through www.yaymaker.com We joined kids and other families from all over the US and Canada to draw elephants, frog princes and monkeys. Again, I was super impressed by the artist and her ability to engage everyone in the class from afar. Between drawing, they stream upbeat music and the kids have fun dancing on camera and seeing other kids do the same. Thank goodness for the marvels of modern technology! I'm happy to report that we have a new batch of masterpieces ready to be taped to my parents' windows. This may become a weekly occurrence. We will hopefully drop them off tomorrow, when we do our next supply run. Speaking of supply run, I'm starting to feel myself getting a bit crazy over toilet paper conservation. We still have lots in the basement, but I can't help but worry about our alternatives when we run out. Rags and washing...

Tomka Tales

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