Enjoying dinner: hamburgers with homemade hamburger buns!
Monday. Today we were back at it grinding away. We tried to refocus the girls back into 'mom school'. And today we did just that!
Learning our left and our right!
Naomi slept until 8:45, but Juliet, JP and I were up early and making breakfast so we could get a jump on the day. Naomi had her google meet session with her class and Juliet watched her teacher's new youtube videos for the week. The first work that Juliet learned about was dusting and so she got everything she needed and dusted the family room coffee table. Then she did a comparison work that compared solid and soft items. She went around the house collecting these things and then put them in the proper categories. After that we did some math facts and then some geometric shape puzzles. By the time we got to the puzzles Naomi had finished her class meeting and she joined us. We then played twister, learning about our left and right. I wrote with washable marker on their hands and feet to help them with this! From there we moved on to yoga. We have these yoga dice that have different poses on each side that help you do different moves. Juliet lost interest in this and went upstairs to rest because she was tired (aka sucking her thumb) but ended up playing on her own in her room. We're working on trying to get Juliet to stop sucking her thumb but it is proven very difficult. Nothing seems to work. The other thing we're working on is playing with the kids separately. They are, for the most part, good kids, that play nicely together, but as JP says "Naomi cannot be a passenger" when playing and Juliet loses interest and wants to do something else. This is what happened with yoga dice.
Yoga dice
After a break from each other we made lunch and then the girls got a little art lesson on blind contour drawing. They were joking about drawing with their eyes closed while I was making lunch and then I explained that artists do that. They don't close their eyes, but they draw without looking at the paper. So I had them try it out. Much giggling ensued during this activity! Until it turned ugly and we needed a break. So we all went to our own rooms for an hour of alone time. Juliet played in her room on her own, Naomi played in her room and JP and I did some work each in our own space too!
After the hour was up we went downstairs and got going on another art project: collaging. We took the recycle bin and dumped it our on the kitchen table. The kids picked through the recycling cutting up pieces and gluing them in their sketchbook. This project took over an hour. The girls were so into cutting and finding the right pieces and gluing them all together. It helped that I just cleaned out the attic and then found some papers & maps from our trip to China that I just put in the recycling. They were very interested in all the different Chinese writing & maps. We jammed to music while we worked - cutting, gluing, cutting, gluing. When they were finished the brought their books upstairs to show dad!
Mom's blind contour demo
After that we began to get dinner ready. We were making veggie burgers but we didn't have buns, so we decided to make them from scratch. I looked up a quick recipe and the kids dove right in to help. Since we are rationing our white flour as we don't have much and there isn't any in the stores, I mixed in 1 cup of whole wheat flower. They came our delicious!!
After dinner we headed upstairs to clean up Juliet's room and get ready for bed. We only had 2 chapters left in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets so we told the girls that if they cleaned up, brushed and got in their pajamas quickly we could read both chapters. Of course that motivated them and they were ready to read lickety-split.
I would say that our first day back at 'mom school' was a blazing success. Tomorrow is the true test though as I will be having meetings with my classes for most of the morning and then a little in the afternoon as well.
Charles River by our old house! Sunday. This morning the kids got up before us and headed downstairs to watch some Batman cartoon episodes from the 90s that JP got for them. Naomi (& Juliet sort of) has been reading the three Batman comics that we got from Park Street Books that have Spanish on the sides and in some of the frames. One of the great things about technology, or at least the technology in our house, is that we can cast stuff from our phone to the TV in the family room and our bedroom. So while JP and I were just getting up and dressed, he cast the Sunday school stream from the temple. This of course interrupted the Batman cartoon. I peaked my head out the bedroom door and heard..."but we were watching Batman!" The Sunday school songs and chat from the Rabbi's today was about Passover as it is this coming Wednesday evening. After the morning service 45 minutes later there was a zoom session with the Rabbi's to have more of a conversation and so...
Today was a typical quarantine day. We got up. Walked Pip. Made breakfast. And then JP and I got to working while the kids played outside. It was a gorgeous day. The kids went on a fossil expedition digging up rocks in my front flower bed. They apparently promised to leave the flowerbeds as they found them. But that’s not what happened. Then they played in the hose as it was hot out! The rest of the afternoon was spent playing with the kids in the neighborhood. In the evening we walked Pip and went over to the neighbors that was hatching Chickens. He’s going to let us foster a few of them for the next few weeks. Hopefully this will move us forward with us getting our own chickens! So after the chick visit we went out and got a few things to raise them. A heat lamp, a water bottle, sawdust flakes and chick food. Tomorrow we pick up the chicks. Then dinner, books and bed for the kids. And school Committee Meeting for mom.
Signs of spring Easter Sunday. This morning the kids got up at the same time, around 7:30 and they went down and watched some TV and played some video games. I got up and made some breakfast for the gang and then we headed outside. It was almost 60 degrees today. The girls helped me move some of the plants around in our front flower beds. We moved 2 daisy plants, 2 echinacea plants, and 3 day lilies. The side of the house had nothing in the beds there, so we moved 5 plants there. Hopefully the plants make it!!! Then we did a general clean up of the beds. Juliet got a bit bored and went and helped JP dig out weeds for a bit. Then they went and practiced riding bikes. Juliet is a bit timid on her bike with training wheels but she took the bike for a spin around the neighborhood for a bit. Naomi seeing her decided she wanted to ride for a bit too, so she went off and rode her bike around the neighborhood chasing Jules. She's' still learning how to use the gears on her new bike...
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