March 16th - March 24th Notes

The kids loved making gold glitter slime this week.

Monday we settled in as a family of 12 again. Makayla spent a chunk of time unpacking, sorting, and storing the contents of her dorm room. We had a normal day of homeschooling. In the afternoon, four of my older kids gathered on the floor of a bedroom to play a game. For more than two hours they laughed and argued their way through Monopoly: Cheater's Edition, making memories and enjoying one another. In the evening there was dinner and clean up, before everyone gathered to the living room for family scripture study. This week's study is Jacob chapters 5-7 in the Book of Mormon. In chapter five Jacob records the allegory of the olive tree, from the prophet Zenos. We read and discussed the first 28 verses.

Tobias loves pulling out our 

Handwriting Without Tears

chalkboard to 'do school'.

Tuesday dawned with Daddy back to work. Because he is a delivery truck driver, his work will continue, despite the many restrictions in our state due to COVID-19. (As of Monday those restrictions included the closure of all public schools and universities, the closure of all restaurants and bars for anything but take out, the closure of all dental offices, a large gathering ban of more than 50 people, our worldwide church with accompanying activities has closed and shifted Sunday sacrament meetings to each family's home, the closures of museums, movie theaters, fitness gyms, bowling alleys, indoor parks/playgrounds.) Our school day was pretty normal: language arts, science, math, reading, handwriting, history, piano, art. Our nod to St. Patrick's Day was to make gold glitter slime.

Wednesday's homeschool day went smoothly. The kids worked through subjects. History was the beginning of our World War I study, which was fun. We divided the kids up to represent different European countries and the U.S. Then we figured out who was allied before the war, who didn't get along, and how that led to a chain of events that became a world war. Joseph and Emma also did their earthworm dissection today. They were hysterical to watch!

Thursday I reminded the kids that we have spring break next week, so today and Friday are our last days before break. We put in a solid effort on our lessons. Samuel finished All About Reading level 2 yesterday and moved to level 3 today. Last week Caleb finished level 3 and moved to level 4. It is so fun to see their reading develop as they go through All About Reading.

History today began with an audio story introducing the kids to events that led the United States to join World War I. We looked at photographs. We read about dogs in the war, including Sergeant Stubby.

Friday's highlight was using Model Magic. We watched part of a free online lesson by McHarper Manor and then the kids ran with it. They had so much fun crafting together. It was also our last day of school before Spring Break, so everyone was quick to get their work done.

Saturday was our usual video game morning. It was also Crate Day. The big Christmas gift the 9 youngest kids received this year was a 6 month subscription to the Kiwi Crate of their choice, when we found a great sale last fall. Each line is themed (STEM, STEAM, Art, Geography, etc) and sorted into age ranges. They have absolutely loved these projects. They build, create, craft, read, learn, and play for weeks and weeks with each one. This time around the crate themes included dinosaurs, mail carrier, space exploration, and automatons.

 Saturday we also took a few minutes to plan themes for Spring Break week. Because Ohio is on a Stay at Home/Shelter in Place Order due to COVID-19, we are limited to home for activities. We decided having a daily themed activity would give us something to look forward to. Our themes ended up being the following:

•  Sunday: Cookie Day - We used pom poms in cups to vote from seven suggested cookie recipes down to two, which we would bake on Sunday. 
• Monday: Board Game Day - We have more than 100 board games, so we have plenty to choose from. 
• Tuesday: Window Decorating Day - We will use window dry erase markers to decorate all the windows in the house. 
• Wednesday: Video Game Day - We keep our video game systems in a box in the basement. On Saturday mornings the kids can bring it up, unpack it, and play for 30 minutes each (or 40 minutes if they pair up to play together). They are excited for an extra day of games. An extra day to play has probably only happened once or twice in the last 10 years.
• Thursday: Lego Masters Day - I'm making some Lego building challenges inspired by the Lego Masters show. 
• Friday: Model Magic Day - The kids loved this last Friday, so we're repeating it this Friday.
• Saturday: Movie Marathon Day - It won't really be a marathon, but we will be watching at least 2 movies. 

Sunday we had a sweet sacrament meeting right here at home. We sang hymns, blessed and passed the sacrament, had a talk, and enjoyed the Spirit. Then it was cookie baking day. The two winners from Saturday's vote were No Bake Cookies and Sugar Cookies with Icing. 

Monday we took two hours to dig into some cleaning, organizing, and decluttering of toys/books/attic boxes. Then it was time for board games. Makayla also had her college classes resume today, using online options. She has to meet live for most of her classes, which is a bit challenging in a small house with 12 people.

It is now Tuesday morning and I'm going to go ahead and publish this post. I just wanted to share one more thing the kids are enjoying doing lately. They have been using Paint By Sticker or Sticker Mosaic books. I've picked up a stack of these books when they have gone on sale on Amazon, and now they get to use them.

Our state has shut down with a shelter in place order during this COVID-19 pandemic. It's been interesting to go through, lots of conversation with the kids. My husband is still working in an 'essential' job, so he's out making deliveries to stores as usual. Life is crazy sometimes!

The First Two Weeks of March

One of the red pandas at our zoo.

The school week kicked off Monday with Algebra - finding the square root of trinomials and dividing polynomials. It's a good thing I'm a morning person and my brain is in gear early. Other new math lessons included multiple digit subtraction, multiple digit multiplication with carrying, multiplying 3 fractions or fractions and mixed numbers with reducing, and single digit subtraction.

Language arts lessons across the ages had kids doing handwriting, spelling, sentence dictation, finding simple and complete subjects, deciding when a familial name was common or proper and the accompanying capitalization rules, writing a list, putting the list in alphabetical order, and then descriptive writing with two items from the list, brainstorming new story ideas (character and problem) through discussion, reciting coordinating conjunctions, reading, and more. (Thank you The Good and the Beautiful! You make it so easy on me as teacher to do language arts for multiple children.)

Science for the elementary group was our Mammals study. We talked about gestation lengths of placental mammals, how a placenta works, and then played a jeopardy style game I made in PowerPoint where they had to answer with the names of baby animals. For example, if the clue was a zebra, the answer was foal. We had a lot of fun and the teams were closely matched, with only $200 difference between the winning and losing teams.

In the afternoon we video chatted with Makayla, who is still away at college. In the evening we traded out Lego bins from the attic and the kids built a lot of creations.

Tiger sighting.

Tuesday began wet and rainy - and stayed that way all day. There was poetry writing, story planning, and a cute 4 year old who decided he's old enough to do 'school' with the big kids. I pulled out the Handwriting Without Tears chalkboard, chalk, and mini sponges and he happily did some of the 'frog-jump capitals'. Then he ran off to play, and I happily let him. I've learned that there is no hurry in homeschooling. I don't begin formal lessons until a child is 6 years old. Before that, they are welcome to ask for 'school' and we'll do some learning activity. When they are done, I'm done. Some of my children have consistently asked and done school work before age 6, while others did not. It all works out in the end.

Bread baking was the first task on Wednesday morning. It was fresh out of the oven when we began our history study, and by the time we finished I think everyone's tummies were growling. We ate an early lunch. I can't remember what else we did until that evening. My oldest three children (not counting the college student)had a talent show at youth group (one sang a capella, one played a piece on the piano, and one had some lego builds to display). My middle three children had primary activities, where they made different paper airplanes and tried to complete challenges like flying them through obstacles or onto landing pads. My youngest three children and I played in the nursery and used the speaker system to listen in to the talent show.

Thursday was a regular homeschool day. I remembered to toss some chicken breast in the crock pot with teriyaki sauce for dinner (teriyaki tacos). Kids did their individual work with few issues. History covered Noah Webster's life and accomplishments. I did some more curriculum shopping for the high schoolers for fall. I also handed Joseph and Emma each a giant list of ideas for electives and a yellow highlighter. They highlighted any that sounded interesting. I then highlighted in green any they both had chosen, so I know which possibilities to start investigating first.

Friday kicked off with a quick grocery trip at 5:55am after dropping Joseph off at seminary. In a fun turn of events, I found two bags of clearance citrus - blood (red flesh) oranges and cara cara (pink flesh) oranges. My kids have been loving oranges. It was fun to try out new varieties that taste and look different.

We swept through school work, made two 13x9 chocolate pies, and planned a family game night with going to our friends' home fell through due to illness at their house. We did an at home game night instead, which was still fun.

Saturday and Sunday have faded into memory. Oh well.

Brown Bear brothers Brutus and Buckeye

were feeling playful at the zoo Monday.

Monday was a perfectly beautiful spring day in winter so we declared it science day and headed to the zoo. We explored so many areas, always looking for mammals to go with our current science study.

By Tuesday COVID-19 (aka. coronavirus) was making big news. As the days went on our state closed all schools for the next three weeks and put a ban on groups over 100, our worldwide church cancelled all church meetings and activities around the world, and our oldest daughter's college several states away instructed all students to pack up their dorms and go home, where online classes would begin in another week, to finish out the semester.

We were pretty prepared at our house already, thankfully, because people went crazy. Grocery store shelves in my town were emptied of food, cleaning supplies, diapers, wipes, and toilet paper. I literally saw a fistfight begin in my Wal-Mart over toilet paper on the day I picked up our monthly prescriptions.

At home, we talked about viruses, COVID-19, quarantines, and more. We rearranged the girls' bedroom and put up the college daughter's bed. We made an activity bucket list of things we can do together while enjoying our days. Being homeschoolers, we also get to decide what we're doing for school during this time. We already have spring break planned for one week this month, but for now, the rest of school will probably proceed as usual.

Elephant sighting.

Sunday is tomorrow. Grandma is coming to watch the kids while my husband and I spend 14 hours on the road getting our girl at college. I can't wait to hug her!