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!