April 2020 homeschooling

According to stories I’ve heard a Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times.” Someone appears to of cursed the world. It’s certainly been interesting times.

 

April Week 1

According to these pictures, the only person I saw this week was Princess. Which is certainly not true.

I spent some of my free time sewing masks for Covid Rangers, a group making masks that allows medical masks to last longer.

I had Princess go out and help me get a few more bluebonnets shots so I could get pictures with my eyes open.

Then Princess and I watched Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on Youtube, which was SOOOOOO MUCH FUN! I had a blast watching it with her, and listening to her reaction. I mean, I’m pretty sure Andrew Lloyd Webber was on drugs when he put that musical together, so her reaction wasn’t out of line.

The kids worked on Pathways2.0 Language Arts. I had them focusing on the vocabulary in particular because that’s my favorite part.

We started working on reviewing our history for the year, and my kids were constantly complaining about how crowded the timeline was. Believe me, they were not crazy for their complaints. I probably didn’t help at all as I laughed and chortled through the entire review.

On my daily walk, I took a picture of the local playground with all of the equipment taped off, which makes me so incredibly sad to see.

Right under the picture of me wearing the mask, you can see the picture Superman texted me after cleaning his room because I didn’t want to go back upstairs to check. Yes, I’ve reached that level of parenting.

There’s a cool group called Hero’s Quest that makes productivity journals, and they’ve put together a special Quarantine Journal that I’ve been having fun trying out. I might get their normal journal because I’m rather enjoying this whole thing, and it may work out well for me. I’m not sure.

 

April Week 2

It’s probably a sign of how log this feels like this month has gone on that I was completely and totally sure we were in the third week as I sat down to write this. Today is Blursday.

Blursday, that’s the day.

As to what actually happened.

 

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My kids were inspired by @minmaxpod to make a red velvet cake with raspberry ganache in the shape of a lamb.

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We’ll start with Easter. My boys listen to the Min/Max podcast with me when we’re alone in the car. It’s a Christian gaming podcast, and they love the opening “this, this, or that” question each week. So when a year or so ago they heard Alan say, “My goal is to make an Easter lamb cake out of Red velvet chocolate cake with raspberry ganache, so that when you cut into it, it looks like it is bleeding.” My kids heard this and thought it was amazing. They’ve been eyeing lamb molds. We didn’t actually buy a lamb mold, and so they made a Minecraft lamb, put raspberry ganache in, frosted it with cream cheese frosting, and then gave it dead “X eyes.” They were quite proud of themselves.

They were so proud of it, but boy would that send you into a diabetic coma for sure.

Princess and I watched Jesus Christ Superstar on  YouTube, and it was AMAZING! They updated it with the disciples as Antifa and Caiaphas as a Wall Street executive. I spent the entire show “live-tweeting” (only it was on Instagram stories) my reactions. I’m planning on buying it because I enjoyed it so much. Yes, it’s totally heretical, but there are some parts that make good points about who Jesus was, and showing that Jesus wasn’t a person in power.

Oops missed one, I also loved the mockers near the end as reporters with microphones. The staging was GENIUS!

I’m looking forward to seeing Phantom of the Opera tonight, it’s going to be so much fun.

We’re reviewing history right now, not that we got much reviewed this week, but it’s rather hilarious listening to the kids complain about how much happens in a small bit of time, “Mom! I don’t have room to put him here, I’m going to cover up this other person.”

Yes children, then my point is somewhat made. This was a busy time.

But, I probably will revise it before I share it with everyone.

My best friend shared a Harry Potter house quiz, and it’s kind of fun to try it out and see the results. Apparently the Sorting Hat would spend a very long time on me to figure out where I’d go. This is the first time I tested so strongly for Hufflepuff, but it’s only a hair above Gryffindor or Ravenclaw.

But my big project for the week was finishing rearranging my library. I’ve got it all done, and the furniture all moved. I have a few smaller bits and pieces of the project I want to add in, like a foam piece for the giant gap at the edge of the day bed. Some pillows of some sort. It was interesting to see what state my physical library is in, and how many of my books have been read to pieces. I also found a whole slew of journals and notebooks from the past few decades. I really need to read through them.

April Week 3

This particular week ended with me hiding in my cave of darkness from the pain of a migraine on Wednesday. I’m just now emerging from it on Friday when I’m attempting to write this. It’s amazing how much these weeks run together as our usual things for keeping the weeks straight are still here, but in a very different way.

So, last week included my nephew’s birthday, and my sister-in-law organized a parade, but we decided to individually deliver his unofficial present of Nerf darts. We all dressed up in our masks for going out, and then put on hats, and did a drive-by Nerf gun shooting. It was a blast, and I’m really hoping my brother puts the video up on YouTube because I’ve been told the footage is great. As we drove by Princess threw her present (in a brown paper bag) at them with “Tick Tick Tick” written on it. It was, of course, raining during this time, so they were all hiding under umbrellas.

It was glorious.

In other news, I dropped off a care package of craft supplies to the 8th-grade girls full of craft supplies to make their own awkward unicorn. They were a big hit and the girls all had lots of fun making their own awkward unicorns with clearance Easter supplies. Princess provided the, and I quote, “derpy unicorn” illustrations.

We end each night with the 8th-grade girls with a co-op drawing game. One person names items and the others will draw it, and at the end of the round everyone shares what they drew.

Before I was laid low by the migraine and the weather system, I was working at updating old posts, and this particular (top middle) picture is my new booklist for a turtle book list.

Finally, we played Code Names (we picked it up from our local game store, Rogue’s Gallery as well as a few other things to support them while they’re closed because of the quarantine, they’re delivering orders to homes near the store) together for our no-tech night. We originally were going to read through Act 1 of the Tempest, but my printer hated me, so we scrapped that. Of course, once we’d played for an hour or so, Jeff told me he’d solved the printer problem, but at that point, it was kind of hard to switch plans. Which reminds me, I do need to go in and highlight the parts.

April Week 4

Honestly, I don’t super remember this week. I was struck by one of the absolute worst migraines last Wednesday, and it took me several days to recover, and then I found a new book series, the Mercy Thompson books by Patricia Briggs (I’ve linked to the first book in the series). I finished the twelfth book yesterday after lunch. The kids have been teasing me mercilessly at my relentless reading goaded on by Jeff, who is having a blast teasing me. I have ignored them and finished the series, and now I’m reading the short stories collection. There’s a companion series, but I only bought the first one in that series in case I don’t like it as much, and as she got later in the series she was a little more willing to stray from the PG-13 content, and occasionally have some R rated content.

I like my books at the PG-13 or lower, which is why I tend to read YA, since adult fantasy all too often feel the need to show they’re adult by throwing in lots of sex or graphic violence, neither of which do I enjoy (hence why I never read or watched Game of Thrones).

But, back to what happened in our house this week. Having older kids is quite amusing. I texted my daughter a picture of the full trash can she was supposed to take out and forgot, she replied saying she’d take care of it. Then there’s my son who stacked my empty Dr Pepper cans that I’d missed putting in the recycling, that was my bad, but it was a funny response.

We’ve continued playing Code Names a lot because it’s such a nice quick game. Princess was even willing to play a few rounds, which let me get some pictures of people playing.

I’ve been toying and slowly working at creating enough ideas (with pictures) so that a church could have enough activities for two full hours of Sunday School from preschool through elementary age, maybe even middle school depending on how they run it. That top right picture is the take-home bag. I’ve had the supplies for the bag for months, but I’ve been putting off taking the pictures, even though I knew it would take all of 10 minutes.

Yes, it was that ridiculous. Now to get the next ridiculously fast job done. I don’t know why I am the way I am.

We finished off our history review, and the kids took their final Monday. Tomorrow, or today if you’re reading this on May 1, I’m going to have them correct it. None of them took their studying seriously, so they get to retake the test.

Middle right picture is my notebook. I’m working on revising a book I wrote, and a random bug decided to check out what I was doing, so I took a picture because he amused me.

And finally I continue to text random memes that amuse me to my family. This time a hilarious meme of a conversation between a husband and wife.

This finishes off April. I’m glad it’s done, and we’re heading into May. Today Texas is starting it’s soft open, which as long as people obey the rules of the soft open is a good idea, but the worry is they may be so excited by the opening of stores they won’t hold back and we’ll have this huge crush of people.

We’ll see. I’m looking forward to the attempt, and hope it goes well.

 

And, I would normally put in our monthly review for the year, but lockdown has me distracted

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