Homeschooling Week 4

This was, by far, the hardest week during quarantine. There was fighting, goofing off, a few tears, taking forever to get their work done. It was rough on them and me. We got through it though! We did an lot of fun learning activities, talked with friends via Zoom A LOT, played in the snow (yes, I said snow!), and ended the week running through the yard barefoot under a sunny sky. Iowa weather is weird like that.

Here are the highlights (and low-lights) from our week:

We began and finished our week with the art kit and volcano. We had to let them dry most of the week, finally got them painted on Friday, so we'll start out next week by using the chalk and experimenting with the volcano.




They used a baby bottle to measure out 5 oz. because that's the first thing they thought of to measure ounces! Only in this house.

Social studies is still their favorite. We added in some of our school district material to our learning plus some Geography worksheets I pulled out of a travel workbook I bought the minis that never got used. It's for grades 3 - 6, but the youngest mini has been working out of it too. It's been great to use for teaching them longitude and latitude and finding locations of the globe. They've also been using Purpose Games for their geography quizes. It's one of our favorite things to play now.

The middle mini was inspired to do his own science experiments on Tuesday. It ended with them eating the ice.

We had some fun art kits to use up! These turned out really neat. 

I love their journals. The middle one included a poem on one of the day's journals. We haven't covered poems yet in language arts, but I may start next week.

A spare moment and they chose to play "classroom" also called "school." The teacher is loosly modeled off of me and well, she's kind of bossy.

Still playing with their art project. This time Lego's were added to it.

My calendar was full of reminders for Zoom class with friends, Skyp's with family, and Team Meetings with school classes. They LOVE being able to keep in touch with everyone this way!

Yoga before bed. This has become almost a nightly occurrence.

Beginning of the week margaritas. As I said, this week was tough. I was not in the mood to cook. We ordered take out more than necessary, but it was so worth it. Plus, as an excuse, it helped local businesses.

Spanish is also a favorite for them. 

First snowfall of the week. Luckily it didn't stick around because I am not a fan!

More art class. The kids had to choose something that would make a flower on their papers. I loved their creativity with this.

Mid-week meltdown with a heating pad, headache, and complaints. On the bright side, my mother-in-law made us all masks.

The younger two had a Spanish test conducted by the oldest. It actually went smoothly and they did great on it! Now their challenge for next week is to use at least once sentence a day in Spanish.

Art and Music classes together. The kids were to choose their four (although they chose more than four) favorite songs and created album covers based on their songs. While they drew we listened to everyone's favorite songs. Fun morning minus that the minis get their taste in music from me, so we had many of the same songs.

I call this my organized mess that has taken over the train table. Some day the train table will be used as it's intended.

Drum practice in the evening. The kids are enjoying exploring all of the Who To videos that YouTube has to offer.


The biggest thing I've noticed over the last six weeks is the minis dependency on each other. They've become quite close and rarely do anything on their own the past couple of weeks. Including sleeping together. I'm sure it will all change, but it's kind of sweet to watch them get along.

Another round of Spanish followed by playing in the snow. By the afternoon this kid was running barefoot through the yard.

Friday's are for fun! We had a busy week fitting all of the school work in, so we had an easy Friday. They created Pokemon figures and battles with the Plus Pluses. There's no shortage of creativity in our house!

We closed out our week with a slumber party in the new study room. 

We have one last week before it's full online schooling for the minis, although I will still work in social studies, science, music, and art because we've been having a blast with those. There's been so many changes in the last few weeks that I'm hoping to keep this upcoming week easy and short so we can spend plenty of time outside in the sunshine!