My Dad (Kids' Pa Pa) as a Guest Lecturer in Finance

Since both Collin & Carson requested to learn more about Finances, and Collin specifically the Stock Market, I asked my Dad (a former professional Financial Planner) to be a guest lecturer for his grandkids. As I expected, he was quite excited for the opportunity, and took the task seriously to prepare a talk. We were able to schedule a Zoom lecture on Thursday, Apr 9th as their last class before the 4-day Easter Weekend.  One of the challenges he expressed in advance was constructing a lesson that was going to be informative enough for our high school student, while not loosing our 2nd grader. I told him it was mostly for our older boys anyway and Marin would learn what he could.

Dad shared a great example to explain market values and percentages:

He showed 3 Dollar bills. Dad said between Feb 19th & March 23rd (the low and highs of the recent market) the market lost 33% percent or a third of it's value. But in order to get back to the original high he asked how much it would need to come back...50%.  Simple math?

$3, loose $1. Now you only have $2 and half of that ($1) is needed to get back to $3. Great example in simple terms! 

Carson from the kitchen table	Collin from his room
Marin raises his hand to ask a question & show Taco asleep	So maybe the lecture put the cat asleep, but the rest of the boys stayed awake and learned something!

Each of them on their own Ipads, while Mike was on a Zoom meeting himself, made for a noisy household.  Marin may have been more interested in Taco falling asleep than the content of the lecture, but I think the other two benefited greatly and I love that they've been able to talk to their grandparents virtually through all this.

Here is an example of an invaluable and timely lesson my kids likely would not have learned had they been in regular school. Am I sad they're not seeing their friends? Of Course! And do I still think Public school is good for them? YES, but we are going to make the most of our situation, and I hope they can learn as much as possible. Not just the schoolwork their teachers assign, but life lessons and enrichment they won't get in a traditional classroom. I'm SUPER thankful to have my dad be a guest lecturer and eager to teach!

If you're home teaching your kids, I encourage you to think outside the box, ask your kids what they would LIKE to learn, and see who in your circle would be good and willing to teach... You don’t have to do this all alone!

Blessings of a Quarantine

Never would I have imagined our entire society would shut down and all our activities would stop! The things I thought I didn't want to live without I am happy missing, and looking for the silver lining. On this 14th day of Quarantine, I wanted to share my Top 10 list of blessings for which I'm most thankful:

1. Family Time and meals together - Since when do we eat EVERY lunch and EVERY dinner together as a family of five? And having home cooked dinners not rushed between so many activities...NEVER! I love that I now have time to prepare meals WHEN we want to eat them rather than planning ahead to have something for us all to eat when we finish our 1-3 activities of the night, and typically eating @ 8:00 or after so we can all eat together. For the last year+ the boys have had one or more activities EVERY night, including Sunday. This doesn't work well for family dinners when we are both rushing around driving them. Sure it's a lot of dishes (oh, the dishes), but I am really appreciating this slower pace of life, and being able to enjoy each others' company, even if we have been around each other all day and I know what they've done in school :-)

2. Being involved in their schooling - Yes, this is a lot of work to stay ahead of them and plan what I want them to learn, but I love that they're being challenged in ways like never before! Being able to have Spanish class each day and typing. Choosing what we learn for Science and Social Studies. Involving prayer and religious education in our school day. While it does certainly involve a lot of my time, I am thankful for being able to be actively involved in teaching and guiding them. 

3. Boys learning more life skills - From time management and organization, cooking, sewing, changing a bike tire or even learning how to clean toilets, I know this time spent in "At Home Learning" will be invaluable for the boys long term! I struggled in college a bit coming from a very structured school day and many activities to a unstructured college life with much more time to complete harder tasks. I pray this time the boys are able to independently decide what to work on next and how to prioritize their tasks will serve them well in college and beyond!

4. Having Mike around more - Sure, he's on calls/Zoom meetings much of the time...in the dining room... and it's sometimes hard for us all to be quiet, and for instrument practice to be properly timed, but I love that he's not spending so much time in the car and that I can hear more about his day-to-day work.

5. Outdoor Free time - Since we are usually rushing from activity to activity, it is rare the boys have time to play on their own, and play outside of organized sports.  This is the life we have fallen into, or chosen by default or to "keep up", but will we return to all of it, or will we be more selective on our activities, going back to setting strict limits on # of sports per kid per season? Time will tell, but in the mean time I LOVE seeing families on bike rides, couples walking the neighborhood and more people on the bike trail & white rock lake than ever before (as long as their social distancing).

6. Creativity/Independent Learning - How I love to see the creativity that occurs when we have time to think, write, draw and music! Each day I give the boys a writing prompt and they spend 10-20 minutes free writing. I take that time to write too, which I almost never take time to do! And, it's been really great to see what the kids are most interested in when they have the option of choosing what to learn and spend their time doing (as long as they're not allowed to play video games or Youtube).

7. Non-rushed Morning time - Not having to wake the boys up early to rush out the door to school, I have a good few hours each morning for yoga, quiet time, reflection/planning, and Bible Study. It's so nice to be able to think, and be intentional in setting my day. Having almost everything slow to a halt has allowed me to focus on what's most important and beter live a prioritized life.

8. Learning new Technology and ways of life - So many new apps and resources I now know compared to a month ago! Some intergenerational, like watching my parents talk to their grandkids on Marco Polo, or teaching them a class via Zoom. Connecting Virtually with friends from all over  - being intentional on with whom we intereact. It's not just who we happen to run into during our daily lives (oh, but  I do miss that!), but on purpose setting up a Houseparty HH with friends no matter the distance. Social Media is also a connection to others I'm particularly thankful for during this time.  Even, Gardening which I've not done for years! Who knows what supply chains will look like for vegetables, but I know I'm not going to the grocery store as often, so it's nice to have fresh herbs to pick from the garden since I can't just easily pick them up at the store.

9. Keeping the Sabbath - For once we can actually get all our "work" done on the previous days and not have a million places to go on Sundays (or anywhere for that matter)! If it weren't for COVID we would have baseball games, soccer and tennis matches on Sunday in addition to serving at church and teaching/attending Religious Education on Sunday nights (at dinner time). I love that we have Sunday dinners and days together! While it's odd not to get dressed up for church and see friends and receive the Eucharist, there are some good things about being able to watch a church service together in your living room while we aren't able to do the other.

10. Relying on Faith - What else can we do? So much is out of our control, and we have been reminded of this. God is Omniscient and Soverign and He has promised that He works all for good for those who love Him. How? I don't always know, but I am seeing blessings in this time I would have never imagined.    

Certainly there are things I miss. Playing on my tennis team (we were in 1st place this season), watching my kids' ball games, professional sports (we missed the last several of our Stars games in the suite, and an awesome Cardinals/Rangers game in the new Globe Life Field), concerts, gathering with friends, Bible Study in person, Travel and normalcy.

But I wonder after all this is over, will our view of normalcy be forever changed? As a family and culture... we been reminded what's most important (for me - family time, faith, enjoying life and the outdoors, and connections with close friends) by being forced to slow down. I wonder what aspects of our culture will be forever changed when we are able to come out of quarantine?

There's Flexibility in the Schedule!!

I'm glad I started out with a fairly specific/strict schedule and expectations, as it's always easier to loosen than it is to tighten. But, the reality is this is HOMESCHOOL, and the kids' friends are doing less less than we are during "At Home Learning" (as they continually remind me, thinking they're the only one with "homeschool"), so I shouldn't be so super strict!  One of my biggest goals and objectives with all this is that they learn time- and self-management, expand their CREATIVITY, and get to explore their own interests, while learning at the same time!

Because shouldn't this really be what education is about? I understand within the confines of Public school, and given the # of kids who attend this isn't feasible. But...how I wish it could be more! 

Here's an example of how flexibility played out today:

Tuesdays is the day I've attended Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) for the last several years. Luckily our BSF has migrated to "virtual" meetings via zoom, and we still have them on Tuesday mornings @ 9:30. Unfortunately, this is not the most convenient time for our school schedule, as I'm usually meeting with the boys around that time to review the schedule of the day, following our Bible & Breakfast video  and prayer. But, this is important to me, so I let them know that I'll be unavailable to help for 40 min each Tuesday from 9:30-10:15.

• Initially I planned on us starting school by 9, but my teenager and tween aren't usually awake, and it's hard to wake them up when I want to make sure they're getting enough sleep. So our youngest (age 8) is almost always the first one awake. He actually thinks it's pretty cool to start school before his brothers so he can finish before them (probably because he has first dibs on a video game). 

Today (Tuesday), I made sure my eight-year-old had several tasks to work on during my online Bible study so that he would be self-sufficient (hopefully). He can easily do Reading and Math on his own, so he worked on both of those during this time since these are the first two scheduled subjects, and he is my "RULE FOLLOWER". I also put him in charge of telling his brother to get started on his work when he woke, which he thought was pretty cool. Math is supposed to be the first subject of the day, followed by reading, but this week I'm allowing my twelve-year-old to have more freedom (like his older brother) for planning his own day and week as long as he is getting his tasks complete.  

When I finished Bible Study I came inside to see both of them working diligently. Carson was watching "Phantom of the Opera" on his iPad, which was apparently an assignment for music.  I LOVE that this flexibility shows me their true interests in what they want to do, and pick to do when given a choice. Marin wants Science, specifically learning about animals, and dreads Social Studies. Carson is attracted to anything related to music music. Last week he asked me if he could use the entire day for Band (a subject he isn't even planning to continue in junior high), and came up with a fabulous project.

Since I love music, it warms my heart to see he does too! I love the music of Phantom of the Opera, but it's been many years since I had watched it, and I did not remember the story. So I brought out my Andrew Lloyd Weber Anthology and Carson & I sang along to the songs. Then I asked him to tell me the entire story which he did. He would get so excited when telling me that he was stuttering, so I asked him to use his fluency strategies, and counted this time for speech practice also. 

Carson then moved on to illustrating his Publishing company book of poems that is due this week. We didn't get to a lot of Science or Math today, but that's OK. I'm learning to be flexible, and that it's perfectly fine to do more of one subject on one day, as long as we have balance in the week. And most of all, I love watching my kids work on what interests them most, so FLEXIBILITY in the schedule is a gift I can provide during this crazy time for all!

Week of April 6-April 10:

Below is our plan for this week. (this post is mostly for me to keep me on track and put everything in one place so I don't forget or let my ADD brain lead me to a rabbit hole)


Science:
Pharmaceutical Lab & how vaccines or medications are made (Tour of a pharmaceutical lab)

2nd grade- STEMscopes Activities

• Rocks/Geology
• Why do your biceps bulge?

6th grade- Task 2:Chemical Reactions

Quizlet: Investigating Chemicals 

Create a narrative using the vocabulary found in the Quizlet (Possible formats: Google Doc, Pages, Word, iMovie)

Social Studies: Continue learning about 2020Census
     Click here

• The Great Wall of China
• Learned about Turkey on Pebble Go Biographies 
• Choose various people to learn about. Pick a task below and use your digital choice to show what you know. Use Keynote, Pages, Clips, or another app to show your learning. 

• Write a script for a podcast for two people you learned about:
•   What would they say to each other? What would they discuss? Why would these be their topics?

Music: - Chrome Music Lab. (Marin's favorite was Spectogram)

• Watched John Williams music
• Carson watched Phantom of the Opera

Art: 

• Drawing with Harptoons Publishing

PE: 

• This or That? from gym teacher Heidi Rodrigues
• Asst gym teacher Taylor Gooch's challenge
• Soccer via Dribble up & FC Dallas training videos 3x/wk
• Tennis
• Shooting hoops with brothers out front

Our Virtual Field Trips:
 4/6 How Science Powers Us - Tour of a pharmaceutical lab

4/7 Children’s Museum of Indianapolis (Museum at Home videos)

* Want to do the Robot video later

4/8 The Louvre in France - The Apollo Gallery

4/9 Discover Hawaii (takes a bit to load so please be patient)

4/10 Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Carson (6th grade):

Extend Learning:
https://sites.google.com/g.risd.org/extend-your-learning-at-home/home

First Week of "At Home Learning"

Friday, April 3rd
It's hard to believe this is only the first full week of "At Home Learning"! It seems like we have been doing this for much longer, and the boys have already learned so much! Each day in addition to the regular subjects of Math, Science, Language Arts and Social Studies, they have a daily Spanish Class, Art, Music, Writing Prompts, PE, Virtual Field Trips, Enrichment and Technology, and of course recess and lunch. It's a lot to fit into school day and I am considering rotating subjects where we alternate between Science and Social Studies so they don't have every class each day. It seems we start off sticking to the schedule more closely earlier in the week and we have more flexibility later in the week Last Friday was Fun Friday, and I expect today to be one as well. Yesterday (Thurs) was the day I asked the kids to show me and review the assignments for their school teacher, and our focus was on what the school had assigned, as opposed to M-W when they are learning content from me.

I'm trying to take pictures each day of school, as I hope we will be able to look back on this time fondly!

Here are few highlights of this week:
- Culinary Arts: Marin made cinnamon sugar donuts to eat on Sunday :-)

- Home Economics: Marin learned to sew yesterday, as he talked about how he wished he had a hacky sack, and I suggested he learn to make one.

- Band: Carson was asked in band to learn a new song on his Saxophone.  He picked a song for saxophone, taught himself the song, learned how to transpose and what key he needed an accompaniment for piano, found music in the key of F, taught himself that song on piano, filmed himself playing both instruments, then used iMovie to somehow overlay the 2 tracks. I have no idea how this video editing happens- amazing!

- Art: Marin has been doing a Facebook Live Art class nearly every day with Harptoons Publishing, an author who came to his school last year. Classes are Live @ 1pm CST daily on FB or IG: https://www.facebook.com/harptoons/  Their Art teacher from school has also been posting videos and good assignments Carson has been enjoying.


 - Science: I've learned Science is one of Marin's favorite subjects! Especially anything dealing with animals or rocks! If it were up to him, we would do Science every day or twice a day instead of Social Studies. One of the small tasks I had for him this week was to identify nuts in their shells, and research those he didn't know on his iPad. His favorite part- being able to crack and eat them, of course!

 - Virtual Field trips: Some favorites were Georgia Aquarium and Cincinnati Zoo, Yellowstone National Park & even Mars. How else could you actually visit Mars in school?

Here are the links to Virtual Field trips suggested for this week:

3/30: Guggenheim Museum, New York

3/31: Live Webcams from the Georgia Aquarium

4/1: Mars (Google) Mars (NASA)

4/2:Yellowstone National Park - visit several locations in the park.

4/3:Hubble Control Center - Lobby Hubble Control Center- Operations Room (NASA)

For a calendar of Virtual Links for April and May click here.

The kids have been having and enjoying Zoom classes with their teachers, daily videos from our principal, with daily challenges, themed dress up days and many things the teachers are doing to make this fun and for kids to have a connection with their classmates.

Below is the daily schedule we try to mostly follow, and following is a description of some of the sections:

@ Home Learning Schedule:
Wakeup ☀️ Get dressed
Breakfast 🍳 Brush teeth
9:30 David's Bible video, prayer, pledges (USA, Texas & school)
9:40-9:55 Schedule Review: Check Google Classrooms and write assignements in planner. Update daily schedule
10:00-10:25 Math ➕
10:30-10:55 Science 🔬
11:00-11:15 Writing Prompt  📝
11:15 Snack 🍎 & Reading 
12:00 PE/Exercise/Outdoor Time
12:30 Lunch 🥪
1:00-1:25  Art 🎨
1:30-1:55 Enrichment (Virtual Field Trip, then Religious Education, Home Ec, other topics of interest)
2:00-2:25 Social Studies / Humanities
2:30-2:55 Foreign Language (Spanish)
3:00 Technology Classes  💻 (i.e., Typing, learn a new app, coding, etc)
3:30 Music - Practice instruments 🎵
4:00  "Dismissal"
Snack 🍎 Go Outside 🌳
4:30 Free time - 

Each morning we begin the day with a short "Breakfast & the Bible" video by our Beach Club Bible Teacher and Neighbor Mr. David Huey that he shares via our Panther Beach Club Facebook Page (Thank you David!!), followed a prayer and standing to say the three pledges (US, Texas & our school..."I came to school to learn and I will learn, I will have a great day"). This really helps get our minds focused on school and gets the day off to a good start. This is the only time of the day I require Collin to be with us, though he eats lunch and dinner with us as well.

Next we review the schedule for the day and I ask for everyone to tell me their zoom classes and review assignments for their teachers that are due, which they need to write in their planners.

One of my favorite parts of the day is Writing, where I give them a "Writing Prompt" each day and all of us have 10 minutes to write, myself included. It's been great to hear what they're thinking, and it gives me 10 minutes of quiet to tune everything else out and type.

Spanish is also going pretty well. We usually do it on the back porch since the boys are pretty wound up by the end of the day, and Mike is often on a conference call. I wonder what the construction workers across the creek think when they hear us attempting to speak their language! So far we have learned numbers, colors, days of the week, months of the year and put these into practice asking and answering questions, such as: "Quantos anos tiene, Que es la fecha hoy? Que dia es hoy? y Como te llamas?"

The boys also like typing, and any technology. There have been a few days I've let them off early to do Minecraft for their technology class. Of course that is their most favorite part of the day, but they are coming around and getting into a groove with the rest the subjects too!