5.27.2020
3 Months Old
Lila's Blessing
Lila wore the dress my mom bought for me to be blessed in! Heidi was blessed in this dress as well, so we got a picture of all three of us together! And the little shoes she wore were my mom's baby blessing shoes that Heidi and I also wore to our baby blessings!
5.19.2020
HomeSchool
As of today, we are officially done with the school year! What a crazy year it has been! We never dreamed when we started last fall that the last day they would attend school in person would be March 13, and that after two months of homeschooling they'd end mid May! We have learned a lot of lessons on flexibility and rolling with it this year!
I do want to remember some of the ins and outs of this time though! Here's the highlights of what distance learning has been like for my boys:
Chase- This was a hard adjustment for him. He's so smart, the academics came easily and he doesn't mind learning from the computer. Actually, he's been doing online learning for a few years now and continuing to do math and language lessons online was an easy transition for him. The hard part was missing the social stuff, the fun extras, and his amazing teachers. He thrives being there, being part of the fun and all that. He was so sad to miss two really fun field trips they had planned for this spring (the planetarium and the aquarium). He was so sad to miss out on the end of year party their teachers had planned. And he just missed all his friends so so much.
We found a good solution for him though- Minecraft. Minecraft has gotten him through this! His school laptop comes with a license for Minecraft Education Edition, so he could play that which he loved. And then we figured out how him and Luca could join worlds, and zoom while they play together. So a new system was born- as long as he completed all his school work and chores and piano practicing by noon, he could get on at noon and play with Luca for an hour. That became the highlight of his day and he was so motivated that a lot of days he was done with all his school stuff by like 9:30 am! He's generally had two zoom calls a week with his class and one with the speech teacher. He loves those calls- they are pretty social most of the time, show and tell and stuff like that. It was just fun to see his classmates and teachers faces!
He's had a lot of fun with his assigned science stuff. He loves science anyway. I was pretty hands off and let him figure out his "maker stations" (experiments) on his own. There were a few we didn't do, due to lack of supplies available at home. But his creative side really shone through for those and I loved watching from the sidelines. He had to make a Rube-Goldberg machine (create a chain reaction using simple machines). He developed quite the machine that involved two benches at incline, starting off with firing a nerf gun at a car, which rolled and knocked into another car, which rolled down a bench and knocked over two big books, which knocked over a hammer which popped a balloon. It was super fun and cute and I loved watching him do it.
So while this time has been challenging for him, I'm really glad he rose to the challenge. He was very diligent about his school work and worked really hard to keep a positive attitude through it all!
Hudson:
Hudson took this whole distance learning thing in stride. He did complete his online stuff, as well as his worksheets pretty well, sometimes with extra prodding from me. He was still supposed to read every day, and my favorite were the days he chose to read to Lila! I'd prop her up on the boppy and a blanket and he'd sit by her and read his chapter books to her! He told me he didn't mind doing homeschool because he could finish in a few hours and it gave him more time to play.
Once we started quarantine I decided to start him in piano lessons, because why not? He wanted to learn. So I've been teaching him and he's done so well! He's about halfway through his beginning books and gets to start with the real piano teacher next week! He gets frustrated when a song is hard, but he's learning that with a little practice the hard songs become easy for him. He's learning to read notes well and I can tell his ear is developing too.
One thing about Hudson, he is never bored. There were so many resources going around when this thing started about all these extra activities to do with kids. I haven't needed them at all! He can just play and imagine all day long- inside or outside! He writes little stories, creates with legos, builds forts, plays in the dirt. He's just happy to have so much time to explore and pretend (and play his one hour of minecraft daily). He has missed his friends, but has gotten to do a few zoom calls with Richie and Hyrum, which has helped.
He's also been so sweet with Davis during this time! Both the boys have actually! They will take Davis outside and watch him and play with him while I'm stuck inside with Lila or cooking or whatever. Davis has loved having them home so much and I think he'll really miss them when they go back to school in the fall (if they go back? That is still to be determined)
As a mom, my thoughts on this distance learning thing are mixed. I've loved having my kids home more. But it's also been a lot more work. If this had hit at a different time of life for me (ie- not a few weeks after having a fourth baby) I think I would have been more hands on with their learning and tried to incorporate more of my own teaching in. But since I'm stretched pretty thin right now we settled for less and the kids still did great. It definitely didn't make me want to homeschool though! I'm in the camp that is hoping the kids can go back, full-time, in the fall.
Gosh this has been a crazy time of life! I'm thankful for these sweet boys and their hard work, patience, diligence and flexibility during a crazy time in our lives and in the world. I think they learned a lot of good life lessons, have bonded more with their brothers, and generally had a positive experience. What a way to end 3rd and 1st grade!
I do want to remember some of the ins and outs of this time though! Here's the highlights of what distance learning has been like for my boys:
Chase- This was a hard adjustment for him. He's so smart, the academics came easily and he doesn't mind learning from the computer. Actually, he's been doing online learning for a few years now and continuing to do math and language lessons online was an easy transition for him. The hard part was missing the social stuff, the fun extras, and his amazing teachers. He thrives being there, being part of the fun and all that. He was so sad to miss two really fun field trips they had planned for this spring (the planetarium and the aquarium). He was so sad to miss out on the end of year party their teachers had planned. And he just missed all his friends so so much.
We found a good solution for him though- Minecraft. Minecraft has gotten him through this! His school laptop comes with a license for Minecraft Education Edition, so he could play that which he loved. And then we figured out how him and Luca could join worlds, and zoom while they play together. So a new system was born- as long as he completed all his school work and chores and piano practicing by noon, he could get on at noon and play with Luca for an hour. That became the highlight of his day and he was so motivated that a lot of days he was done with all his school stuff by like 9:30 am! He's generally had two zoom calls a week with his class and one with the speech teacher. He loves those calls- they are pretty social most of the time, show and tell and stuff like that. It was just fun to see his classmates and teachers faces!
He's had a lot of fun with his assigned science stuff. He loves science anyway. I was pretty hands off and let him figure out his "maker stations" (experiments) on his own. There were a few we didn't do, due to lack of supplies available at home. But his creative side really shone through for those and I loved watching from the sidelines. He had to make a Rube-Goldberg machine (create a chain reaction using simple machines). He developed quite the machine that involved two benches at incline, starting off with firing a nerf gun at a car, which rolled and knocked into another car, which rolled down a bench and knocked over two big books, which knocked over a hammer which popped a balloon. It was super fun and cute and I loved watching him do it.
So while this time has been challenging for him, I'm really glad he rose to the challenge. He was very diligent about his school work and worked really hard to keep a positive attitude through it all!
Hudson:
Hudson took this whole distance learning thing in stride. He did complete his online stuff, as well as his worksheets pretty well, sometimes with extra prodding from me. He was still supposed to read every day, and my favorite were the days he chose to read to Lila! I'd prop her up on the boppy and a blanket and he'd sit by her and read his chapter books to her! He told me he didn't mind doing homeschool because he could finish in a few hours and it gave him more time to play.
Once we started quarantine I decided to start him in piano lessons, because why not? He wanted to learn. So I've been teaching him and he's done so well! He's about halfway through his beginning books and gets to start with the real piano teacher next week! He gets frustrated when a song is hard, but he's learning that with a little practice the hard songs become easy for him. He's learning to read notes well and I can tell his ear is developing too.
One thing about Hudson, he is never bored. There were so many resources going around when this thing started about all these extra activities to do with kids. I haven't needed them at all! He can just play and imagine all day long- inside or outside! He writes little stories, creates with legos, builds forts, plays in the dirt. He's just happy to have so much time to explore and pretend (and play his one hour of minecraft daily). He has missed his friends, but has gotten to do a few zoom calls with Richie and Hyrum, which has helped.
He's also been so sweet with Davis during this time! Both the boys have actually! They will take Davis outside and watch him and play with him while I'm stuck inside with Lila or cooking or whatever. Davis has loved having them home so much and I think he'll really miss them when they go back to school in the fall (if they go back? That is still to be determined)
As a mom, my thoughts on this distance learning thing are mixed. I've loved having my kids home more. But it's also been a lot more work. If this had hit at a different time of life for me (ie- not a few weeks after having a fourth baby) I think I would have been more hands on with their learning and tried to incorporate more of my own teaching in. But since I'm stretched pretty thin right now we settled for less and the kids still did great. It definitely didn't make me want to homeschool though! I'm in the camp that is hoping the kids can go back, full-time, in the fall.
(Their last day of school- May 15th, 2020- it was supposed to be May 29)
Gosh this has been a crazy time of life! I'm thankful for these sweet boys and their hard work, patience, diligence and flexibility during a crazy time in our lives and in the world. I think they learned a lot of good life lessons, have bonded more with their brothers, and generally had a positive experience. What a way to end 3rd and 1st grade!
5.06.2020
Porch Pictures
On a random Thursday by sweet friend Katelyn texted me and said, "I need you to be outside your house ready for family pictures tomorrow morning at 10." That was it! She had arranged for a photographer to come do pictures of their family on their front porch (a thing people are doing right now with Coronavirus and the need for social distancing/also to commemorate this time we are all at home all the time). She had the photographer do their family and then sent her across the street to do ours!
So with very little stress I put the kids in clothing that was somewhat presentable and curled my hair and we went out on our front porch for just a few minutes and she took the most darling picture! Ben was even in the middle of a meeting via Zoom, and he just stepped outside so we could do this really quickly!
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