What's Been Going On: Monday, 14 February - Wednesday, 16 February, 2022

 Good Thursday morning, friends!

Are you digging out from snow? We’re supposed to get hit later on today with a bunch of it, or maybe just a little, so I guess we’ll see what that looks like. 

It’s been a quiet, homeschool-filled week this week. I have to say, despite the extra challenges thrown in our path by having to make this immediate switch to homeschool, I’m not hating having my kiddo home full-time. It’s lovely to wake up a little later than normal (sometimes with my daughter having crawled in bed with us at some point in the night!) and then spend a good portion of the day snuggled with my little girl, reading, helping her write and do math, and helping her learn. I love watching her mind work to come up with the answers to the many, many questions I pose to her all day long. Homeschooling her wasn’t ever on my menu (mostly because A., I know she learns *best* from people who aren’t me, and B. she is one stubborn little kid! We may still be in a honeymoon period, but…fingers crossed!) but so far, it’s not as tough as I feared .

Here's what I’ve been up to so far this week!

 

Monday, 14 February, 2022

Valentine’s Day! My husband left chocolates by my computer. :)

After breakfast and coffee, I edited and posted my Monday post. I got dressed, tidied the living room, and then it was time to get started on math. My daughter was really distracted this morning. She’s awesome at math when she focuses, but was really struggling on this day, adding when she should have been subtracting, forgetting to count things, etc. Some days are like that; fortunately, most days are better, and I’m hoping she’ll grow out of or better learn to manage this at some point.

We took a break so I could unload and refill the dishwasher, then did an English lesson (indefinite pronouns). We read about plants, part of a book about fire (both history AND science), and then did some work on map-reading skills.

After lunch, she worked on writing (this is one area where I’m hoping to help her improve; she needs a lot of direction still when writing, both in terms of spelling and content). We read and discussed two chapters in A History of US: Making Thirteen Colonies, then we did our thirty minutes of Read Harder/silent reading, and I finished American Literary Almanac, edited by Karen L. Rood. WOOHOO!!!! I didn’t really love this, so I’m happy to move on to something else. We finished the book on fire, and started reading another book about garbage (my daughter is really enjoying these books about garbage- they’re science, history, human behavior, problem solving, and creativity. We’ve come up with so many ideas for projects reading these books. It’s one of my favorite subjects as well, so that doesn’t hurt!).

I snapped the bag of marked-down green beans I’d bought a while back, took out the garbage, recycling, and compost, then hauled the cans to the curb, and then I cooked the green beans (I added some sesame oil as well). Probably the best batch of green beans I’ve ever cooked.

After dinner, I did my Duolingo, biked for 30 minutes, then showered. I went through my grandmother’s cross-stitch materials, which have been in my closet for a good long while, and found that, unfortunately, some of the items she had started, don’t have any patterns. Not sure what I’m going to do with those, but there are other usable items in there, so I have plenty to work on in the future!

I read my book (STILL reading Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott), and my husband and I watched one episode of Deadly Women before bed. I didn’t sleep well at all.

 

Tuesday, 15 February, 2022

After breakfast and coffee, I got dressed and filled and ran the dishwasher. We tidied the laundry room, and then we sat down for math, where my daughter did some work that set the foundation for multiplication and division, along with a page and a half of math problems. We read a book about the orchestra, one about the Statue of Liberty, and more of our book on garbage.

After lunch, I unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher. I had my daughter work on some writing; we read two chapters from her history book; and we worked for 30 minutes on my Read Harder project/her silent reading. This was the day I started reading A Room with a View by E.M. Forster (it’s part of a three-books-in-one set, so after I finish this, I’ll move on to the next book in it!). We read a Magic Schoolbus book about light to finish our day, and then I ran to Aldi to pick up a few groceries- we had plans for a field trip on Wednesday (which is my usual grocery shopping day), and we’re supposed to get snow on Thursday, so I didn’t want to be out and about, nor did I want to be without milk, which we were out of. (Okay, we wouldn’t be out; I have some powdered milk and some shelf-stable milk. But still.)

At home, I put the groceries away, then chopped an onion and sauteed it with some peppers, garlic and zucchini. I put the rice in the rice cooker, made a batch of guacamole, took out the compost, brought in the cans from the curb, and took out the recycling. And then I sat down to do an hour of volunteer work on the computer.

After dinner- homemade Chipotle-style bowls- I did my Duolingo, biked for 30 minutes, showered, and put dinner away. I put my daughter to bed, then read my book. My husband and I watched an episode of Deadly Women, and I slept much better this night!

 

Wednesday, 16 February, 2022

Field trip day! After breakfast and coffee, I got dressed, and then we- husband included- were in the car and off to Chicago to spend a few hours at the Field Museum!

So many cool exhibits there. Lots of preserved animals, with placards giving fascinating information about their habitat, behavior, and important features. Tons of exhibits that feature history, with examples of objects hand-constructed by people throughout time and examples of their housing. Dinosaurs galore! So much of what we saw went right along with many of the things my daughter has been learning about the past few weeks, so it was really amazing to be able to point those out to her and ask her questions about them and hear her answer correctly!

 

There were, unfortunately, a few people who had removed their masks (you had to be both masked and show proof of vaccination upon entry into the museum), but only like three of them, though there were a bunch more people with their noses hanging out (IT HAS BEEN TWO YEARS. How have they NOT figured out by now that their nose leads STRAIGHT DOWN TO THEIR LUNGS?!?!!?!?!?!????). We didn’t bother getting tickets for any of the special exhibits, since there was already so much to see, and this ended up working out just fine, since we walked through almost everything there and our feet hurt and we were tired (and my daughter was getting antsy and losing focus) by the time we decided we needed to eat, so then it was time to head home. What a fun trip!!! It was the first big thing we’ve done since the pandemic started, and it was nice- and exhausting!- to get out of the house for that long. (And I took a whooooooole lot more pictures, but this phone, which I got in October, seemed to have eaten them? I still haven’t quite figured this out. Even restarting didn’t help. Weird.)

At home, we ate, and then I snuggled up in my chair and fell asleep (told you it was exhausting!). I worked on this post, then baked the pizza I grabbed from Aldi the day before. We had dinner, I did my Duolingo, and I skipped biking because my feet hurt from all the walking! I showered and put my daughter to bed, then I read my book. My husband and I watched one episode of Deadly Women, and I slept terribly again, causing me to massively oversleep this morning. Ugh.

 

The local schools are closed today due to expected snowstorms later on, but we’re still getting some work done, despite our late start! I may or may not hit some grocery stores later on today, depending on what the weather looks like (right now, there’s nothing, and you bet local people will be complaining and laughing that the schools called off. Sigh).

What have you been up to so far this week? Any fun adventures?