Day 15 - Mon Sept 21, 2020

Hap Magee time! While we were there, we did a little PE and practiced box, err stump, jumps. I challenged Mila to 10 and she did 21!! And Jonah made it to 10 too!

---

Mila has started working on building a bridge from a kit, but was having a lot of trouble. Turned into a good opportunity to practice our breathing techniques (after 20 min of screaming “BREATHING. IS. STUPID.”)(surprise: it helped). We worked together to finish the Golden Gate Bridge

---

We ended up doing afternoon school again. I introduced a new, fourth breathing technique: infinity breaths, that everyone seemed to enjoy. I drew infinity shapes on paper and they traced their fingers along as they inhaled and exhaled. The papers turned into infinity hats, because, why not

---

We did math workbooks and some ELA time (Jonah letter and word tracing while Mila worked on a creative writing workbook). Here is one of Milas writing prompts and responses 😍

---

We finished with a really good piano/reading practice session

Weekend Fun! Cousins Sleepover - Sep 19-20

Rosie & Toren joined us for 24 hours of fun!

---

On Sunday afternoon, Jules and Jonah built this sweet pinball machine

I went to Bonita to do a final pickup and say adios

Day 14 - Fri Sept 18, 2020

Milas missing teeth! And Jonah … grew two more??!?

---

We went to an awesome park with a walking path and a small lake complete with geese. Mila did a Planet Earth narration — watch out Sir David Attenborough! — and they zoomed around on scooters, weaving in and out of goose poop land mines

---

School time! We did another mindfulness session: the kids selected a breathing technique we learned during the week and then we talked about fixed vs growth mindsets.

Then we warmed up our bodies by learning the proper technique for squats.

---

Next we did some ELA time. Jonah did letter tracing while Mila wrote about something she likes in outer space

---

At the kids request, we did a science project about surface tension. You pour water on a plate, shake on pepper, dip your finger in soap, and then drip or touch the soap to the water. The soap breaks the surface tension, water molecules run away in all directions, and the pepper gets pulled along.

---

We ended the week with a bike ride to Yogurt Shack and we stopped by Gammy and Papas house on the way home. Hurray East bay!

Day 13 - Thr Sept 17, 2020

Sunshine!! Blue sky!! We went to Hap Magee — kids rode bikes and I walked with Bailey. Fetch!

Then I had to take the Jetta to the dealership for service, so we did afternoon school. Mila came up with an awesome welcome song for afternoon school (video tomorrow hopefully): “Happy Afternoon, it’s time to go to school, school is fun, learnings fun, happy afternoon!”

I led the kids through a five minute yoga flow, which went shockingly well. Then we started our mindfulness session with a new breathing technique: rainbow breaths. Jonah was feeling pretty pretty pretty silly and kept making everyone laugh by crossing his eyes

So fun! Ha… a massive meltdown followed for everyone, including me. We re-grouped with lunch and then started over.

We practiced rainbow breaths (breath in/out red, breath in/out orange … and so on) and made “My Mindfulness Rainbow” art. Mila put her own spin on it and labeled each color with an emotion.

So peaceful, right? Math time. I wrote out problems for each kid. Mila blew through hers and do Khan math while Jonah and I worked through number bonds. We used pens and crayons to understand how 2 parts make a whole and we can use a number bond to represent that.

Science time! We did a review of Earth’s layers and talked and read about tectonic plates. It was a very moving session… (get it)

Piano time! Both kids did great today. While mila practices, Jonah and I read. Today he read all of Pancakes Pancakes which is the most complex and longest reading he’s done in one sitting

Then Mila rode the Peloton while Jonah and I played frisbee. Then Jonah ran around the house like a crazy person while Mila and I played frisbee. Then we played kids vs dad soccer. It was tied 4-4 when I put on the juke, scored the winning goal, and laughed while the kids tumbled into each other and (thankfully) laughed hysterically on the ground in the goal

They masked up and scooted around the cul de sac with the neighbor kids while I hung more frames and ordered pizza for dinner. After the kids were asleep and Julia was back working, I got in a 30 min yoga.

hey, typing this out, you’d never know there were like 8 meltdowns by children and me today!

Day 12 - Wed Sept 16, 2020

🎶Play me a song, little piano kids 🎶 today is piano lessons for both kids. Mila showed off a lot of perseverance today by nailing Feel it Still after a huge meltdown at her last lesson complete with demands to quit. Here is a clip of a few measures of Feel it Still by memory and then Jonah playing the ball game with Ron

I had to get some pictures frames off the floor before the electrician came, so I hung this collage while the kids LEGO’d. Very excited to have this main room set

The day got away from us after that with another sub-contractor at the house, so we decided to skip school. The kids spent the afternoon swimming with Rosie and Toren at Grandma and Grandpas while I hung more frames.

Most importantly, Mila lost another tooth!! It was already loose, but was then bonked by Jonah after a hot tub collision. Amidst much blood and hysteria, Mila yanked it out herself!!

She asked the tooth fairy for $1 (which she gave to Jonah for helping her get her tooth out) and asked for any additional money to be donated to the NAACP. She also came up with an idea to start a club for kids to write letters to police departments and government urging them to treat black people better. She never ceases to amaze.

Day 11 - Tues Sept 15, 2020

After our welcome song, we did jumping routines (took the idea from high school basketball). Wish I had a video of the last few rounds where Mila and Jonah chose the types of jumps we would do.

Then we did another mindfulness activity. This time, my explanation it stuck! I know this because at dinner when I asked jonah said “it’s a way to help yourself when you’re mad”. We’ll keep working on that, but great start. Today our activity was “hot chocolate breaths”. We got mugs (also practice making mugs with our hands) and then “breath in the hot cocoa for 4 seconds, blow the steam away for 4 seconds”. Here again is Mila demonstrating. The kids were very excited to show Jules both mindfulness techniques we’ve learned so far — made me happy

Today we learned about pronouns with another whiteboard session and then the kids did their ELA workbook sections on pronouns. Then we took a break for trash can basketball, using the leftover packing paper we have. This was fun. Good water pong practice

Then the kids did Khan Math while I arranged a wall photo collage. We did piano and then they went to Gammy’s house to play while I did a grocery run

Day 10 - Mon Sept 14, 2020

We’re not really unpacked, but it’s time to get back to school!

After our morning song, I introduced mindfulness and gave a definition that did not sink in at all (judging by responses to my question “what is mindfulness” on Tuesday). Our first activity was “square breathing”. We chose a “square” on the floor (using the nail lines and board edges) and traced our fingers around the square, going slowly counting to 4 for each inhale and exhale. About 1.5 hours later, mid-meltdown, Jonah went into the hallway and attempted square breathing 😀 Here is Mila practicing

Math time. We did a little white board session on some strategies to add or subtract

The kids did 20 min of math workbooks and then took a snack break, where I introduced this cool place value flip chart and we did some problems.  Everyone talked with food in their mouths 😳 Jonah really liked it and took it to Jules to do problems before bed.

Then we did handwriting practice in our workbooks followed by creative writing time. The prompt was “my favorite activity or moment from our Lake Tahoe vacation”. Here is Mila (2 images) followed by Jonah

(my favorite activity in Lake Tahoe was on a boat in the front turning the light on the boat”

---

We stopped for lunch and then did piano practice. Then I rode the Peloton … and then Mila rode the Peloton for the 3rd time!

---

At night I had to drop off medicine to GG and Poppi — as i was leaving Mila gave me this card to bring to them

School Holiday: Moving and Tahoe

We interrupt this regularly scheduled school broadcast for … we moved to Alamo!! And then 3 days later, we went to Tahoe for the week!

Started off visiting Val and her boyfriend at Fallen Leaf Lake. We went tube paddling (made that up), kayaking, and for a cruise on a super cool wood boat called a Criss Craft

The next day, once the smoke cleared and it warmed up, we did a short hike over and down to Hidden Beach

We did an awesome hike above Emerald Bay from Highway 50 to Eagle Lake, where the kids dropped their clothes and hopped in!

Our Airbnb in Carnelian Bay was right next to a mini golf place and we had a couple really fun rounds. Every one had a hole-in-1 by the end, including Jules who dropped 3 in 1 round!

After all that, we were trapped indoors by the smoke, but we still had a good time reading, playing games and puzzles, and watching some movies. Then we were back to Alamo!

I turned 34!

Day 9 - August 27, 2020

The smoke is gone for the day and it is our anniversary, so school holiday!! We played outside until noon, played games and did a walk before dinner, and then had a nice adult take-in anniversary. School back in session tomorrow!

Day 8 - August 26, 2020

Guest teacher day!! With Mr. Jordan going to ikea and cleaning up the Bonita house, Mrs. Gammy Karen to the rescue!!

They made mosaic puzzles out of cardboard and crayons and did a free form spelling crossword game: Appletters

Day 7 - August 25, 2020

We’ve got a name (and a mascot!): The Homeschool Labradors!

---

ELA to start the day — hooray! These books are great actually. Big Book of Reading Comp, Spectrum, and Handwriting

Mila colores a sweet rainbow parrot

---

Daily snack and Mr Demaio videos. We watched one on volcanoes and another on The Great Sphinx of Egypt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPfeeomAjNc). Kids love this guy

---

Today’s Peloton Brain Break was pretty hilarious

---

Then we read about the layers of the Earth again in 4000 Things You Should Know and the kids made their own Layers of Earth diagrams

Lunch, piano, and that’s a wrap! Too bad it’s so smoky or we could swim. Alas.

As I was updating the blog just now, Mila brought me this. She’s an expert bucket filler.

Day 6 - August 24, 2020

We had some post-weekend blues to start the day, so I started asking them places they’d rather be. Most of them were silly to get us laughing, but then Mila said she’d rather be swimming. M&J started describing their perfect pools, so we audibled off the daily schedule and I had them draw and label their perfect pool and then present them

---

Then we decorated and labeled our file folders and filled them up with the school work we did last week

---

Now, for today’s planned activities

---

Milas math workbook for today was activities about money. So we took out some real dollars and coins and talked about how much they’re worth (very little 😂) . Then they made currency diagrams by tracing and labeling, we sorted our coins, and did some math problems like “mila, make $0.80 using 4 coins” or “Jonah, make $0.30 using any coins you want”. Then the kids do a few pages of their workbooks.

---

Peloton Brain Break! Outsourcing PE 👍🏻💪🏻

---

Then we did our science activity for the day — learning about the Layers of the Earth by reading the Planet Earth book by Basher Science

Day 5 - August 21, 2020

Guest teacher … Gammy!!! The kids played a spelling game, Boggle, learned to tie shoes, and made learning clocks!

---

Then over the weekend: Jonah and mama started to rebuild the Land Bounty and Mila and Mama did this great puzzle

---

Also, big news, we secured an awesome rental!

Day 4 - August 20, 2020

Finally getting organized, first Daily Schedule

---

ELA workbook time

---

Water Cycle cut and paste: I made a doc with text and images and printed it out for the kids to cut and tape together

Day 3 - August 19, 2020

Started the day reading more about clouds, thunder, and lightning. This book was great

---

Then we continued with The Water Cycle. The kids wrote the 4 main phases, made diagrams, and presented both items. It was their first presentation of 2nd grade and Kinder!

---

Snacks with this video on water cycle (https://youtu.be/al-do-HGuIk) and finished up with math workbooks

---

Great-grandparents teach kids Mah Jong

Day 2 - August 18, 2020

Started our day with a good morning song and stretches, led by Mila.

Yesterday, during our lesson on thunder and lightning the kids asked how clouds were formed, so today we started learning about the water cycle. Mila and i took turns reading from the Basher Science Planet Earth book

---

Then we circled and numbered the 4 main phases of the water cycle using our USGS water cycle diagrams

Then we watched this silly video on the water cycle during snack time: https://youtu.be/n7OkKEbOc6E

---

After snack we did Rainboku puzzles for the first time

---

Then we did lunch, a swim party with cousins and great-grandparents, and piano

Day 1 - August 17, 2020

Thunder! After a huge east coast style thunder and lightning storm, we started homeschool reading about thunder and lightning and did a write/draw activity

“This is a rocket ship. If fork lightning hit it while it was blasting off, the rocket would be damaged and the astronauts would die because their suits would break”

-Jonah

Today we also watched this silly video on thunder and lightning https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCJPQ9dCUfs and did math workbooks.