Starting the day in sunshine with birds chirping makes me happy, my kid too. We began the day with reading and writing and it worked out better than yesterday! Yesterday, we did math and science early, but I lost his best attention when it came time to sit still and read quietly later on.
So today, I began the day with reading out loud, and EARLY. He sat on the hammock and watched the birds come to the feeder, while listening and even writing as I read. After every chapter I did a verbal re-cap, to which he replied “you sound like my teacher 
👩🏫 …”
Is that so terrible I thought?? 😂 I explained why we do that- it’s more for me the reader, to remember what on earth I just read…My memory of the middle ages, the black plague, history of monks, priests and the gallows, is barely something I remember, let alone think I even learned about in fourth grade! Needless to say, I’m learning a lot!
Reading and writing took awhile-and the ☀️ sun ☀️ was too bright to ignore, so I took advantage of its warmth and presence and we ventured to stay outside. I wanted to be productive though with outside time and not have to cram in the work for the days end when energy is low, and motivation even lower. So I took a few minutes to go over the tasks of the day and thought of a way to teach the Nervous System by being outside! Kids LOVE scavenger hunts! And an easy way to do it without collecting junk all over your porch and in your house is USE YOUR PHONE! I quickly made up a scavenger hunt, and included the parts of the brain my kid needs to learn about for his science unit.
For Example:
TASK ONE
- Another name for the Medulla is “the brain stem”, find two objects and put them together to look like the brain stem andddd TAKE A PICTURE!
Then I added fun things too, so he wouldn’t catch on that it was ALL about “work”…things like shapes, colors, bugs, etc! It was a success. He was into it, it was fun, challenging, and he wanted to make one for me!
For Math he is learning about how to add decimals- this could be easily taught using money! But aside from money, I decided to go with MILEAGE. Feeling super pregnant (even though I have a harrowing 12 weeks to go) I couldn’t manage to be indoors while my favorite part of creation was so visible in skies of blue! ☀️ I said, let’s go for a bike ride! He rode, I waddled far behind. We walked for what felt like 25 miles…it definitely wasn’t.
I found myself stopping a lot just to catch my breath, and be certain I wasn’t going into early labor! 😂 Ha! All was well.
Along the walk I brought one of his science print outs with me to understand better myself what the nervous system is made up of. It helps to teach something when you understand! So throughout the walk I’d ask him to tell me what parts of my brain I was using to do this or that…we made it fun, and often times funny …at my expense.
When returning home I suggested we get in the car and clock our route using the odometer. I showed him how and we found we went 1.4 miles. We then took a drive and it read 3.0, so when we got back I asked him to add the mileage…Boom…Math is done! 😂
We had another day of work, but lots of laughs, and still frustrations, but this is the good stuff. One day I’ll want these three weeks back and I won’t be able to have it.
I forget how much I miss my kid when he is in school. Kids really are cool, creative, and capable of so much!
The sun shined on us today for a reason, it was bright, lovely, and warm. I saw so many wonderful things in the day, in my kid, and in learning new things. What a day! And I’m not even sure what day it is, but it was a good one!
-Michelle
SHELSCAPES 