Stay at Home School: Week 2 & 3

So apparently we all seem to be stuck in the same situation where our kids are doing school from home. And let me just say there was a reason why I chose not to homeschool my kids. It wasn't about worrying about how to get them into activities or enough social time. It was because I never wanted to teach them. But yet here we are.

From what I have seen around social media and such I have noticed that there are many different ways that schools are handling the rest of this year. Some places already have programs in place that makes it all work smoothly. Other places like our school district was suddenly forced to figure it out. Our state was the first to officially cancel school for the rest of the year and there was no plan at all in place with how school was going to continue for the rest of the year.

It was about two weeks after the announcement (the first week of which was actually spring break) that we finally got something. Our district is doing the exact same thing for all the kids, although I can't tell you exactly how high school is working, but for preschool through 8th it's the same. There are videos for several subjects from the same teachers for all kids of that grade level where they watch a video then communicate it however they want by drawing, writing or talking to someone. Then there are options on how to apply their lesson. Some are active. Some are drawing. There is a great combination of things. The videos have been great. And truly even better is that they have options available for my preschooler who so dearly misses school.

With these lessons that aren't required through the school - however I do want my kids doing something at least four days at week - they kids are getting some "school" and continuing to learn in this crazy situation. And so far they are really loving it.

Addie has four subjects while Connor only has two. They both do Reading on Mondays then Addie does an additional library activity provided through the school. They both also do Math on Tuesdays, which I then let Addie do Zearn which is a math site that she has been doing with the school all year. But she would be doing Zearn even if we weren't in this situation. That's all Connor has so I have a little fun workbook he does the next two days as he wants. Addie continues with social studies on Wednesday then we end the week on Thursday with Science.

In addition to the actual school stuff, I have a baking project for us to do together every Tuesday. Then on Thursdays we do a science experiment of some kind (thanks Pinterest!) and Fridays we don't do actual school but a bigger art project.

All that being said I thought I would share some of the outside "school" projects we did the last two weeks.

Week two of school we baked some cupcakes - Addie's request. We made the cupcakes no problem but then discovered my powdered sugar was so old that the frosting did turn out so we have frostingless cupcakes but they were still delicious!

For our science experiment we did walking water. It took me a couple of tries to actually figure out it for some reason but I finally got myself un-confused and we had ourselves some walking water that actually turned out really cool. With each science experiment, before we start I ask the kids what they think is going to happen and then we do it. It's been fun to see what they think then see their excitement when they actually see what happened.

Then for our art project the kids were wanting to decorate the house so I cut out some egg shape and pulled out paint. I even let Emma fingerpaint which she loved. They also glued tissue paper on some. It was good practice cutting and gluing for Connor since that's what they were doing at school. We also made bunny masks.

This last week, we had originally planned to make some lemon cookies for Easter but Rob forgot to pick up the powdered sugar (it's my undoing apparently) from the grocery store and since we aren't running out unless we have to, we went with plan B. We had a box of brownies in there so we just made those and the kids enjoyed that too. Especially since there were candy pieces they could add on top.

This week's science experiment was erupting lemons. This one was their favorite. We just had a lemon, some food coloring, Dawn soap, and baking soda and we watched it do its thing. We ended up doing three lemons (6 halves) because they kids loved it so much. It was pretty cool.

And for our art project we dyed eggs for Easter. 

And that was how the last two weeks looked. It's pretty simple and it seems to be working. You can always look at A Day in the Life post to see how day-to-day routine as well, although that does change a little each day.