The Week I Fooled Them All.....

Like almost everyone in the country, our lives have come to a standstill.  The only things that has remained the same is Lydia's therapy at the stable.  Her coach has her times spaced out to keep contact minimal between people.  This is the only time that Lydia currently leaves the house.

But she is continuing her sign language.  She started online sessions with someone, but it didn't work out well.  So we now have a new online teacher.  We will see how this goes for the next few months.

Caty has been working on her 4H Yeast Breads projects.  I missed pictures of her soft pretzels.  But this was the start of a loaf of bread.  It didn't work out so well for her. I didn't watch her, so not sure what happened.  She's going to try again soon.  I'll watch what she does more closely.

I've been stress cooking..... this is one of my family's favorite meals... creamy chicken & noodles.  I've been stress cooking a lot.  I also have been making my own loaves of bread for them to eat sandwiches with.

Playing games with my niece and nephew this week.

We got a new toy delivered..... I'm super excited to make smoked meals for Joe.  He loves smoked foods!

Another one from a game night.

I went out one morning to run to get essentials.  Came out to this....ugh...

Out shopping for essentials....masked and ready to go.

Anyone who follows us knows that April Fools Day is big in this house....

Sponge cakes ...

"Ice cream sundaes" for lunch

Carra made poop cookies....she got her brother good!

"cheese pizza" for dinner

Someone left the water running...

I helped coordinate a safari hunt for teddy bears in our town.  Carra painted a bear on the front door !!

I am the mean homeschool mom.  My kids are still plugging away at work daily.  Unfortunately my niece and nephew's school is not keeping them in schoolwork.  It's really driving me crazy.  They are trying to use calamity days and not providing them learning opportunities.  I'm working on printing some items for them and keep them busy.  It truly makes me sad.

The girls studied about New Hampshire this week.  We didn't do a geography meal this week, mainly because I didn't plan one.  We did watch Aerial America and also State Plate.  

Caty's Japanese class will continue on Skype until our Stay-at-home order is lifted.  Currently it's through May 1st, but will most likely we pushed out further.  Joe and I watch the daily briefings from our governor, it's been hinted to another extension.

Caty has switched math programs yet again.  She is trying out Saxon Math.  After using AIM from Math-U-See, and also practicing her multiplication facts, we are trying the textbook approach and see if she likes this instead.  Lydia is still chugging along in her math.  I'm trying to figure out which direction to take her next.  She really does like Teaching Textbooks.

Brayden is finishing up life skills math and working on some Remedia Publications items on math.  I'm still working on constant reminders about cleaning processes and making list of chores and finishing them.

We got through out lessons and survived!!  Hope to see everyone next week!!!

Week 45 - Building Circuits, Castles and Cherry Blossoms

We had a pretty mellow week.  I didn't have a ton of work for them to do.  We spent Sunday relaxing after our mass day in DC on Saturday with Joe's family.  His sister was visiting DC so we met up with them.  It was a fun, but exhausting day.  I needed Sunday to recoup from all the Walking and weight lifting from carrying the snack bag.  We toured a few Smithsonians with them and the National Mall, all the way to the Lincoln Memorial.

 All the cousins having lunch from the food trucks by the National Mall.

 They flew kites by the Washington Monument.

 Found a bunch of leaves and had a leaf fight.

 Selfies with Abe.

 The magnolia trees were beautiful!!

 Visited the World War II memorial

 And did a little reflecting in an empty pool.....

 That's our nephew Robbie in the middle.

On Sunday, I played a late April Fool's Day trick on them.  I had an episode Wednesday evening and didn't get to play this trick on them.  But I had all the supplies to use up.  So Sunday I told them I was making shepherd's pie for dinner....lol

It's CocoKrispies, green & orange Airheads (Shaped like peas and carrots)

 Add Tiny marshmallows on top

 And Bake until melted.

 They were not quite sure.....

 But thought this "dinner" was hilarious.  They all liked this treat.

 Lydia is working on the sketching/drawing series from Artistic Pursuits (watch for our review this week).  She was supposed to draw nature.  So she hung her feet out the balcony door and sketched the tree outside.  I wouldn't let her go down by herself because there were some weird things that had been going on in the area, and hotel complex.  So this worked out great.

 She is working on making change.  I bought the game Buy It Right from Amazon.  This has helped her quite a bit.  But we'll keep working on it.  I highly recommend this game.  It's a quick play, so it doesn't bog down attention spans the way Monopoly can.

 Monday was a gorgeous day, so after book work we headed to an area park.

 I read a book and watched...

 The girls and Joe had fun.  Brayden wouldn't play.  Too many kids he said.

 Tuesday was a bit rainy, but I wanted to do something.  I knew DC was getting crowded because of Cherry Blossom Festival.  The kids had been asking to go to Chuck E Cheese for months....I hate going there.  But it's safer than an arcade.  So I found a couple e coupons, and ate lunch before we left the hotel.  They played two hours, and almost had the place to ourselves!!

 Then we came back to the room and they had candy ice cream sundaes.

 Caty has started a study unit on Knights and Castles from Homeschool Legacy.  She is so excited to start this.  This week we watched a video on Castles on YouTube.  We really liked this video on castle life.

She and I are also reading and coloring the Dover coloring books on Medieval Life.

 We are also listening to:

She wanted to start a castle, but since we were heading home on Friday, I decided to wait until this week to do that project.  We will be doing that soon.

Joey continued working on his circuit work...

This week was parallel circuits...

Joey's circuit videos:

Joey watched this Bill Nye video again as a review....



 Lydia is learning how to do book reports.  This is her first book report on a Goosebumps book she had just finished reading.

 Brayden worked on Prime and Composite numbers this week.  He also kept going on his two 4H books.  He finished another Magic Tree House.  I need to find a series just a bit harder for him, but not scare him.  I think I may graduate him to the I Survived series by Summer.

 This is how you finish up your last day living in a hotel for a month.  Eating directly from ice cream containers...lol

 

We did go into DC on Friday to see the Cherry Blossoms.  It was NUTS.  Tour buses everywhere and tons of people.  We couldn't find parking.  We should've kept our space by the Jefferson Memorial and took a taxi everywhere.  Would've worked out better for us.  We did get to see the pretty blooms though.

We traveled home on Friday and will be there a week.  Next week is our Spring Break and then we'll be back in DC.  Lots and lots of decluttering going on.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and a relaxing weekend!!!

Linking up with other moms at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

and Homeschool Mother's Journal