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One of the ways we've just discovered how to do that with our kids is using Messenger Kids. My husband was out for a walk the other day and saw one of my daughter's friends, along with her mom. He mentioned (from a safe distance!) how much our daughter was missing chatting with her friends, and the mom told him about the app. So last night he got their accounts set up and today we'll see if we can get them up and running with it.
The teachers are also discovering new ways to stay connected. My son's teacher is hosting a Google Meet with his class today. I realized last week that I had missed a similar meeting with my daughter's class, but hopefully that will be a regular thing.
I'm personally getting more comfortable with the various platforms the teachers are posting on. This morning I plan to focus more on working directly from the kids' Google Classroom sites and Clever assignments. Flipgrid looks intriguing.
So here we go!
7-8:45am: Up, make and eat breakfast, clear breakfast dishes, get brushed and washed and dressed. I didn't feel like cooking for anyone this morning so I suggested that the kids could have something they could make for themselves, like English muffins or a bowl of cereal. My son asked, "Can I have anything I can make for myself??" Sensing a trap, I asked what he had in mind. "Can I make scrambled eggs?" Why yes, yes you can. And he made scrambled eggs for himself and his sister with NO help from me. We agreed that it feels really good to be able to cook something that other people enjoy eating.
8:45-9:30am: Reading/Math. I wanted to spend some time familiarizing myself with my daughter's online Classroom and Clever projects, so I got my son set up with reading more of "The Tiger Rising" that his teacher assigned last week. While he's busy with that, I'm sitting with my daughter, logging on to the site and checking out what kinds of assignments are there. I really want to focus on her math skills. Unfortunately, one of the sites only allows 25 practice questions a day, so I let her move on to reading while I make her flash cards for her 6 through 9 times tables.
9:30-10:30am: Science. I found a (hopefully not faked this time!) video of how to make a bouncy ball using borax (I have some left over from making slime or ooblek or something a while back), white glue, and cornstarch. If you don't want to bother with the video, here are the instructions:
1. In a small bowl, dissolve 2 teaspoons of Borax in 1/2 cup warm water and set aside.
2. In another bowl, combine 1 tablespoon of white glue with 3-4 drops of food coloring, then add 1 tablespoon of corn starch.
3. Add 1/2 teaspoon of the dissolved Borax solution. Let sit for 15 seconds, then stir. It will look gross and lumpy, and that's just perfect!
4. Roll between your hands until it becomes smooth.
5. Bounce it!!
Our first attempt came out too sticky to knead - it just stuck all over our hands. So we looked for similar experiments to see if they had any advice and found this one which mixed in a cup instead of a bowl. We tried with a cup the next time, and mixed it up really well before we took it out and kneaded with our hands. We also discovered that stretching it like taffy (or like when you squish a marshmallow into fluff) in the early stages worked well.
The kids were a little disappointed in its lack of bounce - it bounced a little, but not much - but it was still fun to do!
We rinsed our lab equipment and put it in the dishwasher, wiped up the floor where we worked, and scrubbed our hands REALLY well, then had a quick snack break before our next session.
10:30-11:30am: Reading and journaling. While my husband was cleaning out the office, he came across a photo album from my trip to Kenya that corresponded to the journal I've been reading to them from. It was great to be able to not only read to them about the morning we woke up to monkeys sitting on top of our tents, but to show them a picture to prove that it really did happen! We also read a little more from Anne Frank and then they spent more time writing in their own journals. In today's reading from Anne Frank, she talked a lot about how she can't stand her mother, and also had some very unflattering comments about Mrs. van Daan and Anne's sister, Margot. It led to a good discussion about both perspective, how we're only seeing the situation from Anne's point of view, and the reality of the others' behavior might actually have been quite different; but also about how being stuck in a small space with the same few people can make everyone irritable and annoyed. I've had to work really hard at prompting them to write more than the basics (a recent entry from my son read, in its entirety: "Exactly the same as yesterday."), but hopefully today's discussion has them thinking a bit more about our family relationships. I promised them that I would never read their journals or require them to read me everything they wrote, and encouraged them to feel free to write things they feel like they can't say. I hope this helps them vent their feelings, if they need to.
11:30am-1pm: Lunch and free time. I encouraged them to get some exercise and fresh air at some point during their break. My son was interested in doing another "P.E. with Joe" workout, and my daughter braved the cold and damp to go outside for a little while.
1-1:30pm: Video conference! My son's teacher set up a Google Meet for his whole class. My son smiled more during this session than he has for the past two weeks! It was fun to eavesdrop on the kids chatting together and sharing what they've been doing. The teacher let everyone chitchat casually for a few minutes, made sure everyone had a chance to say hello and share for a moment, then she muted everyone and went over the various projects and assignments that she'd posted on their Google Classroom. It was a nice combination of classwork and socializing.
While he was doing that, I went back to the Messenger Kids website and watched their "orientation" video with my daughter, then we worked together to figure out how to get it up and running on her Chromebook. Almost as soon as we had the app downloaded, one of her friends sent her a video call. The two of them are chatting away like a pair of magpies, showing off their respective pets, classrooms, siblings, etc.
This new technology is having a great effect on their moods, although we may now need to practice volume control...
1:30-2:30pm. Socialization. After my son's teacher left the chat, a handful of kids stayed on just to chat longer. And my daughter was still happily talking with one of her best buddies on Messenger. This is really what they both need, so I'm just letting them continue as long as they like.
2:30-3:30pm: Cooking. I'm making lasagna for supper tonight, so I thought they could help me make it. They're getting better at listening to directions, but they still want to go off half-cocked before listening to the complete directions (especially my son). This is as much an exercise in patience (theirs AND mine) as a cooking lesson. We also discussed how to decide what you can substitute and what you can't. I didn't have as much mozzarella on hand as I would like, so we combined it with some other shredded cheeses. Here's our favorite recipe, which we used as a base:
Beef and Sausage Lasagna
½ lb. Italian sweet sausage
½ lb. ground beef
3 cloves garlic
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tbsp parsley
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp basil
½ tsp salt
1 (16 oz.) can whole or diced tomatoes, undrained
1 (15 oz.) can tomato sauce
16 oz. ricotta
1 egg (optional)
2 c. grated Parmesan
1 tbsp parsley
1-1/2 tsp oregano
2 c. shredded mozzarella
12 lasagna noodles, cooked or
uncooked
Cook sausage, beef, garlic and
onion till browned; drain fat. Stir in parsley, sugar, basil, salt, tomatoes,
and tomato sauce. Break up tomatoes. Heat to boiling, stirring occasionally.
Reduce heat and simmer 45 minutes. Combine ricotta, egg, half the Parmesan, parsley, and
oregano in a large bowl. Spread 1 c. sauce in ungreased 9x13” pan, top with 4
noodles. Spread with 1 c. cheese mixture and 1 c. sauce. Cover with 2/3 c.
mozzarella and 4 more noodles, then the rest of the cheese, 1 c. sauce, 2/3 c.
mozzarella, and 4 more noodles. Finish with the rest of the sauce, the rest of
the mozzarella, and the rest of the Parmesan. Bake uncovered at 350 for 45 minutes. Let sit for
15 minutes before cutting.
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