COVID-19 Homeschool, Day 17

Yesterday we went through most of what my kids' teachers had posted (other than ongoing 30-minute-a-day reading, which my kids happily do on their own anyway), so I asked them what they'd like to study. Without hesitating, my daughter announced, "Architects and architecture!" OK, then, I can do that. So while the kids were eating breakfast, Mom was doing research. Results are below!

7:30-9am: Get up, make and eat breakfast, brush and wash, get dressed. We're finding that our natural schedule is to get up a little later and stay up a little later. We've talked about listening to your body and enjoying the flexibility our schedule has at the moment, so we're letting our personal internal clocks set our schedule to some degree.

9-9:30am: Architecture. My daughter told me about a book one of her friends had brought to school, Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty, so I found a read-aloud video of that. We talked a bit about how Iggy Peck was a fictional book about a fictional character, but there are a lot of really interesting true stories about architects. I did a little research on one of my favorite architects, Frank Lloyd Wright, and found a well-written brief biography so we read that out loud. Conveniently, we have stayed in a hotel he designed out in Iowa a few years ago, so we had some personal photographs of that building to take a look at. We also found a virtual 3-D tour of Fallingwater, and talked about how unusual it was that he often designed the interiors of his buildings, including furniture and stained glass, so that the interiors matched the style of the exteriors.

9:30-10:30am: Research. My daughter had a tummy ache, so she went back to bed at this point, and my son opted for a solo research project. I told my son he could find his own architect to research, or I could give him some suggestions. We have been discussing a visit with family in France, and our dining room has several wonderful paintings and drawings of Parisian and other French landmarks, so he jumped at the chance to learn more about Alexandre Gustave Eiffel.

10:30-11:30am: Reading. Both kids did some independent reading at this point. I was busy sewing masks, so I was happy to have them doing their own thing for a while. Honestly, I don't even know exactly what they were reading, and I don't really care. I trust their judgment, and reading is reading.

11:30am-1pm: Lunch break and free time.

1-2pm: Classroom Meeting/Band. My daughter had a Google Meet with her class at 1pm; my son had virtual band rehearsal at 1:15pm. It was a bit of a struggle getting them both set up somewhere that they couldn't hear each other and their father couldn't hear them in his office, but we managed fairly well. They both enjoyed socializing afterwards, so I let them stay on the video chat as long as they wanted.

2:00 was a bit of an early dismissal, but I had work to do and they were both kind of toast, so we all agreed to be done for the day. Again, the beauty of homeschooling is that when you realize you've hit the law of diminishing returns, you just call it a day and let everyone have some time on their own to rest and refresh. Especially me.