Posting on here again amidst school closings and all the craziness in the world... SHSH Day 1

Welcome back to my blog!

Because of the Corona Virus, my kids, like many around the world, are off school for a few weeks starting this Monday. 

I am calling the next two weeks Operation: Stay Home, Stay Healthy, or #SHSH2020. 

Ever the aspiring at-home early education enthusiast, I have started a new schedule for the kids during this time, so we all don't lose our minds. I modified it from the one that was going around Facebook yesterday, seen here:

 Our daily schedule until at least March 29 is as follows:

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Daily Schedule:

7-9 am: (IT MUST BE LIGHT OUT FOR KIDS TO BE OUT OF BED. I could not stress this enough to Alan- 10 years old, the past few days) Wake up, get dressed (Nora-age 3, disposes of pull up), breakfast, AND another thing I saw on Facebook: mark hands with stamp or washable marker. I told them if those marks are gone or mostly gone by the end of the day, they are allowed to stay up until 9:00. Otherwise, bedtime is 8:30.

TL/DR version: 7-9: wake up, get dressed, breakfast

9-10 am: Observe weather from the window. What color is the sky? Are there clouds? Other weather elements such as wind, rain, snow, sunshine? Also look up current outside temperature, and the high for the day and discuss. Is it going to be warm, cold, or in the middle today? Also during this time on weekdays, the kids will be doing some simple activities. Nora will continue working on tracing and writing her name like she was in preschool, and Alan will be working with some quotes (will explain this more on Monday, when it starts.) THEN, we will use our knowledge of what we observed from the window to decide our footwear, and if a jacket is needed, etc. I am letting them make these decisions completely by themselves. AFTER THAT, we find ourselves outside, where I have a loose lesson planned for each day (more on that below) and when that is completed, they can have free time outside for as long as they want. ONCE BACK INSIDE, hand washing, snack time, and discuss National Days (more on this later as well).

TL/DR version: 9-10 am: weather discussion, writing on week days, then outside time, snack, and national day observation.

10 (ish)-12: academic time. Thurdays: Nora to gymnastics at 11:15, as long as it remains open. Saturday and Sunday: screen/free time

12:00 pm: lunch

12:45 pm: chores. I can post a chore chart for each person if this is of interest, but basically, we all have a different chore to perform each day. Chore completion determines whether more screen time will be allowed.

1-2:00 pm: MWF (week one): art time on Facebook (I can post more on this Monday)

T, TH, Sa, Su: family together time (kids will pick an activity for us to do together)

2-6:00 pm: free time/screen time (as long as chores have been completed). 4-6 pm will be QUIET TIME (basically this is the time where I tell them not to bug me or be loud unless an emergency occurs. I am also cooking dinner during this time)

6:30 pm: dinner

7:00-8:00 pm: no screen playtime. screen time may be earned for 45 minutes of this time if the schedule was observed without complaints.

8:00 pm: bath and bedtime routine.

8:30 or 9:00 pm: sleep

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So either you have left already because you think I'm a crazy person (don't worry, I know I am), or you're still here! Yay! Of course I know every day won't go smoothly, and I'm planning on certain activities going over time or having to switch some things around, but this is where I'm starting. My kids and I like structure and routine, so that is why I have made this. It is totally okay with me if you think I'm crazy. You don't have to do what I do. You can give your kids screen time all day, or send them outside, or make them read until bedtime, or send them to their grandparents' house for two weeks. Those are all great! Do what you have to do to keep your family sane, happy, and healthy during this crazy time. You're doing a great job!

Anyway, I know you read some things in that schedule and are probably wondering, "what does that mean?" I am here to explain it to you. If you have further questions, do not hesitate to ask! 

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The first thing I wanted to talk about today was our outside time. Upon observing out the window, Nora said, "The sky is blue, and I see sunshine and wind." So when we went outside, we could feel the sunshine, and I am so excited for more springlike weather! Today, our outside explore lesson focused on a sight scavenger hunt. 

The kids went around the yard and found something that is... (I will post their answers here. I have made a clean copy of this in image form for your use)

-red (Nora's slide)

-yellow (daffodil)

-green (leaves)

-purple (periwinkle)

-brown (stick)

-wet (grass)

-dry (driveway)

-shiny (The reflected sun on the driveway)

-pretty (a daffodil)

-smooth (Alan's skin)

-rough (rock)

-tiny (white flower)

-big (tree)

-blows in the wind (leaves, wind chime)

-living (flowers)

-not living (brown leaves, and sticks on the ground)

Until tomorrow, stay healthy, happy, and safe! -Andrea

I Got Mad Today

I got mad today, or I guess I should say I got frustrated first. As everyone does sometimes...

My husband and I have in the past been the type of couple to gossip about other parents behind closed doors. We are not perfect, and we will admit that this is a mistake. For the most part, we try not to judge others. But as I said, in the past, we have talked about "THAT mom".

That mom who is coming across as unnecessarily frustrated. That mom who is angry. In public.

We've heard her in the store, at the swimming pool after swim lessons, at an amusement park or skating rink, or other public place, especially when it is a place that is supposed to be fun for kids. We've heard her yelling at her kids, telling them they're being bad, they're not listening, they're being brats. And we've heard the mostly empty threats she's given her kids as a result of what seems to be more about her behavior than theirs. "If you don't stop whining/crying/carrying on/arguing, we're going home. We're going to stop this current activity, and we're leaving immediately." And the kids continue being kids. And they stay. And the mom keeps up her threats and anger. And we judge her.

The other thing we hear moms say when this scene occurs is "I'm done." And THAT, right there is the key phrase. Yes, she is done.

Perhaps Mom didn't get enough sleep the night before and/or enough caffeine the next day as she set out into the world with her kids. Maybe she's dealing with some sort of bad news in her personal life. It could be she's anxious about something, or her routine is off, or there's a chance that her kids really are acting up, and have been pushing her buttons all day and she's at her breaking point. It could be any of these situations, or a combination of them, or a million other things not listed here. But the result is the same. She's done. And we see and hear her acting out.

But the thing is, we really have no room to judge. Not only have every single one of us been here in some shape or form (I guarantee it. ALL of us, moms and dads alike), but we probably will be again. So we shouldn't judge. We should accept. We can accept that that mom is probably having a moment. Or a day. Or a week. We've all been there. I've been there. We can offer our solidarity and recognition and say, "Hey, I know how that feels. It gets better." In some cases, maybe we can even go further and offer to step in and help, let Mom take a minute to breathe, if possible. Wouldn't you like to hear that the next time you're going through something? I know I would.

So even if last week, I said to my husband, "this lady at the kids' gymnastics class was CRAZY today. She was yelling at her three year old, and the three year old was just running around, being three," this week I could be the crazy lady who is telling her overtired toddler to shut it in the grocery store before Mommy LOSES IT, and next week, I could be the mom saying, "hey, are you having a rough time? How can I help?"

These are just my thoughts on this topic, because as I started this blog post, I was THAT MOM. Today. I was stressed that I was tired even though I've had rest and caffeine, and it's a holiday, but my daughter still had her regularly scheduled gymnastics class, so I was glad to get out of the house with her. My husband got me the lunch I wanted. I ordered grocery pickup for tomorrow. My daughter is starting to really CLICK with the potty training. All these things were good. But I have anxiety, and anxiety can translate often as ANGER. So when we got home, and it was time for my daughter to nap, I walked past all the housework I hadn't done, and the chore my son didn't finish, even though I've sent him to complete it the past two days, I thought about what I needed to get done that I hadn't yet. And then I saw my daughter's room, which had been getting messier and messier the past few days. It was past time for her to take her nap. But I asked her to clean. And she did. She picked up most of her toys. But she put some into the "wrong" bins (I have been told I'm a control freak, yes). I told her to pick up books and hand them to me so I could put them away on her bookshelf. She didn't move. She kept rubbing her sleepy little eyes. So I got mad. I yelled. I yelled her name. I yelled for her to pick up books and hand them to me. I threatened timeouts. I told her to HURRY, because it was nap time and she needed to sleep. She said she had to go potty. I didn't want to take her BACK DOWNSTAIRS to her little potty, because that would just take up more time, so I took her to the upstairs bathroom to sit on the regular toilet. She was scared. I assured her she was fine, while rolling my eyes. I got frustrated at myself for being mad at her, and worried that I'd scare her to use the toilet again, when she has been doing so well the past few days. She wouldn't pee, even though I could tell she had to. So I took a deep breath, and I did what she and I both needed me to do. I put a diaper on her, and I put her to bed. I didn't read her a book, so she cried. I was still too frustrated to enjoy my reading time with her. I sang her our special goodnight song, I gave her many hugs and kisses, I apologized to her, I told her I loved her and goodnight, I looked at the books and toys that were still under her bed, and shut her door, still feeling frustrated and annoyed with myself. I had to take a bath to get myself to calm down.

So don't be so hard on yourself. Practice self care. Offer support and solidarity to others when you can. Don't gossip about what you see another parent doing, because you don't know what they're going through. You're no better than them. And forgive yourself.

You're doing a good job, Mama.

March Madness

We've had a leprechaun in the house since yesterday. 
His name is Larry the leprechaun, and he left this note:

 We tried the green muffins. They were pretty good! Leprechauns must eat a lot of green things.

Last night for Alan's science (trying something different this week so sorry it hasn't been a daily post, but we'll get there...), he had a challenge to build a leprechaun trap with assorted materials I had gathered. He made a trap door sort of system in a box and made a system of boxes with chambers he could fall into (with egg cartons). Not pictured is a tiny ladder he had leading to the top tower. Here is what his trap looked like:

This morning, Alan found a note at the table that said his trap didn't work and he was pretty disappointed. The trap was all knocked over, too. Here is the second note:

 And then, it started becoming clear. The leprechaun pranked Alan by putting shamrocks on his stuff! We found one on his lunch box, and that was the start. Then, getting ready for school, Alan found several on his backpack, as well as on three different shoes, and some of his toys! The more shamrocks he found, the more he giggled and the morning continued very silly and smiley after that! 😄 Happy March! 🍀

Why is the Sky Blue?

Today, we answered that age-old kid question: "Why is the sky blue?"

We needed:
1. clear container to hold water
2. water
3. milk
4. LED white light flashlight

We talked about why the sky is blue. I told Alan, " The flashlight will be our sun. The water is the sky and the milk is the particles that are in the air outside. The cloudy milk, or the particles in the air, show the blue most easily with the light and that is why we see blue in the glass and in the sky."

When we shone the flashlight at the milky water, we could see a blue tint!
To do this experiment, we followed this link:
http://www.rookieparenting.com/why-is-the-sky-blue-science-experiment/
They have a better explanation for the science behind why the sky is blue on that page.

We also did a follow-up to the experiment also from Rookie Parenting on why sunsets are red and orange. To do this, we simply shone the flashlight behind the glass and saw an orange color in the glass. Their video and explanation for that is here:
http://www.rookieparenting.com/why-is-the-blue-sky-orange-at-sunset-science-experiment/

Alan recorded all of this in his science journal.

Sorry I still don't have pictures to share! Today was a pretty sleepy day here, meaning I was feeling sleepy, so that's why this experiment was pretty simple as well, but I still found it neat. Until tomorrow!

All Updated! So........ It's Been Awhile, to Say the Least....... and SCIENCE!!!

Yes, this was a blog that I started when my son was in preschool.

Well, he's a first grader now. Wow, how time flies.

I could have started a new blog, or erased the previous posts. But those are some serious precious memories now that my first born is in school full time. Plus I really like that play dough experiment post!!

So the most significant things that have happened since I abandoned this blog are:

1) We moved from PA to VA in March 2015

2) We got married in July 2015

3) Alan started kindergarten in August 2015

4) We welcomed a baby girl, Nora, in May 2016

So, now you're all caught up... for the most part, anyway. Life goes on. I will fill in details as necessary as we go on.

So anyway, the reason I find myself returning to this blog is because I find that since my son started school and I gave birth to his sister, we've been connecting less and less, and I don't want to lose that special connection we once had. I know things change over time and that change is good, so it's not about that, it's more about wanting to do something special with just him and me while he's still little enough to appreciate it a little. They grow up too fast. (Did any of this last paragraph even make sense? I'm tired.)

So I went back to this blog because in an effort to connect, I started a daily science journal with Alan where we will record science experiments that we attempt. Today was our first day, and I didn't take any photos or video of our fun today because I kind of just thought of doing this blog again after he went to bed so that I can have a record of what we're doing each day in addition to his journal.This week, I thought we'd start with exploring weather, as that is a subject of interest with my kiddo lately. Today, we did two experiments, and recorded the second one as the first entry in his journal. The two experiments from today dealt with clouds. The first one explored why clouds make rain and the experiment we replicated can be found here:
http://laughingkidslearn.com/rain-cloud-science-experiment

Alan loved this simple activity because the clouds and the blue water were FUN and I used hair mousse instead of shaving cream, so he liked that the clouds smelled nice. Since he is a bit older, he understood right away when I asked him to guess what the mousse/shaving cream represented. He had fun loading the clouds with rain and watching the blue "rain" swirl through our "sky" (the clear water) in a mason jar.

After this, we made our own cloud by following this:
http://www.playdoughtoplato.com/cloud-in-a-jar/
He had a lot of fun with this and again, the hairspray made it smell good! ;) He begged me to do more experiments and was upset with me that I only prepared for two for today, but I assured him we'd be doing more after school tomorrow. I promise YOU that tomorrow I will be prepared with photos of our experiments, as this is a LOT of text, so you get a gold star if you've made it this far in this post! I will also talk more about our experiences with our experiments as time goes on, I just thought that today the cloud ones were pretty simple and straightforward to follow, and I wasn't prepared to blog them!!! Whoops!

We recorded our findings in his journal using this worksheet as a model:
 http://littlebinsforlittlehands.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Science-Journal-Printable-Pages-for-Kids.pdf

Until tomorrow!!

A Fun Experiment

I kind of gave up on writing for a bit on here because of the lack of readers, but school and life are going well. I did want to post this on here though, because it was so fun. Today, we did a bit of an experiment. I found 4 different play dough recipes online and we made them all and then reviewed them. Alan and I talked about how each one felt and tried each recipe out with cookie cutters and other fun things we use with play dough. Below, I will post each recipe and our review of each dough.

Play dough number 1:

Recipe: Emily's Fantastic No Cook Playdough Recipe

2 cups of plain/all-purpose flour
1 cup salt
1 cup cold water
1 tbspn oil (vegetable oil is fine - baby oil smells lovely).

Drop the ingredients into a plastic bag and seal. Let the children knead them together inside the bag - then tip it out for modeling fun.

Notes: The fact that this recipe was no-cook and that it could be mixed in a bag made it very easy to make. Our biggest problem with mixing in the bag was that we couldn’t get the color to disperse evenly through the dough, and we used a lot of food coloring trying to get this to happen, so we used green and yellow dye and ended up with a bit of a marbled effect. When we took the play dough out of the bag, it was mixed very well and had a nice dough-y consistency, though I could feel the salt grains throughout it. It took shape well and worked with the cookie cutters and did just about everything that good play dough is supposed to do, so I gave it a 4.5 out of 5. Alan gave it a 4.5 as well.

 

Play dough number 2:

Recipe: Homemade Modeling Clay Recipe #2

• 1 cup salt
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup water
• food coloring (optional)

Mix and stir the ingredients together over low heat. Cook the mixture until it has thickened. Remove the clay from heat and allow it to cool before using it.

Notes: this recipe is similar to the first one except that this is a cooked recipe. The ingredients were easy to mix and stir together. We added yellow coloring to this mixture, and it came out a nice sunny yellow. The dough took a bit to thicken over low heat on our stove, which isn’t the greatest stove. When we removed it from the heat and let it cool, it felt about the same as the first one. I could feel the grains from the salt in it again, except with this one, it seemed that the more I worked with it, the salt seemed to mix in more and it became a little less grainy over time. It took shape well and worked with all the cookie cutters. I gave this one a 4.5 as well, so I would recommend that if you want an easier, quicker time to make play dough for kids, go with the first one, because you don’t have to put it on the heat at all, and the doughs are so similar otherwise. I would say that this one is my favorite.

Play Dough Number 3:

Recipe:

Colorful Sugar Play Clay

Bag of Powdered/Icing Sugar
Tepid Water
Food Coloring

This is a nice simple edible play dough recipe.
Pour some icing sugar into a bowl and slowly add water (1 tablespoon at a time). Stir until you have a soft play dough.

You can make separate colored batches of this clay by adding a drop of food coloring to each bowl before your add water. Or make up one large white batch, then divide and knead in the food coloring. This method gives you a pretty marble color effect.

Notes:

This one was made from powdered sugar, so it was basically a cheap frosting stiffened into dough. We did not eat it. We added blue food coloring to this one which turned out to be the prettiest looking one, in my opinion. It was tough for me to mix this recipe because I like defined units of measurement, so just adding water a bit at a time was tricky for me to get a consistency that I liked. Also, I didn’t use a whole bag of sugar, though it was close to it, because I had 2 open bags that were a little under half empty each. The dough was moldable, but it was sticky and stayed on our hands a lot. It wasn’t as easy to use the cookie cutters, but was still fun to work with. I added a little flour to this recipe to try to make it a little less sticky. I would recommend this recipe to someone who has very small, young toddlers because of the edible quality of the dough (although the other two can be eaten without harming a kid, salt in that high quantity can’t taste all that great). I give this recipe a 3, and Alan gave it a 4. He said that this one was his favorite, because of the blue and because it was made out of sugar, his favorite thing on the planet.

Play dough number 4:

Recipe:

No Cook Lotion Dough

You will need:

• Baby lotion 
• Baking soda
• Water

If you are starting from scratch, fill a small bowl with baking soda and slowly add water to it.  You will want to be sure to add a little water at a time and mix it in well. If you are using food coloring to color the dough, add it now and continue mixing. You are going for a texture that is somewhat moist and can be molded, but can also be crumbly. 

Mix the lotion in with the dough until something resembling play dough forms. 

Notes:

Again, this one was a bit harder for me because of the lack of measurements. I used a nice smelling lotion that I have and we did just a bit of red coloring in this one so that the end result was a pinkish hue. This dough was also a bit sticky, and I ended up adding a bit of flour to it as well to counteract that a bit. It came out a bit crumbly, so I had to add more water to it, too. This dough was nice to mold in our hands but didn’t work well with cookie cutters very much. It was crumbly, and so we ended up giving up on it pretty quickly. The big selling point for this one was that the lotion made the dough smell nice, but then because of the lotion, this one is the LEAST edible. I gave it a 2.5, and Alan agreed, also giving his a 2.5.