Homeschool Week 5

This is for April 13th through the 17th. I just started to write it last night, and I am not remembering much at all and I didn't even take many pictures to jog my memory, so here goes. We are still chugging along with our daily independent reading, chores, journal, walk, math app, and 30 minutes one-on-one with each kiddo, and they're still reading tons, but they're already long done with the nonfiction they brought home from school so I've slacked on enforcing that in the morning (we'd started out having them do independent nonfiction reading while I was doing 'school' with the other kid).

Monday

James had his online class meeting at 8:30am, and the kids went around and checked in with their news. This is how it would go, with each kid telling their news, Ms. Newkirk repeating it, and then James yelling it out to me even though I was just a few steps away from the laptop:

Kid on the teleconference: I had my birthday
Teacher: Oh, kid had his birthday
James: Kid had his birthday!
I say: Oh, kid had his birthday

Kid 2: I lost a tooth!
Teacher: Kid 2 lost a tooth!
James yells to me: Kid 2 lost a tooth!
Me: Aw, Kid 2 lost a tooth

When it was James's turn, he talked about dying Easter eggs on Sunday. He wrote a thank-you note to his teacher penpal instead of having to do his journal for the day.

Tuesday

Amelie had her piano lesson online again, and it's going surprisingly well - better than some of her school lessons, but then again it's one-on-one. She also worked on recording the first two lines of a poem for one of the videos they'll play for online church. 

Wednesday

Amelie watched a cool science demonstration with her homeroom class over Zoom, and James got his next work packet from school in the mail. We all went out to Rockbridge State Park. They've set it up to be one-way for better physical distancing on the wooden trail paths, but we went on a different (empty) path anyway. 

Thursday

Amelie's work packet came in the mail (this was for work that was technically supposed to start on Monday, though they did put links online.) Also, we got word that they wouldn't be collecting the packets back, they are just enrichment activities that won't affect their final grades (not that the kids get letter grades anyway at Ridgeway.)  Anyway, we're continuing to putter along. James wanted to get up and ride his bike, so I was able to go around the block twice with him and then down one of the dead-end streets near us. 

I learned yet another new way to do 4th grade multi-digit multiplication. It's called "partial product multiplication" and it seems a little easier than the traditional way with the added benefit of paving the way for factoring and the distributive property later on in Algebra. Here's the youtube video I used to teach myself how to do it (just the first two minutes): 

A while ago Nana Jana got us this book, called What Shall I Paint, and we did an activity from it on Thursday. 

Here's my cat: 

And here's a watercolor Sam did with Leah: 

We also played several games of hide-and-seek. Here's Leah hiding: 

And Sam took this one of Leah being cute outside when they were supposed to be hiding: 

James invented this sock monster: 

Friday

I made banana blueberry bread with Leah for breakfast: 

And other than banana bread, I don't remember much from Friday, except I know we let the kids skip school with Sam in the afternoon.