Fall and Winter 2020 school things

I'd like to see how I'd be at homeschooling under more "normal" circumstances, if we're being honest. I *think* I could be much better at it. I started homeschooling Claire (first grade) when we lived (for one semester- not in our own home) in D.C. When we returned to Durham, I found out at the beginning of second semester that we were expecting Hallie and almost immediately became sick. And then the pandemic set in. Then I had a baby right at the beginning of second grade (still during a pandemic). Nothing has been normal.

We don't have an area of our house that can be designated solely for homeschooling, so we have to get out and put away all of our supplies every day, because our dining room is our school room. I realize lots of people do this, and we definitely can do it. I very much wonder, though, how a designated space would help get everyone more focused for the day. (And I'd dearly LOVE to be able to simply shut the door and walk away, if we make a big mess- which is often.)

Add to that a clingy toddler who rarely seems to find the activities I have for her to be worth her time and an infant who needs my attention for her physical needs regularly...and our days often feel very chaotic, despite the systems that we have in place to help mitigate the frustrations. I take stock of how things are working roughly every 2-3 weeks and tweak things to see if we can make them better. As I'm writing this (in April), we've made A LOT of changes and adjustments over the course of this year, and we've gotten into a pretty good and efficient groove...you know, just a few weeks before we wrap up the school year. That's how it goes, I guess.

I don't always remember to take pictures during the school day, but here are a few that I grabbed during the fall and winter:

In September, we did a lesson on apples, which included an experiment, as well as books and tastings.

My second grade teacher taught us about the stars inside apples, and it was really fun to show Claire and Lily the same.

We are a part of a Classical Conversations homeschool co-op, and the fall semester's curriculum included learning the states and capitals.

Made ourselves some masquerade masks after reading about Louis the Sun King

Our CC curriculum also included learning about different systems of the body

Nature collecting to study the different shapes of leaves in our yard

Brad's parents got the girls Kiwi Crate subscriptions, which has been the MOST FUN! Some days, we do Kiwi crates for school.

Dinosaur crate

Constellation crate

Cutting activities from a mail-themed crate

Solar system crate

And sometimes we have guest readers visit our class.

We try to learn from life as it happens around us as often as we can. Since we couldn't visit the butterfly house at our local children's museum or wander through the flowers at Duke Gardens, we enjoyed this Monarch butterfly on our gardenias.

After the many hours we logged at the National Zoo while we were in D.C., we followed the birth of the newest baby panda very closely. The girls made cards that they mailed to him!

We did some themed reading + crafts when I could get my act together.

We really enjoyed our enrichment days when we studied traditions from other cultures:

St. Nicholas Day

Hanukkah

St. Lucia's Day

Most days are very ordinary and not full of fun projects, but we have managed to get some fun worked in, on occasion! I'm really glad that they enjoy learning. It covers over a multitude of shortcomings on my part.