We made it through homeschooling! Technically school is still in session this week, but Savannah finished her last final on Friday and the last week of school is always about celebrations and promotions and cleaning out desks, so we're just skipping it and going straight to summer break in our house. But we did manage to get one last week of good fun crammed into our schooling last week.
The kids learned some dances for PE at Grandma's house one day. Even Grandma got into it.
On Tuesday Grandma planned a bunch of Minute to Win It games for the kids. The main requirement was good sportsmanship and they all stepped up and cheered each other on and didn't let it get too competitive or frustrating. And because of that they all earned 100 Grand at the end. The candy bar, not cash. :)
Some of the games were...
Face the Cookie
Vaseline and cotton balls
A team of 2 keep 3 balloons in the air as long as possible:
And a bubble blowing contest.
Rachel won that one.
McKenzie and Peyton stayed over night that night. They were just going to stay at Grandma's, but Megan has been begging for someone to sleep in her room since Eloise always ends up sleeping in Annie and Rachel's room when she sleeps over. So we took advantage and Megan was super happy to have Peyton sleep in her bedroom while McKenzie slept in the other girls' room.
The younger kids have got to do more fun stuff in school than the other kids who had more structured work sent home for them. Grandma and Savannah mostly took charge of them. They would do math and writing, then usually read something, then do something fun to learn. Here they are practicing writing sight words with bathtub paint. Another favorite was some scavenger hunts.
Mrs. Barela sent Ryan a Flat Mrs. Barela (like Flat Stanley. She helped him with his work some days.
He also had to take a test last week for 3 days to see if he qualifies for ELP (the gifted program in the district--I think it stands for Extended Learning Program?). Flat Mrs. Barela supervised him (and the real Mrs. Barela did, too, via zoom. He actually enjoyed the tests quite a bit--they're just his sort of brain teasers, I guess.
For the end of school art project we made piñatas. Since 8-10 kids on one piñata wouldn't work too great we split into two groups and made two piñatas. One group decided to make a penguin.
So the other group decided to make a sea lion to eat the penguin.
They both turned out great. We'll smash them at McKenzie's birthday/Megan's kinder graduation party on Wednesday.
For the last day of science the kids got to experiment making witch's brew. The task was to figure out a mixture that would bubble and the ingredients were laid out. Things like crushed toenails, unicorn horn, troll snot, juiced eyeballs, etc.
The kids had a good time making a plan and trying out different combinations. Then at the end they poured them all into one big bowl for extra fun.
Thursday was our official last day of Campbell/Knight homeschool. The kids finished up their last assignments while Ryan took his ELP test at Todd's house where it was quiet. Annie managed to finish her cereal box book report just in time. (The best part is down at the bottom where it says Riddle on the back! (Not Voldemort))
After Ryan finished his test we got our food and water together and headed up Mt. Lemmon for a picnic to celebrate the end of school. The kids had fun exploring and hiking and being in nature and with each other.
And the birds found a stack of Cheetos and went to town on them.
For dinner that night we kicked off summer with the classic summer meal: burgers and hot dogs hot off the grill and watermelon.
B wanted to sleep over at our house, so Friday we gave it a go. The Knights joined us for movie night watching Ugly Dolls, then B stayed to sleep in Ryan's room. We thought he had fallen asleep, but a half hour later he came out saying he couldn't fall asleep, so he decided to go home to sleep, then come back in the morning for breakfast and playing. Sammy came, too. They got sugared up with our traditional "Saturday breakfast" of Trix (Saturday breakfast is any extra sugary cereal that I don't usually let them eat during the week, not just Trix). They got to watch Phineas and Ferb for a while, then they played all morning long. They really enjoyed playing with their block creation for quite a while.
They tried to fit 3 kids in the sleeping bag at once. It didn't work--it just unzipped as they tried to fit more kids in.
Then we all went to a couple neighbor houses who we know are moving in soon on our street and wrote in their driveways to welcome them to the neighborhood and the ward. We're excited to have a couple more families on our street that go to church with us.
The big news for the 5-year-old: Megan's tooth fell out. It's been really loose for the last week, and finally it came out. She's so stinking cute with the big gap smile.
The kids spent Saturday afternoon doing one of their favorite activities that they don't get to do near as much as they'd like: Minecraft. Hours of fun.
And now it's summer! We had a family council today to figure out screen time limits, a general schedule and establish expectations of chores and other worthwhile activities they can do over the summer. I also wrote ideas for fun activities they can do when they get bored.
We'll see how much we manage to get done this summer.
We're almost done! Technically school was supposed to go two more weeks, but I guess teachers at our school are sending out their last packet of work on Schoology tomorrow for this week. Since I don't feel the need to come up with my own curriculum for a week, and if they were in school that last week would be full of cleaning out desks, class celebrations, etc., we're just going to make it through one more week of school at home and call that good enough.
Last week was teacher appreciation week. I put together a little video/slideshow for the teachers at school as my last act as the chair of the teacher appreciation committee. It turned out really well, considering how few pictures of kids were submitted. During the week I changed the kids' writing assignments to be teacher appreciation actions every day.
Ryan and Megan made pictures and wrote notes (or an airplane in Ryan's case) for their teachers.
The older kids emailed teachers and worked on piskel.com to make animation art for their teachers. The kids also made videos for their teachers using Stop Motion Studio and had a good time doing it. The teachers loved it.
The kids also enjoyed learning about stop motion videos and I anticipate lots of fun making videos this summer.
Peyton and McKenzie came out for school on Monday, stayed overnight at Grandma's and came to school Tuesday, too, then came back on Thursday as well. Of course everyone was happy to have them join us for school. The kids swam after PE/science at grandma's nearly every day last week.
Along with slush grandma made and jumping on the trampoline the kids were in heaven. Except for the major allergies all the kids but Rachel have been experiencing. There is so much pollen in the air their eyes look swollen by bedtime most every day.
We normally don't go get the free lunches from the school/bus stop M-Th because it's right during one of our work periods, but on one of the days McKenzie and Peyton were here we decided to walk to the corner and let everyone get their lunch from the school. The bus driver was surprised to see 10 kids coming in a big mob.
When we went back Friday to get lunch she asked where all the other kids were. I told her Friday is our flying solo day for school where we just have our family there instead of all the cousins. The kids love those lunches, I think mostly because they get chocolate milk most of the time (though sometimes they just get white milk), and the orange/apple juice.
For science at Grandma's one day the kids made their initials out of pipe cleaners then put them in a mixture of borax overnight and came back the next day to see that crystals had grown.
With the leftover borax water they added clear glue and squished it around until it turned into bouncy balls. Grandma is so good to host the messy science sessions. Things I wouldn't want to bother with because it's a pain to make the mess for something relatively short-lived. But the kids loved it and learned from it.
The kids also made solar ovens to use on the hottest day of the year so far. I think it got up to 105 last Wednesday.
They put marshmallows, chocolate on graham crackers, and cookie dough out in their ovens.
The chocolate was liquid lava when we got it out, the marshmallows were perfectly squishy, just like a perfectly toasted marshmallow, but without the browning on the outside. And the cookie dough was starting to flatten out, but the ovens ended up blowing in the wind so we didn't get to eat the final product of the cookies. (Though Grandma did cook the rest of the cookie dough and brought it to our taco truck lunch the next day.)
Rachel got a sketch book and has been enjoying herself. I think she called this art project "Sneeze."
Throughout the week the kids worked on a taco truck project. All the kids worked on creating their own taco truck model during art on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
The one with the taco on the roof is Rachel's, called The Speedy Taco. The colorful one is Ryan's. Annie's is in front center and called Tacos on the Run. And Megan's is on the right with the yellow art on the wall. The kids got paid taco money based on what they completed and the details and colors included. The older kids also made stuff to put inside their taco trucks, including a stove, work counter, order counter, storage and a driver's seat. Annie's is on the right, Rachel's on the left below.
They then had to calculate perimeter and area and create a menu. Thursday we put on a real taco truck. The 3rd grade girls ran the restaurant, with Rachel helping a bit. They took orders, figured out how much it cost, took money (which the kids had earned by making their taco truck model), and gave change.
It was a good time, though a bit chaotic. They threw in Slush for a quarter per cup, and a free cookie for all orders over $1. We sent the kids to the garage to eat since outside was too hot and our garage has a mediocre wall A/C unit that worked well enough. The whole thing was a big hit and I'm glad we put the effort into it, but when the kids asked if we could do it again soon the answer was a big no. :)
Friday the kids' big assignment was to make a video for their grandmas for Mother's Day. They learned more about using Stop Motion Studio on their own and made a pretty good video.
Since their favorite thing to do with their grandmas is to play games, they used some of our games to spell out "Love You" and "Love the Tucson Campbells." This is Annie and Rachel using the ipad to take pictures using Battleship.
Saturday Ryan consented to a haircut. Since we're all in quarantine and don't go to church or see anyone except cousins I asked Ryan if he wanted a special haircut with zigzags or anything. He opted for zigzags on the side and an R on the back of his head.
One more week until summer starts and we figure out a new stay at home routine. Yay!
I've been pretty good at getting out for a bike ride a couple times a week. We switched our Come Follow Me/Family Scripture study to morning at Rachel's suggestion after several nights of scriptures ending up in arguments or disruptions. Which means I have to get out on my bike ride early enough to get back for family scriptures early enough for Jacob to get to work and/or the kids to start their chores and piano practice on time. My friend started a #writecoronachallenge to try to bike or run in a pattern that spells Corona or virus. I tried last week with mediocre results. But it kind of worked. It took longer than I thought it would, so I had to try to hurry home, but still had to hit a couple spots on the way back to complete the O and A that I only partially did on the way out.
Savannah is wrapping up her classes, so she came to help with school a couple days last week, giving Grandma Knight a break, and now will come most days as long as she doesn't have a final to take.
For art one day the kids painted a canvas. Here are their creations:
This is Megan's backyard when she grows up with an apple tree, a big purple ball and a dog that has a face mask on.
Annie did some cool stained glass window effect art.
Ryan's abstract art:
Rachel painted a dragon she drew freehand. She's got a lot or artistic talent and has been working on her sketches lately. She keeps begging me to buy her a sketchbook next time I go to walmart (which I will, I just don't go hardly anywhere these days, so it's been weeks since she's been asking and I still haven't gone).
She added some details a few days later and this is her final product:
Grandma had the kids work on Rube Goldberg Projects last week during Grandma's afternoon specials. They watched some videos to get ideas, then sketched some out on Monday. Tuesday they split into groups to build them, and McKenzie and Peyton were able to come join the fun. Then Wednesday Rachel, Jared and Ryan wrapped up their big one, trying to incorporate ideas from each of the other groups to meet the official Drop the Soap Rube Goldberg challenge.
On the 6th try the big Rube Goldberg machine worked and we got a video of their success.
Tuesday Rachel was invited to a social distance book exchange at her friend Lydia's backyard. The girls all brought a stack of books they could lend out, talked about the book/plot, then let someone claim it. It's their solution to the library being closed for now.
They also did some social distance trampoline jumping staying around the side while taking turns doing tricks, I guess. Rachel enjoyed seeing some of her friends in real life (and so did I). And she was glad to get some new books to read.
The other kids enjoyed some time swimming in Grandma's pool. We are so glad they put up that pool. It hit 100 degrees last week, the first time I remember it hitting 100 in April (though apparently it has happened a couple of times since I've lived here). The kids spend hours and hours each week in the pool, then on the trampoline, then back to the pool. And they are all really good about obeying the rule of waiting for an adult to be in the backyard before they get in.
Grandma has a lot of great manipulatives for school. She regrets having gotten rid of a lot of her school stuff a few years ago, but she kept enough that it has really come in useful as she has been working with the kids. She has big dice which made this addition game more exciting.
She has pattern blocks, cubes that attach to each other to make 10s rods, a set of base 10 blocks with rods and cubes and hundreds flats, and lots of fun learning games, both in her brain, and in her files. She has been such a great asset to have around.
Ryan's schooling this week has looked like this:
He loves his little corner and spreads out all his work, going from one thing to the next, then getting out a laptop to do some work on, too. Occasionally he'll go into the office to work where Annie and Eloise are working while listening to songs from Frozen 2.
Annie did a lot better last week about just doing her work and not worrying about how much there was to do. One of her assignments was to balance a pencil vertically on a craft stick. Then to try it with a pipe cleaner and two clothespins to help. She thought it was cool to see how the pencil could balance even without it being straight up and down because of the extra weight added below.
I decided to do a 500 piece puzzle last week. With nothing much going on in my afternoons it took me about two afternoons to put it together. It felt good to accomplish something in this world where we all just sit around and wait for the go ahead to get back to normal life, even if that something was just putting together a puzzle.
Some of Rachel's sketches:
A couple of Rachel's friends invited her to join Marco Polo, so I joined on my phone and she borrows it to talk to them. She occasionally texts the one or two friends of hers that have their own phones. So I sometimes find pictures she has taken on my phone when she's talking to them. I believe this is her version of a face mask:
This coming week is teacher appreciation week, so the kids took pictures to add to a video I put together as my last act as the Teacher Appreciation co-chair for the year:
More selfies from Rachel:
The other day I was telling all the kids something, I don't remember what exactly, but it was along the lines of needing to clean up after themselves, I think. Rachel got offended that I was blaming her (which I wasn't, it was a blanket statement, not talking to any child in particular). When I pointed out I was talking to everyone not just her, she said "You're always talking about me!" So that has become our new joke about our narcissistic pre-teen. It's all about her. Then I get on the computer to find 20+ selfies, find all these selfies on my phone, and again think it's all about her. :)
The week before last I took Ryan to an appointment, then on the way home stopped for an Slurpee, and I decided we should use our Friday afternoons as a rotating mother-child date. So Annie and I went on a mommy-daughter date on Friday. We went to Viva coffeehouse, a locally owned business that has donated a lot to our school, and has Italian sodas I'd heard are good. Since business is slow for everyone we are trying to share the love a little, and spend some money locally, so we go out to lunch once a week to a nearby restaurant, and now on Fridays I'll take a kid out to get a smoothie or soda, too. And a chance to get some one on one time when that is rather lacking lately with us all together all the time. It was the first time Annie has been in a business since the Coronavirus shutdown started. We went over to Safeway afterwards to buy some candy to share with everyone for movie night and she said it was really weird seeing everyone walking around with face masks on. The new temporary normal, I guess. Small businesses are allowed to start reopening this week, so that's a sign that we are at least starting on the road back to normal. Yay!
