Samantha: 115 Months, Week 3
Aedan: 83 Months, Week 2
Owen: 39 Months, Week 3
Sunday, January 3rd was the day Aunt Christy, Uncle Matt, Brielle, and Oliver had to go back home. There was snow coming through again, so we encouraged them to leave earlier that day so they didn't have to drive through too much bad weather. Plus, they had an 11 hour drive ahead of them. The kids did have some time that morning to play in the house together. Here are Brielle and Samantha playing Barbies together with the "new" Barbie stuff that Aunt Christy brought to pass along to us. We will see how much Samantha ends up playing with this. I hope it's something she can enjoy playing now that she's a little older and won't just be making a mess of it the whole time like she would do before.
Seeing this picture of Samantha makes me sad because I can see the tiredness in her eyes and face. She has started to have a hard time falling asleep again, and it definitely impacts her ability to focus and interact positively the next day.
Here are the boys having fun playing with Magna Tiles on the other side of the room. The kids all really got along well and enjoyed playing with each other. It was fun to see them together, and for them to have this extended time to play. We love having family visit and stay in our home, so I hope we can make this happen more often.
After our visitors left that morning, the kids were all excited to build some of their new Lego sets. Owen got this little police plane that he was excited about because he wants to build and play with Legos just like Aedan and Samantha do. (I'm not sure why he's making this pirate looking face in this first picture. I guess he was trying to smile for me?)
Aedan was really excited about building this Batmobile that he got from Uncle Matt. It was a pretty awesome vehicle, and I could see why it was something he was excited about. Samantha built her Privet Drive Harry Potter Lego set, which was a pretty complicated process of putting the house together. They both do a great job of building and following the directions. We usually stay nearby in case they need help or get stuck with something, but most of the time they don't need us. It's fun to watch them focus on a task and find the enjoyment and success in completing it.
As the day went on, it just kept snowing, so it was a good thing that our visitors left when they did. The kids had fun playing in the snow, building a very nice, tall, snowman, and sledding down the big hill in our back yard. I love watching it snow, and everything is so pretty covered in white, especially around us where we are surrounded by woods. The Christmas lights on the house looked especially pretty sparkling on the newly fallen snow. I love watching the changing seasons from our home. It's so beautiful, and I hope that I never take the nature that surrounds us for granted. Here are some pictures I took from around our house.
As I mentioned earlier, Samantha has been having a hard time sleeping lately, and we are not sure why. Like on Sunday night she kept getting out of bed, saying she couldn't fall asleep until after 10:30. She often complains about having a hard time falling asleep, and sometimes we guess that it is tied to being anxious about something or something changing or something happening in the future that she's thinking about, but not always. When we ask her why she was having a hard time sleeping, most of the time she doesn't know why. We were wondering if it had anything to do with having to do school online this coming week since we traveled out of town, or maybe feeling upset about our little peanut returning back home, or maybe being in her room by herself after being used to sharing a room with Aedan for the past year and a half. We weren't sure what was causing it, but it was hard for us to see her so tired but unable to fall asleep, so frustrated and upset by not sleeping, and really not knowing what to do to help her.
The night was made even more interesting because the power went out just before Ben and I were going to go to bed. A transformer blew down by the Skillet restaurant by the lake, so our whole area lost power because of that. The snow was really wet and heavy, with ice, too. The power came back on a little after 2:00. This is a time when it's not as nice that our kids sleep with sound machines because when the power goes out, they turn off, and then the kids wake up. I went upstairs to talk to Samantha because I knew she would be up and wondering what happened, but Aedan also came out of his room. I told them both what had happened, told them there was nothing that I could do about it, and they needed to just go back in their rooms and go to sleep. When the power came back on, I went on the app on my phone to make sure the sound machines were turned back on correctly, and then went back to sleep myself. So no one had a good night's sleep that night, and I was glad that our visitors weren't at our house anymore because it would be hard for all of us to be without power and still be able to sleep.
As we were getting ready for a new week, we found some papers that had been left in their folders from before Christmas break started. Aedan got a 100% on his Chapter 5 Math Test and Samantha got a 100% on her Chapter 4 Science Test. Way to go, guys!
With the snow that we got over night, the kids' school had a two hour delay on Monday morning, which for us didn't matter too much since we were already doing virtual school for week as an extra precaution and to quarantine ourselves since we traveled out of state. We knew that we were safe because we were only in Upland and stayed at their house the whole time, but it was a school policy, and we wanted to follow it. The kids were excited about having a two hour delay though, and it made the first day of virtual school feel easier because it was a shorter amount of time for them to have to be logged on Zoom for class. Samantha was not excited about doing virtual school because she wanted to be at school with her friends. I think Aedan was looking forward to virtual school because he thought it would be better in some way. I think in his mind he was thinking back to when school was shut down at the beginning of the pandemic, and they just had assignments posted on Google Classroom, could finish everything really quick, and then had the rest of the day to play. He had actually been talking a lot before Christmas that he wanted to do school at home instead, so I was considering it as an option if he was really that unhappy and bored at school. I figured this would be a good way for him to try it out without committing to it for a whole quarter.
We decided to go sledding at the hill by their school before dinner that night, taking advantage of all the snow we got. All their homework was done, and we just needed to get out of the house. Ben met us there to go sledding as well, and we had a good time. The snow wasn't too deep, and the kids had fun trying to go down the hill holding on to each other, and Owen went down with me quite a bit since I was wearing snow pants and Ben was not. We sledded until it was getting too dark, and then went back towards home, stopping at Grotto Pizza for dinner because neither of us felt like cooking that night. It was just a fun family night.
Since we had more free time at home with the kids needing to log in to Zoom at 9:30 in the morning and having at least an hour break in the middle of the day, we had more time to play outside. The kids were really enjoying playing in the snow because it wasn't too deep for them to walk around in. However, the snow had a layer of ice over the top of it, so they were going really fast down the hill. The kids were making the fence bow where they were running into it while sledding. It was too slippery and fast that day so I had to tell them to stop doing it, which didn't make them too happy. There was one time that Owen went so fast that he flipped up and backwards really hard and started crying. In the future we will have to think of a different solution or a way for them to sled down the hill without hitting the fence. Maybe we could build up a ridge of snow in front of the fence that they would run into instead of the fence. It would be sad for us not to be able to sled down this steep hill right in our own back yard, but we also don't want to have to pay money to fix the retaining wall fence from running into it repeatedly.
Doing school virtually on Tuesday was going fairly well. The kids had a two hour delay on Monday, so it felt like a shorter day. I was anticipating Tuesday feeling like a longer day of school work and being on the computer.
Here is something the boys were doing together once Aedan logged off for the morning. Owen got these shape puzzles for Christmas, and it comes with little cards that give you ideas of what you can build. Here they built a crab, and they were having fun coming up with different designs with the shapes.
Samantha was doing well online. She could log on and largely do her own thing. We had her set up at the desk in our bedroom so that way I could check in on her and make sure she didn't have any questions, while still sitting next to Aedan to help him follow along and stay focused. Aedan wasn't paying attention as well, he wasn't trying to listen to her directions, and she was hard to hear sometimes. I felt like I pretty much had to sit by him the whole time to make sure he was doing what he needed to do. It was hard keeping Owen out of the way and quiet that morning, but we made it through and got everything done.
That day we got a Christmas package from my grandma, so as we were eating dinner we got out the cards for the kids to open, and I opened my present as well. We took pictures and videos to send along to her so she could feel like she was a part of it.
On Wednesday morning Aedan did a dancing freeze game to practice his spelling words through Zoom with his class. This little boy is just so cute. I love how cute his hair looks after sleeping on it, and how it sticks up. I love his smile with missing teeth, and the cute smile he gives us as he dances around the living room.
Even though Samantha couldn't wait to go back to school, she did a good job of staying on task and working hard, so I had to sneak a quick picture of her. (She looks a little too grown up to me in this picture.) I don't have as many pictures of Samantha from the week because she had to do a lot more school work than Aedan did, so she spent most of the day sitting at the desk in the bedroom and was so relieved when she was done for the day.
By Thursday we were definitely feeling the drag of doing virtual school at home, and I think we were all glad that they could go back to school on Monday. Aedan needed a lot of assistance, so I couldn't do anything else around the house when we was logged into Zoom with his class. I basically had to sit next to him the whole time, so I wasn't getting much work done around the house, and I was just ignoring Owen all morning, which I didn't like, and he didn't like either. I don't know how people are doing virtual learning this whole year. It was taking up so much of my life! I'm so grateful that our kids have had the opportunity to go to school in person this year, and the year has been successful, even if the way things are run at school are a little different than normal.
Here are Aedan's spelling words for the week that he practiced that day.
Before lunch Aedan's task was to complete a STAR reading test as a part of the Accelerated Reader program. He has to read sentences and determine which word fits in the paragraph, and it helps to determine their reading range. I was excited to watch him take the test and see what kind of questions he got and how he did. I didn't do anything to help him. I just sat next to him and listened, asking him to take his time and read the questions out loud. I took a few videos of him because I was just so impressed at how well he was reading and how well he was doing answering the questions. There were some times that he didn't read all the words correctly or just guessed, but he was still able to get the general idea of the passage and was able to answer the question right. It was cool to see him so focused, even though it was hard as he got tired toward the end of the thirty question test.
Since Aedan had extra time before lunch, he was able to help Owen build another of his Lego sets that he got for Christmas. By help, he actually built the whole thing for him, but I don't think Owen minded. Aedan loves building Legos, and Owen just likes spending time with Aedan. That has been the best thing about doing virtual school because Owen has had Aedan around more to play with, and he loves that.
Another one of the best things of doing school at home? Not having to get out of your pajamas as soon. On Friday morning Aedan and Owen were out in the front play room playing with Legos at the table as I cleaned up breakfast. They were so cute together that I had to sneak around the corner and take some pictures of them playing in their footie pajamas.
Every week Aedan's class does a reading test on the story they read for the week. Here is his reading test for this week's story: The Big Circle. They are so easy for him. They read their story every day all week long, so he doesn't have any trouble answering these questions about the story on Fridays.
Samantha had a Chapter 5 Math Test that Friday on dividing with decimals. It was easier for her to be able to write and show her work on actual paper rather than on the computer, so I just printed it out for her to make it easier. This stuff came so easy to her, even with all the long division and moving of decimal points. She is definitely gifted in math, and I'm so glad we pushed her to do more in kindergarten when she was already so far ahead the class.
These two boys are so silly with each other. And loud! I have no idea what they were doing, but they had just finished lunch and had lots of energy to burn off. They have been doing a lot more wrestling with each other lately, but they are enjoying playing with each other, and that makes me really happy.
Samantha also had a spelling test that Friday. Spelling also comes pretty naturally to her with all the reading she does, and she never has to do much practicing.
Here is some more work that Aedan completed at home that week: work with Long o words, talking about sequence of events and cause and effect, filling words in a sentence, and matching words with clues.
Here's a nice thank you card that Aedan got from Mrs. Hynick for the gift card we gave her for Christmas.
And here is a Social Studies study guide and math practice test that Samantha had to study from for her tests.
That afternoon as I sat on the couch doing some work on my computer, Aedan came out into the living room, laid on the floor in the sun, and enjoyed reading a book. He looked so sweet and peaceful reading with his head propped up on his chin. I love that he is enjoying reading so much that he chooses it as an activity. We don't have to force him to read, and it's so exciting that he can read so many books independently already.
(Blog about January 3-9, 2021)
