Icy Morning Walk to the Bakery

We started the day out with a walk to the bakery and did our read aloud while munching on chocolate croissants. One of our neighborhood playgrounds is being fixed up and there was a lot of new equipment to explore. Max doesn't love Mrs. Frisby yet, so he can be a real pill about being quiet. Pure genius on my part; he was busy peeling his croissant apart and didn't interrupt too much. I bought a literature guide from the Brave Writer website. As a former teacher with a lot of materials stocked away, I am extremely resistant to paying money for more of these things. However, sometimes it's easier to have it all spelled out for you.  Sometimes someone else just did it better than me. The guide gives you a passage to study each week and suggestions for talking about spelling, grammar, literary elements and a few sample writing activities. Nothing contained in the packet was new information to me, but I love having a routine of activities to follow. You can pick the novels you do and order guides a la carte, and it's pretty easy to scale the activities for kids at different levels.

I keep having to wiggle out from under this idea that if the kids are having fun and the work is completed with ease, that they are not learning anything.

Marko made a drum out of a little candy tin he found and several layers of paper and stickers fixed to the top. Then he made a drum stick out of a little branch he found outside, sanded down until it made the sound he wanted. Laurel planned some activities for her birthday celebration this weekend (watching the Percy Jackson movie, making candy sushi). Max played Minecraft and Zelda with Marko. I sat down together with each child and went through some Khan Academy videos and exercises together. Marko set up and read through the directions for a very complicated board game called Oregon Trail.

I am reading so much these days. Wilding by Isabella Tree, No More Mean Girls by Katie Hurley, Food Not Lawns by Heather Flores. Flat Broke with Two Goats by Jennifer McGaha. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. The Year of Less by Cait Flanders. Farming While Black by Leah Penniman. There are books stacked on my bedside shelf, and always something on the Libby app on my phone, and a number of items on the holds list at the library. I signed up for movement videos from Katy Bowman and a class on homemaking by Hannah Marcotti. I'm working through an online course on permaculture. I'm going on an organized hike on the North Country Trail. Somehow I didn't have time for my own learning when all the kids were in school, or at least I didn't prioritize it...I squeezed it in. It feels different now.