Easing into a new month

February came in with a snowstorm! This disrupted our morning schedule a little bit since we had to spend some time outside shoveling the sidewalk. 

Max woke up thinking about Dutch baby pancakes, so I made one of those for breakfast. Some of our apples were getting sort of squishy so we chopped them up and fried them in butter and cinnamon. 

Laurel is enrolled in two online classes that start this week, so she spent the morning reading class expectations and upcoming assignments, and responding to all the cute little introductions the other kids wrote. We are reading The People Could Fly by Virginia Hamilton for Brave Writer this month, and one of her classes is a book club based on this. The other class is more of a life skills class called Don't Worry, Be Happy. She completed the first module of that one already and says she likes it so far. 

Laurel did not make it to her math worksheet, but she did do some Duolingo French study. Marko did his math worksheet and some handwriting practice. 

We returned a lone library book that somehow didn't make it into the huge pile that we returned a few weeks ago. The library is closed to patrons again, but the librarians are still in there filling orders and organizing curbside delivery of books and games and all kinds of good things. 

We delivered a birthday present to one of our little friends who turned 5 today. We built a lot of snowmen with them and went on a walk in the woods near their house during which every child shed a few tears. The woods were beautiful and the snow fell gently all day. 

The kids finished listening to the Greenglass House and the ending was kind of intense and scary and sad. It's the first book in a series and I'm sure they'll end up reading the next ones. The story within a story literary device that was used in this book was something they really connected with. Their play often revolves around telling a story while they act things out or build with legos. 

Max prepared his materials for his first zoom class that will take place tomorrow. It's a science class for 4-6 year olds so I'm eager to see how this teacher makes it work, but he's very excited. He needed paper cups and string and straws and tape, and they are all counted and laid out on a tray so he'll be ready. 

I made baked beans from scratch, from a recipe for a Heinz English style sauce. They turned out pretty good and stretched the pound of sausage and 1 bunch of kale I had on hand for dinner.

It was STILL snowing after dinner and I went on a long walk and got soaking wet.