Ending the day on a high note

It snowed again! I was up and outside early shoveling the driveway. My neighbor gave me a bag of salt, which was very helpful to get rid of the ice before I had to drive over it. I went to the grocery store to get food to cook for M's birthday tomorrow (he wants to smoke a pork shoulder). While I was shopping the kids made pancakes and did some duolingo and typing lessons on the computer.

Later in the morning, we watched a presentation from the National Archive by a Harriet Tubman actor. I wanted us to enjoy it a lot more than we did. The feed was a little grainy, although the actor was very enthusiastic. It definitely felt more like checking a Black History Month box than anything else and that was on my mind all day.

Max had another science class on zoom, which concluded the unit on the senses. He spent a lot of time looking at his own video feed and making faces at it, although he did answer questions when the teacher called on him. 

There was a somewhat spontaneous sledding outing with the neighbors. Miraculously, there were no other children on the very popular sledding hill in our neighborhood and the snow was very fresh. I remember bringing the five of them to that hill once when Max was a baby. They were 7, 6, 5, 4 and 1 at the time and I must have been completely insane, although I guess the idea of staying in the house all day with all those kids was more insane. I carried Max in a backpack because the snow was too deep for a stroller. When I took him out, he promptly face planted in the snow and started screaming. Now everybody can walk and the "big" kids take care of Max.

Tonight I skipped my evening walk to watch a presentation from Amber O'Neal Johnston about embracing heritage in your homeschooling. It was spiritually inspirational, but also contained practical tips I can imagine doing without too much additional effort. It also helped me to rethink our reaction to the Harriet Tubman video, and even my choice in viewing it with them. So much more to say on that, but I think I'm going to rewatch the presentation when they post it and take some notes.

Homeschooling feels like adjusting the focus on binoculars. At first, maybe you don't even have them pointed in exactly the right place, but tiny movements can bring clarity.