A Day at Home & October Fun

We have been so busy lately with plans with friends, family visiting, friends visiting and out of the house classes and events. I was really looking forward to our day at home today. Our home days are our most productive and when we really are able to connect with each other and make some really good memories.

I used to be a person who needed to be very busy. I was always go go go and thought we should always be out and about doing things. The covid years really helped teach me how to slow down. To stop glorifying being busy. I realized I had spent most of my life being rushed and that is not something I wanted to pass on to my kids. I want them to know the joy of a day of baking cookies and reading and busying themselves with projects that they love to do.

I try to start most days with an open ended project idea that they can work on while I read to them. Today I set out a box of washi tape and some jars and let them design them. They really loved playing with all of the different designs.

While they were busy designing I read to them from one of our favorite history books, "100 Things to Know About History." It is filled with historical facts and presented in really fun images and my kids love the uniqueness of the content.

This entry was about the Black Plauge which morphed into conversations about viruses and how they spread and mutate. We used google to find answers and explored more on the topic. I love when learning happens organically like this. They ask a question and we dive deeper into it until they feel they have the answers they were looking for.

Miss 11 then decided she wanted to paint. Art is currently her biggest passion so I always try to feed into that every day. While she was painting I read a book about Claude Monet and impressionism. We found ourselves looking at his most famous paintings and talking about what we liked and didn't like about them. She decided she didn't want to paint in that way today though and instead started painting some gifts for friends who will be visiting this week from CA and MN. At the same time she watched a short video on Skillshare about different watercolor techniques.

While Miss11 was Painting, Miss 9 and I baked some cookies together while listening to music and dancing around the kitchen. We always talk fractions while baking. The recipe called for 1/4 tsp of salt so I asked how many 1/8 tsp would work for that recipe. Working math into every day activities helps us all see the actual use of it in our daily lives. Then, while eating the cookies she asked to watch a Mark Rober video. If you don't know who Mark Rober is you must must must - check him out on You Tube. He is an engineer and has a channel dedicated to getting kids excited about engineering.

My daughter wanted me to post her finished watercolor paintings. Each state is sprouting their state flower. :)

Lastly, we sat down together to watch a Mr. Demaio video about the Salem witch trials. Halloween is just a week away so we also added a video about the history of Halloween. Mr. Demaio is another You Tube channel that I highly recommend - he is hilarious and presents all learning material in a super fun way. I started to read a chapter from this book below so that we could all get a real feel for the days of the witch trials. Then, a friend texted to play Minecraft. That was the end to our nice, comfy day at home. Slowing down feels good, intentional and just right. <3