Hey, sorry about the New Year’s Eve party post. I wrote that back in January, same with the Halloween post. I was just trying to get some work done ahead of time for periods when I’m usually really busy. Please make sure you don’t host super-spreader events!
April 2020, right after they closed the playgrounds.
Alas, the pandemic came, and turned all our lives upside down. I stopped homeschooling and stopped keeping up with this blog. Basically it’s been one long nervous breakdown that gets more or less intense depending on the stressors.
According to an article I read recently, 37,000 students left the public schools in Massachusetts this school year. Anyone on homeschool groups could see the the tidal wave of families that joined the homeschooling community. Alas, in this like everything else, I find myself moving contrarywise. For so many, public school at home didn’t work. For me, pandemic meant I couldn’t cope with homeschooling at home. Our flavor of homeschooling was predominantly about being out of the house.
Hopefully the coming of the vaccine means life will get back to some sense of normalcy. For now, it feels like it will never end.
Wear a mask, sneeze and cough into your elbow, wash your hands, drive safely, share, take turns, be a decent human being!
Since having kids, I suddenly became aware that there aren’t that many public events for families to celebrate New Year’s Eve. We hosted our first Kids NYE party in 2010, and there are admittedly more public events for families, such as the Boston Children’s Museum’s Noon Year.
The kids were very young at our first party. We lived in a much bigger space then and set up the kitchen with a cardboard play house that the kids could color and play in, and a station for making masks (paper plates and markers) and noisemakers (toilet roll tubes closed off with paper and rubber bands and filled with dried beans). We had mini pizzas for all, and I tried to make “bubbly” jell-o but failed. It still tasted good, but there were no suspended bubbles. (There’s a reason you can’t easily find recipes for this anymore…it doesn’t work). We put Shaun the Sheep on low on the TV for kids who didn’t want to run around, and toward the end of the party (around 7 pm), we had a countdown and jumped on bubble wrap for some indoor fireworks.
As the kids got older, subsequent parties included fancier mask making supplies…paper plates, sparkly yarn, craft feathers and sequins. We wrote our wishes for the new year and made a garland. We moved the start time to 7pm and served mostly deserts and finger food like chips and dip and cut veggies. Netflix used to have some NYE countdown clips from several kids tv shows, I’m not sure if they still do that, but we used one to add pizazz to our countdown to bubble wrap jumping! That activity is a hit year after year.
We now live in a very tiny apartment and I don’t know if we’ll ever host a New Year’s Eve party here. But if you have even a little room, a family New Year’s Eve party is a wonderful and low-key way to celebrate safely with your kids and friends. Keep it simple and it won’t be expensive. Get the big-bubble wrap for more impressive pops, and the small-bubble wrap if you want a less intense experience.
Origami crafts: wearable samurai hat out of newspaper or some good luck paper cranes. Extra activity: see how small you can make these origami creations? Can you make one out of a Starburst wrapper, for example?
This is a tricky theme right now since zoos are closed, the Museum of Science is closed, the Harvard Museum of Natural History is closed, Mass Audubon sites have closed (except for hiking, get out there and take a walk in nature), and there aren’t many farms reachable by public transit, and who knows if they’re open….But we’ll do our best!
Some art stores might be open, get some paper mâché animals and decorate them at home
Ideas for Dairy Cow Learning Activities from Ohio State University, a list of possible activities for learning about this important animal in our food supply. Written for 4H but applicable for anyone interested!
Virtual Field Trips
Farm Food 360 offers 11 virtual tours of all kinds of farms, from apple orchards, to pig farms to grain farms. Check it out!
San Diego Zoo‘s live animal cams: penguin, baboon, polar bears, panda, koala, giraffe, burrowing owl, elephant, tiger, and condor.
Head to your nearest pond or park and watch the ducks and other wildlife. I am at my closest pond right now and there are ducks, geese, doves and woodpeckers!
The panic shopping is a only a little out of control here. Today I went to try to get some things I forgot. I wanted a thermometer, kids’ acetomenefen and ibuprofen, and hand sanitizer but the Walgreens was out of all of them. We were able to get one bottle of cough medicine for kids and one for adults though, so there’s that. Maybe I’ll go to another store tomorrow. I really don’t want to brave a crowded store!
Anywhoo, I hope you are coping with everything! Here’s the Circus Theme!
Here’s #5! Click here for the list of themes. Speaking of kitchens, I have a cabinet filled with our “quarantine” treats! We’re allowed to have one of each thing per person per day. Treats include capri sun pouches, pop tarts, assorted single serving chips, powdered lemonade mix, etc. Having school closed counts as a quarantine condition, LOL.
Activities
Plastic Milk experiment looks high impact with two ingredients, a microwave and a strainer. Fun with cookie cutters! Here’s another experiment question: Will this work with milk made with milk powder?
You could try any of these Cookie Experiments, OR you can just bake cookies with different sweeteners to test their differences. Sugar, honey, Splenda, corn syrup are all on the table!
Find out how tall you can build a tower made of marshmallows
Here’s the fourth theme in this series. I know this guide was originally written at a normal time where we could freely go out and get supplies or books from the library. You might not have all the supplies listed in these posts. I hope, however, this series of themed activities can still help you with inspiration to help you get through your days of Social Distancing with your family. My kids haven’t gotten nutty yet, but I myself am on my way there. Having a list of options is always helpful for me when it’s not easy think creatively, so maybe this will be helpful for some of you too!
Field Trips
If you can get to a place where you won’t run into people closely, take a nature walk!
If you have a yard, go out and collect plants or sticks to make a centerpiece for your table.
Potato Maze Experiment, which requires some advanced planning to get a potato to start sprouting before building the potato obstacle course. Note: Make sure there are not light leaks in the box except for the exit point.
Here’s my 3rd installment of themed books, activities and snacks to help you organize your Social Distancing days. How are you holding up? It’s just the beginning for me and I’m pretty nervous about this increased social isolation. I hope you and your family are well.
I had this Museum Nerd fantasy that all the museums would stay open, that most people would avoid going, and so I could have the museum all to myself! #WishfulThinking But, anyway, here are some fine arts ideas for you and your family!!
Curriculum Connection
If you’ve never matched up your history curriculum with objects in a museum, maybe take some of your time at home to search the collections of the MFA or other institutions to find objects that bring to life the time periods and cultures you study. The MFA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and others have truly encyclopedic collections of the arts that you can search and view online.
Field Trips
The deCordova Museum and Sculpture Park has closed their museum but their sculpture park is free and open to the public. Take a beautiful walk, but maintain social distancing!
“Mo Willems invites YOU into his studio every day for his LUNCH DOODLE. Learners worldwide can draw, doodle and explore new ways of writing by visiting Mo’s studio virtually once a day for the next few weeks. Grab some paper and pencils, pens, or crayons and join Mo to explore ways of writing and making together.
“New episodes will be posted each weekday at 1:00 p.m. ET and then remain online to be streamed afterwards. Check back each weekday for new LUNCH DOODLES!”
One of my favorite art historians of all time is Sister Wendy Beckett. She has the most amazing, humanist analysis of fine art. She loves and understands humanity and expresses it exquisitely in her series on Fine Arts. Check out this segment from Sister Wendy’s PBS series on Rothko and Warhol – and then click around to see the other segments available for free on YouTube.
And if you want to know more about Sister Wendy, watch this interview with Bill Moyers, It’s broken into 6 parts.
Broke Boston Homeschooling 