At Home with The Andersons

April is Poetry Month and we decided it would be fun to celebrate with a Poe-Tea.  Poetry Tea Time is an activity promoted by an online language arts curriculum called Brave Writer.  They even have an entire website dedicated to it --  Poetry Tea Time .  We were having some struggles with the monotony of life in lock-down and this seemed to be the perfect solution. To start, I pulled out any poetry books I could find in the house.  We didn't have a huge variety but the kids didn't seem to mind.  I had each person put a sticky tab on 2 poems that they wanted to have read during tea.  The Shell Silverstein books were a hit when picking poems since the funny illustrations were so appealing. At lunch time we set everything up.  We even used a table cloth! We had herbal tea with milk and sugar, ants on a log, cream cheese and jelly sandwiches(cut in triangles of course), fruit, cheese and brownies for desert.  I asked Alexa to play som...

"Spring will come and so will happiness. Hold on. Life will get warmer."  - Anita Krizzan So I guess we are doing science at home now.  My kids may be in different grades, but I told them this is one subject that everyone can study together.  To welcome spring we started out with a little plant study.  We often frequent gardens so this was not a new topic matter, but I really wanted to help them get into it a little more and have it be something we could work on for a week or two. To start off, both were given their own laboratory notebook.  Next, was the research portion for me to find what we needed for our study.  I was amazed at what I could find for free from videos to ideas.  Our first stop was to review the scientific method. If you haven't signed up yet,  Brain Pop and Brain Pop Jr.  are offering free access while the schools are closed.  They have so many wonderful videos covering a wide range of subjects.  We s...

Loom knitting has become a popular craft in our house.  My son learned how to make and use his own knitting loom at school and the came home and taught us.  The kids love to knit especially while we listen to an audio book or if someone is reading aloud.  Knitting has a relaxing quality to it and since the looms are easy to make, we made some for the whole family. The first thing to do is to make your own loom.  It is amazing how well these work. and many of the supplies are around the house or in the kids craft bin. Supplies Hot Glue Gun Tube from toilet paper, paper towels or wrapping paper Craft sticks (4+ per tube) Pony beads (1 per stick) Tape To build your loom first decide how many sticks you want for knitting.    We have done it with as few as 4 and as many as 6. On each stick glue one pony bead to an end using a large glob of hot glue.    You can skip this step if you do not have any needs or you ...

I have always sewn.  Both of my parents sew and I can't remember a time that I didn't have a sewing machine.  Most of the time I just make dresses for my daughter.  She loves dresses made out of fun patterns and we always have a good time going to the fabric store and looking for ones that jump out at us.  When the recommendations came out regarding cloth face masks on Friday from the CDC, it was time to take the sewing machine out again.  I don't sew often enough that I have a lot of fabric lying around so I  pulled together a couple of scraps left over from dresses and my husband donated a couple of old dress shirts for the linings. The kids loved the idea of helping to make something for the whole family and some friends.  There are so many different mask patterns out there and so I looked to find one that I thought would work for our family and settled on this one .  I wanted them each to help out on the masks even a little bit so that w...

This whole situations has brought up a lot of worries for everyone.  As adults we are all worried, but so are our kids.  So much has changed overnight.  One day they were at school and with their friends and the next they are stuck in their home with only our immediate family.  It is a lot and there are so many rules on what we can and cannot do as well as where we can and cannot go.  I can tell this is having an effect on all of us.  But, even when we ask children they sometimes have trouble sharing their concerns and fears with us. Last week, during one of my daughter's virtual Kindergarten classroom meetings they had a special visit from our school's amazing Counselor.  My daughter had been having a particularly rough morning and had her head on the table.  I watched and listened from the other room and her demeanor changed immediately when the Counselor let the kids know that their friend Puppy(a puppet) was with her and wanted to say h...