A Day in the Life of Quarantine

We're a few weeks into this stay at home/quarantine living. It's obviously not how we envisioned life looking or what we'd prefer. We've had a few meltdowns over the weeks, but we're settling into a pretty good routine around here, and I wanted to remember it, so here's a day in the life of quarantine. This is how our Wednesday looked. But really everyday is basically the same, ha!

6:00- I get up, run, and get ready for the day. I've been trying to get up early and exercise and get ready before the kids get up at least 3-4 times a week. It's not an everyday thing, but I'm trying to happen more days than not.

7:00ish- the kids start waking up. I'm usually finishing up getting ready, so I turn a show on for them and they watch it on my bed while I finish up.

7:30- the kids start working on their morning work. We've kept this part of our routine pretty consistent all year long and for the most part it works really well. I assign them chores each morning that they do, and they have to eat breakfast, brush teeth, and get dressed (which is optional these days), and once that's done they can have free screen time until 9:00am

When the kids were in school, I always made pancakes on Wednesday mornings because it was late start day. They're pretty used to having them on Wednesdays, so Elisabeth and I made them for breakfast. She's always wanting to help me cook these days.

9:00am- We start school for the day. The kids do a mixture of things everyday, but I always have Elisabeth do a lesson on Reading Eggs everyday. She has the app on my old phone. I'm not doing a whole lot for her right now since she's in pre-k. She does Reading Eggs everyday and she'll write and draw in her journal and do some handwriting. I'll read a few books to her, and I give her lots of time for free play. She usually has a great time playing with Katherine during "school" time.

I usually give the kids a list of things they need to do for school each day, and let them have control over which order they do them in. Samuel decides to write in his journal first.

Katherine plays while everyone else is working.

Most days Samuel and Nathan's assignments are to do 20 minutes of Imagine Learning (a reading app), read some online Scholastic books/articles (Nathan's favorite thing, usually), Xtra math, a lesson or quiz for math on Khan Academy, and then one or two other things depending on the day like an extra math worksheet, a reading comprehension passage, a writing assignment, etc.

9:30- Everybody is working hard!

Elisabeth and Katherine have their own school while the boys are working

Samuel reads a book for his online Scholastic Lesson.

I found out about a Khan Academy course about Disney Imagineering from Nathan's Gifted and Talented teacher. He was so excited to start it! He worked on it all morning. He even came down and said, "Mom, this is so cool. They do a really good job, because it doesn't feel like you're learning because it's so fun, but you really are learning." I think it's been his favorite homeschool activity.

10:30- the kids go outside for recess! Samuel did a great job of staying on task and has already finished all his work for the day.

11:00- We usually are mostly finished with school by 11:00. That's my goal on most days. We do a house reset- everyone tidies up the messes we made that morning.

11:30- We drive to our school to pick up lunch. Our district gives away free lunches to kids everyday, and we've been taking advantage of it. It's usually hit or miss and extremely rare for me not to have to make somebody another lunch because they don't like what the school sent, but it keeps us stocked on milk and fruit, and it's an easy way to get out of the house everyday.

12:15- After lunch the kids have free time. Elisabeth has been hooked on audio books from the library, so she asks to listen to her book while Samuel and Nathan play outside. I usually try and get some of my chores done during this time, so I can rest during nap/quiet time.

Wednesdays are the day of the week that I clean the downstairs bedrooms, office, and living room, so I do that, and eat some lunch while the kids are playing.

Nathan is still working on his Imagineering course. One of his assignments was to make something look like something different than its materials. He decided to make a brick out of sand from the sand box.

1:45- Nap/quiet time. The kids have been helping me put Katherine down for her nap each day. Today is Samuel's turn. He reads her some books before she takes her nap.

2:00-3:30- Quiet time! The kids read for the first 30 minutes of quiet time (Elisabeth listens to an audio book) and then they can have screen time. Elisabeth eats a snack while she listens to her book.

I finish up my chores and then take a break too and watch a show and read a little in my room.

4:00- Katherine is awake and we play outside in the front yard and eat popsicles.

Samuel climbs a tree.

The girls ride bikes.

5:00- Matt is home from work. He stays outside with the kids and I come in and cook dinner.

5:30- Dinnertime! Tonight we have breakfast burritos for dinner.

6:15- We head out for an evening walk to the pond. The kids play down at a little creek by the pond, and Matt and I walk around and visit. The kids love playing at the pond. They're always exploring the creek, finding sticks, tossing rocks in the pond. Katherine calls it her "work" and always wants us to come to her "work"

7:00- We head home for showers

7:30- I put this girl to bed- jammies, teeth brushing, lots of books and then one more book and hugs and kisses

8:00- The kids get to watch the finale of Lego Masters while Matt and I have a zoom meeting for our Wednesday night Bible study.

9:00- Lego Masters is over and the kids go straight to bed, and our zoom meeting is finished. We check on the kids and then watch the Office in bed before we go to sleep.

We're certainly missing our friends, school, church, dance, karate, soccer, date nights, all the fun end of the school year events, even going to Target whenever we want, but these slow days together at home are special too. I hope so much that my kids look back at this season of their childhood as a great time in their lives.

Easter Weekend 2020

Easter 2020 will certainly go down as memorable and nothing like we planned. I remember being excited at the beginning of the school year that the kids were out of school for Good Friday and how we'd have a fun family day. Well, we did end up having a fun family day I guess.

On Fridays we don't do our usual school time. I try to plan a fun science or art project and fit in some reading time and that's it. It's good for all of our sanity to have a day off and more time to enjoy this unique season we're in.

So, on Friday we had an egg drop challenge, and it turned out to be the biggest hit among all the kids. They spent TWO hours making and remaking packaging for their eggs and dropping and redropping their eggs from higher and higher heights. I mean, they really loved it! It was neat to see their problem solving skills in action all morning long.

I think  they really liked climbing the ladder too. They were so proud of how well they protected their eggs and learned a few things too. It was a successful homeschool morning.

Matt only had to work half a day on Good Friday, so as soon as he got home, we packed up lunch and headed to a local nature park for a picnic and nature hike. The weather was gorgeous. It was a perfect day for a picnic.

The kids had fun running around and exploring. I made them a little nature scavenger hunt that held their attention for a little while.

We came home for naps/quiet time and then since the weather looked wet on Sunday, we went ahead and did an outdoor egg hunt.

Our church had a Good Friday service on Friday night and Nathan got to participate in the Lord's Supper for the first time with our grape juice and graham crackers at home. The other kids played outside during the service hiding eggs for each other.

We stayed home on Saturday- obviously. We played some games, the boys face timed their friends, I prepped a few things for Easter, we went to the pond- typical Saturday.

On Sunday morning the kids dressed in their Easter clothes I had ordered before the Pandemic hit. Usually they watch our church service in their pajamas, but on Easter we did get dressed.

I was missing our church family fiercely on Easter Sunday. It's my favorite Sunday of the year and I always love the music and sermon and joy of celebrating the hope of Easter with so many other believers. We can't wait to be back at church worshipping.

After church we took a few pictures before the rain hit.

Then Matt hid eggs upstairs for another hunt. The kids were ready to go. He assigned them certain colors of eggs to keep things fair and told them they had to find 90% of their colors to earn their Easter basket surprises.

The girls found their eggs first and were ready for their baskets.

I tried to keep things practical in their baskets with things they needed anyway. Everyone got a pair of sandals and a new swimsuit. They also got a new book to read and some sort of activity book/toy and a chocolate bunny and peeps.

Elisabeth was so excited for a Disney Princess cookbook. She picked out all the recipes she wanted to try. I think she liked it almost as much as her chocolate bunny, ha!

The boys were ready for their baskets next.

They showed off their favorite gifts from their baskets.

Katherine couldn't wait to play Paw Patrol with her new Everest snow vehicle.

Then we went downstairs for Easter lunch. We kept it pretty simple. No one is a big fan of a traditional Easter ham around here, so we made ham and cheese sliders, pasta salad, Strawberry fluff salad and chips. It felt simple yet special.

After lunch, while Katherine napped, the rest of us watched the Sight and Sound Jesus production that was streaming for free on Easter weekend. It was so good! We had tickets to see Noah at the Sight and Sound over Spring Break which was canceled, so this was a fun substitute, and now we can't wait for the Sight and Sound to reopen so we can watch a live performance.

Then it was time for another game of Ticket to Ride. It's Nathan's favorite game to play right now and Matt and I really like it too..

After dinner, the kids made Resurrection Rolls for dessert. They've become a fun Easter tradition.

We're so grateful that even though our celebrations were different this year, the truth of the Empty Tomb remains the same.