Today was our first rainy day. It was kind of nice to take a break. The boys have had A LOT of outside playing time.
Since it was rainy and we had the whole day ahead of us, I let them watch “What’s in the Bible?” on Mr Phil TV. https://www.mrphiltv.com Caleb figured out how to access it through our tv. Go Caleb!
Some simple life skills were included in the day, like how to do laundry, and how to make a can of condensed tomato soup.
And Nathan… he’s been a disobedient, fussy guy lately. This behavior tends to rear its ugly head every now and again, and I have the privilege to check that behavior.
A couple of years ago (one of my first posts was about these pom pons) https://suburbanshebear.com/2018/02/19/words-as-sweet-as-honey/
(not a typo – pom pons is actually how it’s supposed to be spelled. Weird, I know…)
Ah hem! A couple of years ago, Isaac and I made these when I noticed that our words were pretty harsh toward one another. I’ve been using them ever since for certain behaviors, like table manners. Nathan seems to respond well to these little guys, so when I see that he’s in a real streak of disobedience and grouchiness, I pull them out, and the effect is amazing. He started out with five this morning. If he got down to zero, he would have no screens. Not only does it check his behavior quickly, but it keeps my blood pressure down. I just quietly (and with a look of… you better watch it!…) take one away. I think he lost 2 in the first hour or so, but by the end of the day, he still had three left. We’ll do it again tomorrow.
Indoor PE! https://www.beachbody.com/product/fitness_programs/piyo-workout-dvds.do
And finally, Nathan had a Zoom chat https://zoom.us/ with his BFF, Nathan! 8 year olds aren’t the best at figuring out what to talk about after a few minutes, so thankfully when I was folding laundry, Nathan’s mom realized that it was getting a little too silly for a house with working from home engineers on conference calls and suggested the cup game. Phew!
The governor of Virginia declared today that he was closing schools for the rest of the year. No comment. However, I will have the boys look into Khan Academy https://www.khanacademy.org/ for math tomorrow. I wonder when the teachers will be starting online learning and what that will look like. We’ll have to wait and see…
suburban shebear 