Elementary School Closure

 

Our family was on survival level this week. We made it through the week relatively unscathed, but tired. We started our week with Amelia and Phillip at school and the younger three at the gym with me. The kids swam for 90 minutes while I exercised and lifted weights. Everett did a great job making sure the girls were amused and happy while swimming. He can really step up to the plate when given a task. He was even putting Josie and Evelyn through a "swim lesson" type practice. We got home around 11 and spent until 3 pm doing school work at home. The teachers have distance learning figured out, each kid had 10-12 worksheets, videos, school games, etc to finish each day. Each teacher was quite adamant that the kids could do all their work without supervision. Bwahahahaha, nope. Evelyn and remembered why homeschooling and distance learning is so difficult for us, the distractions and such are hard to manage. The feelings and emotions were high all week for Evelyn and my stress levels high, I was able to take a couple time outs and regain my patience. Everett and Josie were troopers, plowed through their work at a steady pace. Josie needed moral support and help focusing but was able to just get it all done. I am impressed that she is learning to read and write already! Everett finished his entire year of Lexia Core, out- paced the entire grade. It was nice to sleep in a bit and not have to rush, rush, rush in the mornings. 

Justin is super busy right now. His week was filled with many frustrations as people turned in incorrect information, deadlines ignored, and miscommunication. On top of all the work stress he was called as Elder's Quorum President this morning at church. The first few months will have a learning curve but we can do it. Our ward is going to Trek this year! Justin and I signed up to go as helpers or whatever is needed, I hope we can go since our ward only has a small group attending. 

I convinced Sara to take her kids swimming on Wednesday morning. We enjoyed time away from the kids while they played and we exercised. I worked on color printing items for my piano students at Office Max. Color printing is EXPENSIVE. Gracious. Amelia helped me get the items cut out then laminated at the teacher resource store. I am determined to improve my students piano (music) knowledge and build tools they can use for the rest of their lives. Amelia taught Josie and Konrad alone this week. She focused on teaching Do-Re-Mi and Corwen hand signals for her lesson. We loved learning new games from the "Puppy Pack" I purchased through Music Mind Games. I like the Montessori feel of the system. 

Friday evening was movie night at Confettis Theater! Evelyn wanted to host a movie night, Ambree took up the gauntlet and made it happen. Sara ordered pizza and bought some movie treats. Ambree made a cute poster of prices and treats we could buy. Each person had an envelope with Monopoly money used to buy pizza, candy, popcorn, soda, and movie entrance! So clever. We watched Clifford the Big Red Dog together. It was a fun family movie with fun neighbors. Thanks to Sara, Evelyn, and of course Ambree for the hard work. 

Saturday the kids earned time to work on class Valentines. This year we are making Valentines instead of buying the packs of cards. I found cute foam stickers, lacy hearts, and glitter for the kids to use. We quite enjoyed the mess of paper and supplies as we made our Valentines with love this year. The girls helped clean their disaster of a room and finished school work to earn the chance to craft. Everett was excited to make his using different techniques with glue and glitter. 

This week our lessons focused on Enoch and the city of Zion. I love the verses that talk about righteous people brought to Zion after it ascended, those isolated righteous in a sea of wickedness earning their place in Zion. That felt like a lesson to us today, we can earn the protection of Zion as we build unity in our homes, instill a love/understanding of the plan of Salvation, and root in our children's hearts the knowledge they are children of God. We can build Zion as we teach our kids to play their instruments, to master their parts, so when the orchestra plays they (we) can join in the symphony. I felt peace that Enoch and his people learned how to be Zion over the period of hundreds of years, even while walking with Christ. I was greatly impressed with a class about the first Hebrew word of the Bible by Farrell Pickering. He spends an entire hour on one word, Berisheeth. He taught me that in one word the entire plan of salvation is contained and conveyed! Meaning, whom, what, where, why, and how the plan will be made manifest. What a powerful thought, that our scriptures start with a word so deep and leveled that it contains all the information we need. 

The characters are read from right to left:

 Completed Offering, Divine Deed, Crushing Event, Elohim, Son/Prince, Tent/Temple